Insider as Outsider

The Congress has a problem. And it goes by the name of Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao. As long as Rao was shackled by the various cases relating to his years as prime minister, it was easy to ignore him within the party. But this is more difficult to do now that he has been exonerated by the courts and has made it quite clear that he himself has no objections to playing a more active role in Congress politics.

So why is Rao a problem? Clearly it is because he has become the Other within Congress politics; an uncomfortable reminder of the past for a party that has re-embraced the Nehru/Gandhi family as its article of faith; an alternative pole of leadership to Sonia Gandhi. So uncomfortable is the party with this blast from the past that it does not even know whether it must claim the gains of the Rao years as its own, or distance itself from them. A pity this because such a stance betrays not just how badly the party is divided against itself but also the conspicuous lack of self-confidence its leaders have in themselves. Allowing Rao to play a more prominent role within the party and fielding him in a Lok Sabha contest would help the party’s public image immeasurably. Not only would its leadership appear more substantial, it would help a great deal to counter some of the adverse publicity that is coming its way for being too Dynasty-centric.

The Congress has had to put several of the frozen stances it had earlier assumed behind it. It has had to shed its hauteur over being the nation’s oldest and most established political party and veer towards coalitional arrangements. It has had to extend a hand of friendship to the Maratha strongman, Sharad Pawar, for the sake of shoring up its prospects in Maharashtra, one of the country’s most important states electorally speaking even if this meant swallowing the bitterness caused by the Nationalist Congress Party’s anti-foreign leadership campaign. It now has to fix a gaping hole within itself by bringing Rao into the picture more prominently. As for his advanced age, when has that stopped anybody in Indian politics?