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The goongi gudiya all over again...

The deja vu quotient in Indian politics has never been higher than what it is today. The same set of decrepit players who have been haunting the political proscenium since 1977, the same set of petty ambitions masquerading as concern for national interest, and the same naked hunger for power that simply refuses to go away.

Thus, we come to the unmaking of a government, circa 1998.

And, among all political vehicles that lead to power, nothing is more effective than that powered by death. The last time a woman bearing the Gandhi surname demonstrated this, was in the late 1970s. The incident was a massacre of the downtrodden in a remote Bihar hamlet, and which, thanks to its remoteness, was ignored by those in the autumn of their political power. Gandhi's memorable ride there on elephant-back sent the message, however hollow, that she was the messiah of the poor. With that visit began her political turnaround.

Her daughter-in-law's visit to Andhra Pradesh, to condole the farmers' deaths, was obviously designed by the Congress bosses as something similar. Here, once again, was death on a mass scale, deaths that simply did not sear the conscience of the political establishment. Here, thus, once again was deja vu, of a Gandhi trying to do something others overlooked, of trying to send an important political message to her party's constituents who had gone away.

But sadly, and that is more for her managers, the impression persists that she did not quite grasp the issue. The deaths that she selected, were not peculiar to Andhra Pradesh; in fact, they are as rampant in neighbouring Maharashtra as well. By avoiding the latter, and delivering her most important political message to date from AP, she has diluted the impact that she strove for.

Further, the kind of effect that she was looking for could have been created by, say, a visit to Doda, site of a sectarian carnage. Or even to Bihar, which constantly seizes the nation's collective psyche with its periodic eruptions.

Thanks to myopia, the only message that Sonia Gandhi has succeeded in sending out, is that she is not averse to the idea of her party forming the next government -- which itself is a significant advancement on her earlier stand-offishness.

But the curious sight here is the kind of pressure she is under to replace the Vajpayee government. Curious, because the pressure is not so much from within her party as from outside. Here, for the first time perhaps, such stalwarts of the opposition ranks like Jyoti Basu, Laloo Yadav, Mulayam Singh have closed their ranks to plead with the Congress president -- who was reviled not long ago for her alien origins -- to form the government.

Again, it is a sense of deja vu.

This time, from circa the late sixties. When Indira Gandhi succeeded Lal Bahadur Shastri as prime minister. Raw and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she was cosseted and coached in realpolitik by the infamous Syndicate. It was only a question of time before the goongi gudiya taught the gerontocrats in her party a few lessons, but this Svengali attitude is something that refuses to go away.

Evidently, what these leading lights are trying to do is get Sonia Gandhi to do their dirty work for them. And, the longer she resists their enticements, the better for her and her party.

But Sonia's hesitancy, her willing to strike but afraid to wound attitude, has more to do with inner-party politics than any larger cause like not soiling her hands, I suspect. Specifically, the cold war between her and the most powerful satrap in her party, Sharad Pawar, ever since the Congress bit the dust in the Rajya Sabha elections from Maharashtra, is what is holding her back from openly announcing her willingness to unseat the Vajpayee government.

Given that Pawar is the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, it is but natural for him to expect to become prime minister if the Congress were to form the next government. Annoyingly for him, all those clamouring for the Congress to dethrone the BJP government, are not clamouring for him to head the next government.

Relations between him and his party president, never smooth to begin with, are not going to improve now that the prospect of power seems so near. And, Pawar is not like, say, Manmohan Singh to be brushed aside in the power sweepstakes. He, after all, commands a significant number of MPs from among the Congress's truncated strength, and he could just about swing the game away from the Congress if not handled properly.

Her party's new-found wellwishers in the opposition ranks, obviously, are playing a devious game by widening the rift between her and the man she needs to have on her side, at least for some more time.

What Sonia must realise is that even if she gets taken in by Messrs Basu et al and also manages to convince Pawar of the need to remain number two in her cabinet, there is no guarantee that her government will be any stronger, firmer than the one headed by Vajpayee.

At least the latter had the cachet of public sanction on his side. In her case, it will be a government of the losers, who have temporarily forgotten their differences only to defeat the people's mandate. Sonia will be able to run the government only as long as those supporting her from the outside want it. The minute they are convinced that the Congress government is no better than the one preceding it, or that her government's continuance is inimical to their political health, she will find herself in the same situation that Deve Gowda and Gujral did some months ago.

But these are mature thoughts. Power, even the prospect of power, is not something that ordinary mortals can resist. And when you are heading a political party that is losing its hold on the public's imagination, even a backdoor entry into office is not all that unwelcome a prospect.

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Saisuresh Sivaswamy