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Sonia's recipe for rebellion

How do you make a bad situation worse? With over ten thousand people dead, with famine and disease looming across the horizon, with property damage rising into thousands of crores, you might think it was a difficult task. If so, you underestimate the Congress's capacity to shoot itself in the foot...

In the wake of one of the greatest natural disasters in this century the party found nothing better to do than indulge in some old-fashioned dissidence. And so it was that Hemananda Biswal replaced Giridhar Gamang. No great loss to the state, of course, but it is interesting to see history repeating itself -- this is the second time that Biswal has been brought in on the eve of polls. The first was when Rajiv Gandhi replaced J B Patnaik a decade ago. (The result was that the Janata Dal trounced the Congress.)

This time, the only difference was that Gamang came in for a brief time between the same J B Patnaik and the same Hemananda Biswal. The versatile Gamang also found time, as you may recall, to double up as a Member of Parliament -- casting the decisive vote that toppled the Vajpayee ministry in April. The voters of Orissa resented the slur cast on the state by this unprincipled act, and gave nineteen of the state's twenty-one seats to the BJP-BJD alliance in the General Election.

If you ask me, it was the results of the Lok Sabha polls rather than the cyclone that led to Giridhar Gamang's downfall. The botched relief measures in the wake of the storm were merely the catalyst. But the timing of the move still sticks in the craw...

Please note that Gamang himself has stated for the record that he wasn't removed because of incompetence, but because he was preventing certain elements from misusing funds earmarked for cyclone relief. This is a very serious allegation -- here is a former chief minister accusing his own party colleagues of corruption, of trying to profit from human misery! As Gamang refused to name the individuals concerned, there is no way to ascertain if this allegation is correct.

But one fact is undeniably true -- that for ten crucial days, perhaps even more, the administration of Orissa came to a screeching halt as the chief minister and his MLAs squabbled in the comfort of Bhubaneshwar. And with the chief secretary flying off to the United States, the bureaucracy was deprived even of its non-political leadership. Interestingly, the Congress high command still hasn't spelt out precisely why a change of leadership became necessary. Is it because of Gamang's proven incompetence? Or is it because the former chief minister's allegations about his colleagues are correct? The Congress might not want to answer those questions, but the Assembly polls are coming up in a few months and the party must respond to the people of Orissa.

This is yet another instance of Sonia Gandhi's clumsiness in handling state-level leaders. Sharad Pawar and P A Sangma were expelled from the party though nobody doubted their popularity with the voters. J B Patnaik was removed though the majority of the MLAs backed him. And tomorrow it could be Digvijay Singh's turn...

But what does Sonia Gandhi offer in return after upsetting state chieftains? Indira Gandhi could ride roughshod over satraps because she was a formidable vote-winner in her own right. Sonia Gandhi can demonstrate nothing more than that she led the party to its worst performance ever in a General Election. Add her proven lack of popularity to her propensity to autocracy, and you have a recipe for rebellion.

It will take a lot for Congressmen to speak out against a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. So I doubt there will be any open revolt amongst the MPs in Delhi. But Sonia Gandhi's hand-picked satraps are fair game -- whether Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan, Shiela Dixit in Delhi, or Giridhar Gamang in Orissa.

It is a measure of Sonia Gandhi's declining powers that Gamang managed to resist her for so long. Indira or Rajiv Gandhi would have sent one of their messengers -- and got unstinting obedience. The current Congress chief had to send senior Congressmen to Bhubaneshwar not once but twice before Gamang quit -- and had to meet the chief minister herself at least once. If Gamang, a man of no consequence before Sonia Gandhi made him chief minister, could defy her, couldn't genuinely popular leaders do even more? That is the question which haunts the coterie at 10, Janpath in Delhi.

T V R Shenoy