Wishful thinking

You can rattle the sabre when it is in the scabbard. If the scabbard is empty, what do you rattle? That's the question the Congress must answer, after having served notice to the Left that it should expect full-fledged battle in the upcoming state elections in West Bengal and Kerala. No one expects the Congress to be able to unseat the Left Front in Bengal, and on current reckoning it is fairly certain that the United Democratic Front government in Kerala, led by a Congress chief minister, will have to make way for a Left Democratic Front government in the summer. With that being the short-term political outlook, the aggressive pronouncements made at the Hyderabad session of the All-India Congress Committee are hard to understand because talk is no substitute for action. The comments can of course be interpreted as designed to be nothing more than a morale booster for the troops. But troops are not so easily fooled as to not be aware of the true situation on the battlefield. So the tough talk will achieve little, other than perhaps stiffening the Left Front's spine.

The Congress' comments on wanting to be in a position to form the national government on its own steam, without having to depend on difficult allies, is also a case of what the poet called "vaulting ambition". It is inconceivable, in the next 10 years at least, that the Congress will be able to double its seat count in the Lok Sabha, which is what is needed for getting a clear majority""especially when it is kept in mind that the party is no force at all in the key states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Between them, these four states account for a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha. Add to that the seats from West Bengal and the number of seats in the states where there is virtually no contest climbs to 40 per cent of the all-India total. The task therefore is to re-build the party from the grassroots, and the logical course would be to forego the rhetoric and address the real job at hand. It is now 21 years since the party won a clear majority, and for the foreseeable future the party should learn to live with coalition politics. From this perspective, the Hyderabad session could more usefully have focused on how to prevent coalition partners from running away with the agenda""as they have done these past 20 months.

Meanwhile, it should be a matter of relief that Rahul Gandhi has mercifully ignored the orchestrated call for his being inducted into a national role within the party, a call made with all the unself-conscious display of sycophancy that seems to come naturally to Congressmen. Indeed, Mr Gandhi has also apparently eschewed the option of a ministership in New Delhi and has declared, instead, that he would like to work in the states in North India where the Congress is weak and focus on re-building the party. In doing so, he has sent out clear signals that, however privileged his political position because of the Congress' dynastic tradition, he would like to earn his spurs on the battlefield. This is also a sensible course to adopt when viewed from the perspective of the son not treading on the mother's turf, or becoming a rival power centre in the capital.