The Congress (I) has committed political harakiri in Andhra and it has come fairly close to doing so in Karnataka. There is no other way to describe the manner in which it has conducted its affairs in its erstwhile southern strongholds and the nemesis that has now overwhelmed it. The people in these states gave the party their trust in March 1978 when it was barely a few weeks old. It wantonly betrayed their trust. In Andhra they witnessed a procession of thoroughly corrupt, incompetent and do-nothing chief ministers and ministers and in Karnataka the replacement of the relatively more respected Mr. Devraj Urs and his team by Mr. Gundu Rao and his cronies of doubtful repute.
The people in the two states had returned the Congress (I) to power five years ago because they had confidence in Indiramma (Mrs Gandhi) and because they had felt sorry that she was being persecuted by the Janata government. Having put her on the come-back trail which finally culminated in the Prime Minister’s office in New Delhi in January 1980, they expected her to redeem her promises. She failed them. So when she went to them again this time to ask for another chance, they were not willing to oblige. Their deafening “no” will send shock waves throughout the country. It speaks for the quality of men who ruled the two states in her name that most of the ministers have been defeated. What an indictment!
No one can be wholly surprised by the ruling party’s debacle in Andhra, though so overawed have some of us been by Mrs. Gandhi’s record as a vote-gatherer that we expected it to scrape through with a small majority or at least emerge as the single largest party capable of forming the government with the help of defectors from other organisations. There, the challenge posed by Mr. NT Ramarao was patent. The matinee idol-turned-politician had been drawing large and enthusiastic crowds for months while Congress (I) leaders had continued to squabble among themselves and tarnish such reputation as they possessed. Thus, attention was focused on Andhra. That is perhaps one reason why the near rout of the Congress (I) in Karnataka has come as a surprise to most people outside the state. Mr. Gundu Rao was not known either for integrity or ability or even tact. The names of some of his colleagues in the government and the party were a byword for corruption. Even so, the impression had spread that Mr. Gundu Rao would be able to manage things and then perhaps make room for someone else as chief minister in return for a comfortable berth in New Delhi. This view has turned out to be not well founded. This time Mrs. Gandhi has been right about the press. It has been out of touch with the reality in Karnataka. But so apparently has she been. Surprise or no surprise, the debacle of the Congress (I) in Karnataka is a fact and it does not require a great pundit to predict that the consequences for the country as a whole will be far reaching.
If the Congress (I) had won the election in the two Southern states or even scraped through, the credit would have justly gone to Mrs. Gandhi. She was its principal campaigner and she did not spare herself in the least. Indeed, the candidates asked for support mainly in her name: They had no other claim to the indulgence of the people. So she must carry the burden of the defeat. She will be widely held responsible for it on other counts as well. She did precious little to check the precipitate descent into corruption and arbitrariness on the part of men and women who ruled the states in her behalf. She might have failed even if she had tried. For it was not easy to enforce norms in the Congress (I). It was a product of the second and more disastrous split in the Congress and the induction of the strange crowd Mr. Sanjay Gandhi had gathered around him during the emergency. As such, it could at best be an unruly praetorian guard for Mrs. Gandhi and her younger son during the Janata rule. It was not qualified to function as a ruling party. But Mrs. Gandhi did not even try. She let matters drift. The result is there for everyone to see.
Mrs. Gandhi has had enough time even if it is accepted that she was not quite free to act in Karnataka and Andhra before January 1980 when she got back into the office of Prime Minister. Three years is a long enough time to make an attempt to put the party on a reasonably sound basis. She cannot claim to have taken any significant step in that direction. She admitted some of her old Congress colleagues into the party only to keep them on the sidelines, making it appear that she was not willing to trust them. There has also been no dearth of warnings from friendly quarters. She has ignored these consistently and let things drift.
The drift helped expose the true nature of the Congress (I) – a rabble bound by no code or loyalty, a collection of individuals out to feather their own nests whatever the cost to the nation. Unprincipled dissidence was bound to break out in such a party if the leader was seen to be indecisive. And such unprincipled dissidence has been breaking out in one state after another. Some of these self-styled “loyal soldiers”, in Maharashtra, for instance, did not mind raising the banner of revolt when the party was fighting for survival in Andhra and Karnataka. This was a stab in the leader’s back and the leader had no choice but to ignore it. Some wages these of the drift!
This is the fourth great crisis Mrs. Gandhi faces – the first in 1969 when the organisational bosses challenged her leadership, the second in 1975 when the Allahabad High Court annulled her election to Parliament and the third in March 1977 when she lost the election to the Lok Sabha. She has fought back successfully in the past and can do so again. But this time the challenge is in some ways more serious, and it is more insidious. It is more serious because never before has the instrument at her disposal – the Congress (I) – been less adequate, and it is more insidious because the challenge comes from the rot in her own camp. She has still two more years to fulfil the pledge she gave to the people when she sought a new mandate in January 1980 – to provide a government that works. And government does not mean only the one at the Centre, though that too is not a model of efficiency or honesty, but those in the states as well. Most of the Congress (I) state governments have had a pathetic record so far. They must improve considerably to make an impression on the people, which is necessary if the slide towards the eclipse of the only truly national party is to be reversed.