Ms Gandhi's dilemma

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" is an old saying and Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party, must be re-discovering how true it is.

The power-sharing formula in Kashmir that had been arrived at three years ago appears to be unravelling and it will take a great deal of political sagacity to prevent it from coming apart fully.

On the one hand are the pleas to her not to insist on sticking to the agreement and let Mufti Mohammad Sayeed remain chief minister longer than a few months.

On the other hand is the pressure from her own partymen not to do so as it would render the agreement, made in good faith, meaningless. The status quoists think that changing chief ministers now will upset the Kashmiri apple-cart, which Mr Sayeed has managed to set right with a great deal of effort.

After a long time, the people see the government as their own and if a Congress chief minister is installed this new-found faith in democratic government may be damaged. And, of course, there is always the powerful Pakistan factor, just waiting to fish in troubled waters.

Since Mr Sayeed appears to have engendered a lot of goodwill, his departure could provide just such an opportunity. As opposed to this is the sanctity of the agreement between the two parties, which has run into difficulties mainly on account of the earthquake.

Had it not been for that, it is reasonable to assume that a change of chief ministers would have taken place. At any rate, the status quoists would have had a weaker case to argue.

What should Ms Gandhi do? One option is to allow Mr Sayeed to continue for two or three or four months, until the earthquake damage had been dealt with. But he has turned that down saying it will make him a lame duck.

The other option is to give him a few more months but that will not make a final resolution any easier. How many more is the question.

In any case there are only 24 months left before fresh elections fall due and the Congress candidate for chief ministership will also argue that just 12 months in office will mean that it is the Congress which gets the blame if things go wrong, which they certainly can in that troubled state. There is also the Jammu factor to be kept in view.

If Mr Sayeed is allowed to continue, the BJP will say that the Congress can't be trusted. And in the plains all the old issues about pandering as a Congress policy will be revived. Under the circumstances, much the best thing would have been for Mr Sayeed to offer to step down and let the Congress persuade him to stay on as chief minister.

This course is open to him even now except that he runs the risk of the Congress accepting the offer. On a longer view, there are two equally powerful and opposing issues. One is that the Congress should repeat the Sonia formula and renounce office in the larger interest.

The other is that since power sharing in this manner is going to become the norm""perhaps in Bihar next""it is important to stick to formal agreements. One way or another, Ms Gandhi has a tough choice to make, perhaps even tougher than the one she made in May 2004.