A long history of dual power centres - Early Times Newspaper Jammu Kashmir

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A long history of dual power centres

Kalyani Shankar

4/18/2014 10:25:56 PM

With the exception of Nehru, it was common for the Congress in its early years to have separate heads for Government and party . Debating whether the power- sharing experiment between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has worked in the past 10 years is a futile exercise. Since she took over as Congress chief in 1998, Ms Gandhi has been the only power centre. In 2004, when the UPA was formed at the Centre, her leadership was accepted by all members including senior leaders like DMK chief M Karunanidhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and others. The Congress's history shows that there could have been no diarchy. The party's constitution provides for two different posts for party president and head of Government, but, in effect, it was always the Prime Minister who was heard by the party. After independence, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were the chief contenders for the Prime Minister's post, but former won the race with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi. After the demise of both the Mahatma and Sardar Patel, Nehru became the sole authority in the Congress and the key to its electoral success. This was recognised by all leaders.
Nehru resigned from the Congress Working Committee when, against his wishes, Purushottam Das Tandon was elected party president in 1950. Tandon quit after a year paving the way for Prime Minister Nehru to occupy he party president's post. In 1955, UN Dhebar, a political lightweight, succeeded Nehru. He was followed by Indira Gandhi and Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. K Kamaraj, known for his famous 'Kamaraj plan', became party president in 1964, towards the end of Nehru's life. The Machiavellian Tamil leader steered the party after Nehru's death and earned the name of kingmaker. S Nijal-ingappa succeeded Kamaraj in 1968. A year later, Indira Gandhi split the party but continued the practice of having separate Prime Minister and party presidents. She chose leaders like DK Barooah who came to be known for his slogan, "Indira is India, India is Indira". When Congress (Indira) was born in 1978, Indira Gandhi became party president again and later, in 1980, she also became the Prime Minister. Since then, successive Congress Prime Ministers - Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao - held both top jobs simultaneously. When Ms Sonia Gandhi entered the scene in 1998, the Congress was the Opposition. When it came to power in 2004 as the biggest party in the ruling coalition, Ms Gandhi chose an unprecedented and challenging model of power-sharing. She declined the post of Prime Minister and 'appointed' Mr Singh in her place. She did not take any responsibility for the Government but influenced its decisions. From then on, the roles were reversed and the party president became the super-boss. The word 'appointed' has special significance because the Congress amended its constitution to enable Ms Gandhi to 'nominate' a Prime Minister. Ms Gandhi chose to have a CEO who was solely responsible to her. Both knew their positions and Mr Singh never crossed the line nor was he allowed to. There was no question of diarchy as Mr Singh publicly acknowledged the supremacy of Ms Gandhi. The division of labour was clear - Mr Singh would look after the administration and Ms Gandhi would deal with the political side. The question here is: Has this agreement worked? The answer is 'yes' and 'no'. At least during UPA1, it worked, but not as well during UPA2. The Congress core group decided everything. If the Government did something wrong, the party would dissociate itself like it did when Mr Singh made a controversial statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh. But if the Government programmes clicked, then credit went to Ms Gandhi and her National Advisory Council. Mr Singh swallowed his objections to populist policies like the Food Security Act and went along with Ms Gandhi. Even the India-US civil nuclear deal and issues relating to FDI in retail could succeed only because Ms Gandhi and the party backed Mr Singh. Why did the 'reformist' Prime Minister not continue the process of reforms? No doubt, there were coalition compulsions, but one must also ask if Ms Gandhi had tied his hands. This debate can go on with many ifs and buts. First, the Left allies played truant in UPA1 and corruption scams paralysed policy-making under UPA2. The only thing Mr Singh wanted and got was the nuclear deal.

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