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Sonia gets the jitters over government-formation

George Iype in New Delhi

Even as the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government showed signs of faltering on Monday, the possibility of forming an alternative government and heading it has put Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a dilemma.

Ever since All India Anna DMK chief J Jayalalitha declared war on the Bharatiya Janata Party and sought a new alliance with the Congress, Sonia has met most top Congress and Third Front leaders to prepare the ground for a new coalition experiment.

But the Congress president is still undecided whether it is wise to form a coalition government with the support of the AIADMK, Left parties and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha.

Congress leaders said Jayalalitha's unexpected showdown with the BJP has thrown Sonia into a quandary, as the latter is unwilling to head a ramshackle coalition that will succeed the Vajpayee government.

Party leaders submit a number of reasons for Sonia's reluctance. First, she is nervous that joining hands with Jayalalitha at this juncture could mar the Congress's political image as well as the credibility of the new coalition.

Second, while Jayalalitha's chief interlocutor -- Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy -- has promised the Congress president that the AIADMK would not nag the Sonia-led coalition with her set of demands, Sonia fears that once the AIADMK is made a partner in the new government, Jayalalitha would put forward her two crucial demands: dismissal of the Tamil Nadu government and complete protection to her from all corruption cases.

Third, a Congress government with outside support from the Third Front -- which includes the Left parties and the RLM -- will be constantly enmeshed in pulls and pressures from partners of varying ideologies, especially on economic policy matters.

Sonia fears the RLM, led by the mercurial leaders like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav, who command a strength of 37 MPs in the Lok Sabha, could make governance impossible for the Congress leadership.

She also does not want to show the world that the Congress played a destabilising role in pulling down the Vajpayee regime.

Plagued by these problems, the Congress leadership is divided over putting together an alternative to the Vajpayee government.

Senior Congress Working Committee members like Tariq Anwar are against the idea of tying up with an untrustworthy ally like the AIADMK. "If the AIADMK joins a Congress-led coalition with the same set of demands, such a government would be just like the Vajpayee coalition," Anwar told Rediff On The NeT.

But he said a debate is on in different party fora on what stand the Congress should take. "We are the principal Opposition party. And we will take up the constitutional responsibility if the Vajpayee government falls because of its problems with the allies," Anwar added.

Leaders like Anwar feel a better strategy for the Congress would have been to keep the heat on the BJP over the Bhagwat question till October and then go for a mid-term poll.

However, other leaders like K Karunakaran, Kamal Nath, Madhavrao Scindia, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ajit Jogi and P J Kurien want the Congress to move a no-confidence motion in Parliament and defeat the government on the floor of the House.

Sonia's other concern is that even if the Congress forms a government, it would be with a razor-thin majority. "The Congress will be in an awkward position if the alliance partners behave like allies of the Vajpayee government because we do not have the numbers and therefore will always be at their mercy," a Congress official said.

Therefore, Sonia, at her meetings with former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet over the past two days suggested that the Congress can offer outside support to a Third Front government.

But both Deve Gowda and Surjeet rejected the proposal outright, stating that any uncertain arrangement will collapse like the United Front government in 1997.

However, having decided to move against the Vajpayee government over the Bhagwat issue and joining hands with Jayalalitha, the Congress is left with no option but to head an alternative government at the Centre.

Despite her reluctance to become prime minister, the Congress president is also being pressurised by most party leaders and the Left parties to accept the top post as that would be the only solution to keep the coalition united.

The Congress and the Opposition parties are also debating other issues. If the Vajpayee government is defeated in Parliament next week, a mid-term poll would be possible only after the monsoon, probably along with assembly polls in October-November.

If the Congress fails to take the plunge to form a government, Vajpayee will stay on as caretaker prime minister for the next six months, which is not to the liking of either the Congress or other Opposition leaders.

Interestingly, the party's leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sharad Pawar, has been completely sidelined in the ongoing discussions to find a solution to the emerging political crisis.

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