|
Sonia Gandhi becomes the longest serving Congress president |
 |
Sonia Gandhi completed ten years as Congress president on Friday, March 14, becoming the longest serving president of the national party in the process.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) at a meeting on March 13, hailed Sonia Gandhi’s dynamic and courageous leadership that arrested the ‘drift and despondency’ that had gripped the party during the preceding years.
The CWC members passed a resolution at a meeting held at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence that placed on record the party’s “deep gratitude” to her for her leadership. The resolution, moved by senior leader and Minister for External Af¬fairs Pranab Mukherjee, was seconded by Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Speaking to mediapersons, Mukherjee said this was a meeting o members of the CWC, permanent invitees, ex-officio members and special invitees. Rahul Gandhi was among those who attended. Party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi quoted the Prime Min¬ister as saying that Sonia Gandhi had set high values not only in the party and national politics, but also in social life.
Describing the moment as a “historic milestone,” the reso¬lution, recognised her contribution in revitalising the party when it was going through a turbulent phase and was confronted with daunting challenges.
On March 14, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was among the first to greet Sonia Gandhi, driving to her 10 Janpath residence. Her son and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi was among those who greeted her.
———————Box—————-
Foreign origin issue put to rest
Observers say that Sonia Gandhi’s ten years at the helm of the Indian National Congress have effectively punctured the “foreign origin” issue sought to be raised by the BJP and other saffron outfits. When Sonia Gandhi took office as Congress president on March 14, 1998, the party was in a state of drift with serious doubts being raised about its existence as a major political force. Even now, at the completion of ten years as Congress president, the party mood is downcast after a string of defeats in state elections, and the BJP-led NDA is in a resurgent mood. But the scenario is completely different now and nobody is talking about Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin.
Gone is the derision of late Pramod Mahajan ahead of 2004 elections when he widened the arc of “foreign origin” in the wake of Rahul Gandhi filing his nomination from Amethi to say that the Prime Minister of India should be totally Indian, and then explained it by saying that both parents should be Indian.
Today, Sonia Gandhi is the undisputed party leader and Rahul is slowly, but surely being pushed to a leadership position. And saffron resistance looks like a thing of the past, outside Gujar¬at. Sonia Gandhi’s march has been full of ups and downs, the latest cycle of setbacks, a case in point. But partymen say the gains are better appreciated when seen in the light of realities of 1997. The biggest being the return of Muslims to the party-fold after the Babri triggered the divorce. This was the single big event to oust the party from its forts in UP and Bihar. Today the Congress has brought ‘socialist populism’ back in vogue in stark contrast to the currency of the day - market economy. Partymen see it as a shrewd way of positioning the Congress with the vast from poor programme, to revive the “umbrella party” appeal of yore to woo the rural poor, dalits and tribals besides old loyalists in upper castes.
Importantly, while Sonia Gandhi gambled on the perception of going against the “reforms” current for key social constituen¬cies, she took a giant step in taking the Congress into coali¬tion politics by discarding the party’s perennial pining for autonomous power, learning quick lessons from NDA’s stint in Delhi.
On the minus side, the party’s sphere of influence has shrunk with big states like UP, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal completely out of its grip. Gujarat has drifted away and chal¬lenges are severe in the old pocketborough of Karnataka. Thus the Congress is gripped with absence of leadership in key states. The over dependence on the top leader has as many limitations, the case best proved recently in Gujarat.
|
