Sonia's Helping Hand

As Congress president, Sonia Gandhi is trying to revive the party through organisational changes, consensus-building and establishing grassroots connect. However, the generational clash and growing dissent threaten to keep it in the doldrums

- Soni Mishra

Sonia Gandhi, taking her first steps in active politics, gave a four-word clarion call to a downand-out Congress at a 1998 rally in Haryana’s Rohtak: “Get the right leadership”. Soon enough, the then 52-year-old Sonia ousted a listless Sitaram Kesri as Congress president.

Now, 21 years later, the Congress is yet again in the electoral doldrums and is mired in deep organisational crises. And Sonia, weary after two decades of leadership, has the role of Congress president thrust upon her again.

In 1998, she had banged heads together to set the Haryana unit in order. And this August, as she took charge as party president, her first challenge was to resolve the leadership impasse in the Haryana Congress, which threatened to rip the state unit apart.

Through consensus-building, Sonia placated former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who had allegedly been threatening to leave the party. However, she did not make him state party president. His long-time rival Kumari Selja replaced Ashok Tanwar, his bête noire, as state party president. The choice of Selja conveyed that Sonia was not giving in to Hooda’s arm-twisting.

As interim chief, Sonia will be in charge of three major areas—party organisation, parliamentary strategy and reaching out to other opposition parties.

She has turned her focus to the upcoming elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, especially as a lot of time had been lost because of Rahul Gandhi’s insistence on stepping down as party president after the Lok Sabha elections debacle in May.

Since taking over, Sonia has focused on long-pending organisational changes in the state units, appointment of election committees, getting wayward colleagues back on track and making sure that the party at least has a semblance of an agenda for the assembly elections.