Commentary/Vir Sanghvi

Many Congressmen will do anything to avoid an election

Experience has taught Congressmen that electoral politics has a way of rebounding on them. In 1991, Rajiv Gandhi opted to go to the country rather than simply replace Chandra Shekhar. He was confident that the Congress would sweep the polls. In fact, it did not get an overall majority and had Rajiv not been assassinated, it would done even worse.

Many Congressmen, therefore, will do anything to avoid an election. But even if they do try and share power with the United Front, it is hard to see how this could work.

The key portfolios have already been handed out and I don't see Mulayam Singh Yadav, P Chidambaram or Indrajit Gupta agreeing to step down. A few relative political lightweights -- S R Bommai and I K Gujral, perhaps -- could be persuaded to step aside and Deve Gowda would offer the meaningless title of deputy prime minister but this will not be enough to satisfy Congressmen. Besides, who would be deputy prime minister? Sharad Pawar or Sitaram Kesri? A battle would commence the moment the post was offered.

There are other complications. If the Congress is a constituent of the United Front, then it cannot effectively oppose the Janata Dal in Bihar, Karnataka or Orissa, the Left in Bengal and Kerala, the Samajwadi Party in UP and so on.

In each state, the already demoralised workers will have to be told to forget about politics only so that a small proportion of MPs can join the central government.

Clearly, this won't work.

And finally, how long can this government last anyway? The Budget euphoria will fade and then it is back to the situation that prevailed a month ago. Should the Congress position itself as an alternative, therefore? Or, should it become part of the UF and leave the protest vote for the BJP to pick up?

For all of these reasons, it is beginning to look as though the Congress will have difficulty in assuming office -- either on its own or as part of this government -- during the life of this Lok Sabha.

That leaves only the general election option. But today, the Congress is in even worse electoral shape than it was in the summer of 1996. Unfortunately for Kesri, an election may be the only was to win power. And even then, the BJP will do better than his limping, moaning collection of frustrated power-seekers.

It is not a happy situation for India's leading national party of find itself in. But what is worse is that the Congress had no strategy or contingency plan. It had planned to topple Deve Gowda and now that he has survived, it simply does not know what to do.

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