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The indispensable Congresswoman

Every cricket expert has been saying for months that the chief weakness of the Indian team is its over-dependence on a single player -- Sachin Tendulkar. That is just as true of political parties as of cricket teams, a piece of common sense that hasn't yet sunk into the Congress.

Arriving for a meeting of the Congress high command, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh solemnly intoned that 'nobody was indispensable'. He was referring, of course, to the trio of Sharad Pawar, Purno Sangma, and Tariq Anwar. But the same Digvijay Singh, in almost the same breath, rhetorically demanded, 'How can we let go of Soniaji?'

In other words, everybody is dispensable except Sonia Gandhi.

So much so that when Sonia Gandhi offered to quit the party leadership, three Congress chief ministers offered/threatened to quit their offices as well. I am not sure why; surely their first responsibility is to the voters who put them in office, not to Sonia Gandhi. But what exactly was it that drove Sonia Gandhi to resign?

Apparently, there was a stormy meeting of the Congress Working Committee on May 15, when the issue of Sonia Gandhi¹s nationality was raised. When Pranab Mukherjee tried to shush down the malcontents, Sangma coldly reminded him that Mukherjee himself had openly confessed that he didn't know all the facts about Sonia Gandhi's nationality.

Ordinarily, there would have been a simple solution. All that Sonia Gandhi needed to do was to present her party colleagues with the facts of the case. Such as when she surrendered her Italian passport, when she took up Indian citizenship, how many times the Italian government renewed her passport after her marriage, and what her precise status is under the Italian law. She might not have had all the details at her fingertips, but it would have been a matter of minutes before she had them.

Instead, she went to the dramatic length of offering a resignation letter, which wasn't delivered for a further 48 hours. Why on earth did she do that? Even accepting that Pawar, Sangma, and Anwar meant mischief, it would have been easy enough to get them drummed out with the aid of her chosen cohorts.

No, there can be only two reasons for this idiotic theatre. First, Sonia Gandhi simply cannot brook dissent, and would rather throw in the towel altogether rather than compromise. The second reason is that she has something to hide, and the only way to divert public attention was through this drama.

The first reason is not really as improbable as it sounds. It is no secret that Sonia Gandhi's arrogance was largely instrumental in alienating Mulayam Singh Yadav. She preferred to throw the country into a General Election rather than form a coalition. That immaturity might have led her to resign today. Unlikely of course, but possible.

What of the second possibility? When you come to think of it, there is precious little that the voter knows about Sonia Gandhi. Take the famous story about her meeting Rajiv Gandhi at Cambridge. We know why he was there and how he dropped out of college, but why was she there? Does anyone know which college she attended?

I know it wasn't her educational background that bothered the rebellious trio. And of course there are unanswered questions about her precise status. But the point about college does raise questions about just what Sonia Gandhi's qualifications are.

I don't want to get bogged down in the legal quagmire of her nationality. (My gut instinct is that she is a foreigner, but I know others will disagree.) But what we should be debating -- something we have all lost sight of -- is whether she is otherwise qualified to be prime minister.

Somebody who has never fought an election? Someone who is demonstrably incapable of making people of different stripes work together? Someone who -- let us be honest about this -- cannot read, write, or speak any Indian language comfortably, and even stumbles in English? Someone who, for all her talk of 'sacrifice', has displayed remarkable tenacity in grabbing prime chunks of real estate in the heart of New Delhi?

Let us face it, when you come right down to it, the sole qualification that makes Sonia Gandhi the poster-girl of the Congress is the fact that she caught Rajiv Gandhi's eye three decades ago. That might be good enough for the Congress; is it enough for us to make her the Prime Minister of India?

T V R Shenoy