A sharp attack on corruption, even-handed denunciation of all terrorism, Hindu or Islamic, and a pat on the back to Rahul Gandhi for his efforts at reinventing the Congress party were the hallmark of Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s speech today at the party’s plenary session in Burari, in northern Delhi.
She said the party must rise above being just a giant election machine and should encourage induction of young and fresh blood. She publicly endorsed Rahul’s work as the general secretary in charge of the student and youth wings. “It was already showing results,” she said, putting lid on murmurs after the Congress’s miserable performance in Bihar that Rahul failed to enthuse voters. Gandhi addressed the Bihar result directly and said there were “no shortcuts” to revive the party. She said ministers must be sensitive to party workers, especially in states where the Congress was in the Opposition. In states where the party was in a coalition, the Congress must be the leading force, she added. The Congress needed to engage with civil society and needed a think tank, which would be set up along ‘institutional lines’, she added, possibly suggesting a new role for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies.
Policy tips
She, delicately, addressed the issue of what the government was doing and what the party should do. While describing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the model of “sobriety, integrity and dignity”, his quality of “keeping calm” under pressure, and declaring that the party “stood solidly behind him”, Gandhi said there could be no tolerance for corruption. While flagging the Right to Information Act and the Lok Pal Bill, which was in the works, she suggested state funding for elections, fast-track courts to try corruption cases, full transparency in public procurement and contracts, and an end to the ‘discretionary power regime’, both at the Centre and in the states where the Congress is in power. She also noted, sotto voce, that there was “no applause for this suggestion”, a wry acknowledgement that the idea might have limited traction in a politics dominated by patronage.
On economic issues, Gandhi’s address extended the corruption theme, that subsidies must be targeted and the government try to redirect those that had been cornered by the advantaged. Prices and inflation just merited the reminder that they must be kept in check. There was support for protection and regeneration of the environment, forests and biodiversity, but without the caveat that there had to be growth as well, and in this, backing for environment minister Jairam Ramesh, described in some quarters as an environmental fundamentalist. Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was mentioned as the Prime Minister “who gave fresh impetus to the process of economic reform”. Gandhi’s message on terrorism was: all terror is bad, no matter what its colour. She spent time explaining secularism and its merits in a poly-religious political environment. The only time the Bharatiya Janata Party was attacked by name was when she referred to the prolonged shutdown of Parliament.
