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Sonia draws flak for staid performance in Parliament

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The loss of Sonia Gandhi's presidentship of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts is the latest of her woes. It is being exploited by her critics who are baying for the Congress chief's blood for her alleged poor performance in Parliament.

While those who have politically parted company with her are the most disparaging, her detractors within the party are subtler, primarily to escape disciplinary action. Nevertheless, these 'underground detractors' of Sonia make direct discreet innuendo that she is not up to the mark in her job as the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and the chief of the Congress Parliamentary Party.

However, the Sonia loyalists like Mani Shankar Aiyar and Madhavrao Scindia are equally staunch in their defence of her. But that has only whetted the critics' appetite to corner her.

"In about two-and-a-half months since she assumed the mantle of the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sonia has given just three speeches -- one pertaining to the motion of thanks to the President's address, one pertaining to the Lok Sabha speaker's election and the third pertaining to the Women's Reservation Bill. None of these speeches are notable for either their content or the way they were delivered," sneered former Congressman and senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party Tariq Anwar. "Sonia's lackeys predicted great things for the party once she took over as the leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament as well as the CPP but, if anything, the Congress is in more trouble now than ever before," he pointed out.

Former Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Jitendra Prasada, who was also a former party vice-president under Sitaram Kesri's tenure as the Congress chief, preferred not to comment on Sonia's parliamentary performance so far. "I think it is too early to make any comment right now. I think her role should be watched," Prasada said and declined to be drawn into any further discussion on her.

Significantly, Prasada had opposed tooth and nail Sonia's appointment of Salman Khursheed as the UP Congress unit boss. He is said to have been extremely cut up with Sonia's decision to drastically reduce the number of state executive members.

Senior congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar professed a healthy contempt for those who criticised the Congress chief for her role in Parliament. "Why must you give importance to these Johnnies, these sour-grapers," Aiyar asked. "The country has seen and felt Soniaji's immense contribution in holding the party at this crucial juncture in the nation's history. She has given direction to the party and is living up to the party's lofty ideals. She is doing a yeoman's service," he pointed out.

According to Aiyar, the party chief's speech during the motion of thanks to the President's address was forthright, direct and encapsulated everything that the party stood for, apart from exposing the Vajpayee government's duplicity on various issues. Referring to Sonia's speech in the Lok Sabha on October 29 last year, Aiyar pointed out that she had exposed the government's despicable role in mentioning Rajiv Gandhi's name in the Bofors chargesheet when he was no more. ''It smacked of political vendetta against a person who was not there to defend himself,'' Aiyar quoted Sonia as saying, adding that she had correctly projected the government as being "malicious and vindictive."

The Congress party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Madhavrao Scindia, supported Aiyar's pronouncements on the party chief. "Soniaji made it amply clear during her speech that the party wanted the Bofors inquiry to continue and the guilty to be punished. But she also made it clear that she would not permit the victimisation of an innocent man, come what may. This shows that she is a mature person, well-versed in the art of politics," Scindia contended.

He also referred to the Congress chief's caveat about the attempts of the Vajpayee government at communalisation and saffronisation of the educational system in the country. "She mentioned how this government was trying to induct right wing elements in various educational institutions, all of whom extended patronage to the Sangh Parivar. Besides, she underlined that the government seemed to have a vested interest in not initiating action against those who were unleashing religious terrorism and tearing apart the secular fabric of the country," Scindia pointed out.

Congress leaders like former party chief and former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao, Arjun Singh, and Narayan Dutt Tewari have maintained a studied silence on the Congress chief's parliamentary role, triggering considerable speculation in political quarters that they are waiting for the right moment to strike against her. "These persons are political veterans, they are just watching the party go from bad to worse," a Congress functionary pointed out.

With the IGNCA controversy coming as a setback to Sonia and her cronies, political observers here underscore that her ability or the lack of it to tide over this crisis will reveal her political mettle.

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