A K Bhattacharya: Matters of protocol

Can Sonia Gandhi write to ministers directly asking for explanations on allegations against them?

What should be the channel of communication between the president of a ruling party and a minister in the government? In other words, how should Congress President Sonia Gandhi communicate with, say, Pranab Mukherjee in his capacity as the external affairs minister? Can she directly write a letter to Mukherjee and ask him or his office to explain why certain allegations have been made against him or some of his actions as the minister?

These are some of the questions currently agitating the minds of many bureaucrats in Raisina Hill. The provocation is a recent letter from the private secretary of Sonia Gandhi to the private secretary of Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, asking the latter to furnish all relevant details pertaining to allegations made against the minister by a Congress member.

The point being debated is not the merit of such allegations. For the record, Chidambaram has clarified his position on the issues raised by the Congress member and the country is more or less satisfied with the explanation. Nor is any bureaucrat concerned about any ulterior political motive behind such a letter, although political circles are abuzz with all kinds of theories. For the bureaucrats, the simple questions are: Can a minister be asked by the party president to explain his conduct as a minister? And are bureaucrats bound to respond to such queries when they come directly from the party headquarters?

Several years ago, Rajiv Gandhi had provoked a storm of protests when he held a meeting of his party colleagues in South Block. He had just been sworn in as prime minister after a massive mandate from the people of India. He was then also the president of the Congress party. But when he chose to hold a Congress party meeting in South Block (the office of the Prime Minister of India), there were questions, particularly from Left leaders, as to whether Rajiv Gandhi would allow other political parties also to hold their meetings in South Block. Mercifully, good sense dawned on Rajiv Gandhi and there were no further meetings of Congress leaders in South Block.

That the prime minister then was also the ruling party chief was both the cause of the problem and its resolution. Rajiv Gandhi could hold that meeting in South Block, even though it meant breaching all protocol, because he was the prime minister. Similarly, because he was occupying the positions of both the prime minister and the Congress president, he could take advantage of this dual responsibility and get over this problem. No one could find fault with his interactions with the ministers even though he might have been quizzing them on party issues.

So, even when Rajiv Gandhi or PV Narasimha Rao sought an explanation from a minister on any issue, it was difficult to question its propriety under any circumstances. But the same cannot be said of Sonia Gandhi. She is only the president of the Congress party and the ministers in the UPA government are accountable to the prime minister for their conduct and not to the Congress chief. Just as Venkaiah Naidu or Bangaru Lakshman could not directly seek an explanation from any of the ministers under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, ministers in the UPA government are accountable only to Manmohan Singh as the prime minister. If the Congress president wishes to seek an explanation from a minister, the prime minister or his office would be the best conduit for that.

The Left Front in West Bengal resolved this issue within the first few years of its forming its first government in that state in 1977. Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and the state CPI-M chief, Pramod Dasgupta, had agreed to meet periodically to resolve any issues that the party wanted to raise with the state government. Subsequently, a committee comprising a few senior ministers including the chief minister and the party chief was set up to monitor the government's performance. This arrangement ruled out any direct interaction between a minister in the government and the party chief.

At the time of its inception, the UPA government presented a new power-sharing arrangement between the Congress president and the prime minister. Manmohan Singh was entrusted with the responsibility of running the government and Sonia Gandhi was expected to run the Congress party. This arrangement has worked fine so far. But if ministers and their officers are made accountable for their actions to the Congress President also, problems in this arrangement are bound to surface.