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To Amma, Madam is worth just a shawl and few roses

Last week, I spoke of the Congress's enemy that refuses to openly admit that it is an ally of the Congress at the national level. This week, let us look at those Congress allies who are doing such an utterly magnificent job of rubbishing Sonia Gandhi and company. I refer specifically to the Congress's largest allies -- Jayalalitha's AIADMK and Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Both Jayalalitha and Yadav have made it clear just how highly they rate Sonia Gandhi on their turf. The AIADMK boss feels her Congress counterpart is worth no more than a shawl and a few roses. And the RJD supremo feels her influence is, at best, just under two per cent in Bihar. Surprised? Let me explain.

By now, I am sure most people will have heard of Sonia Gandhi's debacle at Villipuram. Briefly, the AIADMK boss and Sonia Gandhi were supposed to speak at a rally in Villipuram (arranged by Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K Ramamurthy, a candidate from the area). The Congress president cooled her heels for an hour before being informed that her AIADMK counterpart couldnąt make it as a "sea of humanity" was holding her up.

This was an eyewash. Villipuram is at least three hours away by road from Chennai assuming Jayalalitha's motorcade raced there without stopping. (It would be closer to five hours if she stopped on the way to campaign a bit.) Jayalalitha didn't leave Poes Gardens until half past three in the afternoon; "sea of humanity" or not she could never have made it to Villipuram when Sonia Gandhi arrived at half past four. Two days later, some AIADMK flunkies went to the airport to greet the Congress president with a shawl and a bouquet -- but Jayalalitha, who didnąt have any appointment at the time, still didn't appear...

In Chennai -- I was there that Sunday -- two reasons for this behaviour were making the round. First, Sonia Gandhi's criticism of coalition governments at Tiruchirapalli. Second, Dr Manmohan Singh stating on television that anyone who had broken the law -- specifically including Jayalalitha and Laloo Prasad Yadav -- would be punished.

Let me begin with the latter. Frankly, Jayalalitha cares two hoots about what the former finance minister says on his own. Dr Manmohan Singh is, and has always been, a mouthpiece for somebody else. From being chief economic adviser to the Chandra Shekhar ministry he became Narasimha Rao's man literally overnight. He invoked the principle of "Caesar's wife" when Sitaram Kesri wanted Rao out of the way, and now he is Sonia Gandhi's man. The AIADMK and the RJD must have wondered whether he wasn't speaking for her.

Leaving aside Manmohan Singh, turn to Sonia Gandhi's remarks at Tiruchirapalli. These weren't off-the-cuff statements, but the continuance of a theme begun at her first press conference. Which raises the question: if Sonia Gandhi is set against any coalition in Delhi, why bother to forge alliances with Jayalalitha and the Rashtriya Janata Dal?

No party enters an alliance out of pure altruism. Jayalalitha knows demanding the dismissal of the Karunanidhi ministry in Tamil Nadu is pretty much a lost cause, but she can still insist on her boys getting a fair share of the cake in Delhi. Or does Sonia Gandhi expect her allies to sit quietly in the (somewhat far-fetched) assumption that the Congress-led alliance comes to power?

I am no fan of Jayalalitha's, but in this instance she has the right of the matter. Support from outside simply doesn't work -- as the Congress itself has repeatedly demonstrated. Post-poll alliances are both unethical and impractical. Realistically, it is unlikely that any single party shall win an absolute majority; it makes sense, therefore, to take the electorate's blessing before forming a government.

That is just as true in Bihar as in Tamil Nadu. It is Sonia Gandhi's Congress that approached the Rashtriya Janata Dal for an alliance, not the other way around. The Congress begged for seats from Laloo Prasad Yadav. Sonia Gandhi's personal intervention resulted in Yadav granting her party one additional constituency. (As noted above, one seat out of 54 comes to less than two per cent!)

But all these theatricals do raise a serious question. India is a land of many creeds, of people speaking more languages than any other nation on earth, with varying beliefs -- arguably the largest coalition on earth. If Sonia Gandhi cannot handle the pressures of keeping an alliance together before the poll, does she expect us to believe that she can keep India together afterwards?

T V R Shenoy