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Madame repeats the same ol' lines

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is "a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma" -- and, by god, she pulls crowds!

But not today.

Her much-publicised anti-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh rally at the Ramlila ground in New Delhi lacked that extra zing which had made her Jajjhar, Haryana, performance on February 19 a roaring success.

Sure, a decent crowd was there: according to the media guestimate, 40,000-strong. Gandhi spoke against the RSS and the BJP-led government, resolved that her party would not allow their 'diabolic' designs, and exhorted the people to throw out the communal ruling coalition at the Centre which did not deserve to be in power...

But, overall, she did not break any new ground -- speachwise or otherwise.

So the initial euphoria among the audience gave way to listlessness and a lingering sense of disappointment. Natural, for the crowd came expecting fireworks and had to go back without seeing any.

"Kya aap ne yeh samajh li hai ki aaj Bharat ke hit aur samvidhaan ko kamjor karne ki koshish ki ja rahi hai (Isn't it right you have understood that today an attempt is being made to weaken our country's Constitution and its interests?)" was Gandhi's initial salvo in the long diatribe against the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

The mask on the BJP-led government's face had begun cracking revealing the hidden face of the RSS, she charged. Obviously, the reference was to the ruling coalition's attempt to change the Constitution.

Every citizen should fight against the misguided policies and programmes of the government, Gandhi said, eliciting some applause.

Hardly had her speech progressed for roughly three minutes when the azan [call for prayer] from a nearby mosque forced her Hindi speechwriter Janardhan Diwedi to counsel her to stop.

Continuing afterwards, Gandhi said the Congress was born from the freedom struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. But "firka-parasthi [disruptionist forces]" today were seeking to undo everything that had been achieved under the Congress.

"Duniya janti hai ki Mahatma Gandhi ka hatyara RSS mein hai (The world knows that Mahtma Gandhi's assassin is in the RSS)," she said.

If the Congress chief's intention was to arouse the passion of the crowd, she achieved limited success. The applause was thin and the gathering behaved as if it knew what Gandhi was going to speak next.

Barring a couple of punch lines, her speech was repetitive and bereft of the party's strategy to counter the government.

Underlining that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other communities were living in communal harmony under the "Mahatma's leadership", she said the RSS was trying to destroy the secular fabric of the country.

Like during her Jajjhar speech, she asked the BJP's allies to clarify whether they accepted the saffron party's communal agenda.

The thin applause greeting this statement indicated that it was nothing that the people had not heard.

Gandhi went on to add that her party was concerned about all people in the country and their religion, which was being sought to be subverted by communal forces like the BJP and RSS.

She said the millennium's call was for new ideas and modernism and "if our country falls a victim to narrow-minded communal policies, it would never progress." This was one of the very few times that pro-Gandhi slogans were raised and the clapping and cheering were substantial.

She yet again referred to how the Vajpayee government was attempting to change the country's history by altering textbooks in schools and colleges and how the Constitution was "sought to be subverted."

Gandhi attacked the government for the umpteenth time on the issue of the urea price increase, underlining that if the farmers, the cornerstone of agriculture which was the country's economic backbone, were adversely affected, India would not go far.

She criticised the government's economic measures, especially its reported purchase of sugar from Pakistan.

"Yeh kitni bhayak tasveer hai (This is such a frightful picture)," she said, adding that it would generate unemployment all around and particularly affect the poor and the middle class.

"Iss se badi arthik Ghulami kya ho sakti hai (What can be a bigger economic bondage from this?)" she asked drawing applause and slogans.

She ended her 15-minute speech by exhorting the people to throw out "this communal government" and restore the Congress rule again.

Congress leaders, who spoke before Gandhi, referred to the party's fight against the Vajpayee government "under Soniaji's leadership." The leaders included Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, Congress working committee member Sushil Kumar Shinde, Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna, party general secretary and Bihar in-charge Mohsina Kidwai, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Deshmukh, party general secretary Prabha Rao, and Maharshtra party leader Vilasrao Deshmukh.

The others present were Congress working committee member Pranab Mukherjee, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Oddly, Sonia did not utter a word about the party's stance on Bihar or whether she was sure that the 24 party legislators in the state would extend support to Rashtriya Janata chief Laloo Prasad Yadav as had been declared by the high command.

She did not dwell on why her party delayed faxing the letter to Bihar Governor Vinod Pande, which resulted in his summoning Nitish Kumar of the National Democratic Alliance to form the government there.

Gandhi's refusal to touch upon these vital issue holding the nation's current interest seemed to affect the crowd, as its reaction revealed.

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