The dismal performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its partners in the Na-
tional Democratic Alliance in the recently held polls to the State Assemblies in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal have thrown up a question whether the Congress was on a trail back to gain from the losses suffered by the BJP? The beaming faces of the Congress leaders, despite their own dismal performance in Uttar Pradesh, would suggest that they believe that the losses of the BJP were the gains of the Indian National Congress under the leadership of its President Sonia Gandhi. They were confident that they would gain in Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections. However their calculations have gone wrong despite the losses suffered by the BJP. The net gainers were two regional outfits, the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh and the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati.

Since October 1998, the Congress Party has been a net gainer in the Assembly polls. It ousted the BJP from the seat of power in Delhi and Rajasthan and it succeeded in retaining power in Madhya Pradesh. It has gained from the anti-incumbency factor in Delhi and Rajasthan, but the BJP could not gain advantage of the anti-incumbency factor in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress also ousted the BJP-Shiv Sena combine in Maharashtra and gained from the opposition in Karnataka. However it had small success in Tamilnadu and dissatisafactory performance in Bengal despite its association with Mamta Bannerji for the Assembly polls. In the recent electoral bout, the Congress returned to power in three States by taking an advantage due to the anti-incumbency mood of the voters in the States. But these were negative gains and not positive results in favour of the Congress. In between these gains in the States, the Congress performance in the last Lok Sabha elections was poor. Its strength was reduced from 162 in 1998 to merely 113 in the 1999 Lok Sabha election. The Lok Sabha election was forced on the nation in April 1999 after Sonia Gandhi had failed to materialise her claims to the office of the prime minister. She was definitely the Prime Ministerial projection of the Congress Party in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. Yet it failed to prevent the National Democratic Alliance from coming back to the seat of power in New Delhi.

Yet the Congress leaders are buoyed by the results of the polls in the last round of assembly elections. They have reason to feel elated because the Vajpayee government has been running from pillar to post in governing the country. With the centre of power remaining outside, the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is unable to assert the authority and stature of his office. He has been forced to roll back on his stances. He had taken a definite stand at Ahmedabad when he had addressed the victims in relief camps in Ahmedabad where he had declared the events in Gujarat as a national stigma. Within a week, he was forced to change his stance and was made to fall in line with the Sangh Parivar. His roaring in the Lok Sabha after the Jammu massacre by the terrorists was turned into a whimper for he had to explain away his assertive statement that India would retaliate to acts of terrorism. It would appear that the Vajpayee government was working overtime to hand over the political advantages to the Indian National Congress on a silver platter. His mistakes are providing political advantages to the Congress.

Can the Congress car run at full speed merely on the basis of who the driver is so that it would reach its destination of the power corridors in New Delhi? . Rajiv Gandhi had gained a massive majority in the 1984 election due to the anger felt by the nation at the attempts to balkanise it by the militants of Punjab.

Even the meteoric rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the last five elections to the Lok Sabha since 1989 is attributed to the charismatic personality of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Yet his charismatic personality has failed to stem the rot suffered by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the assembly polls in different States. These examples go only to prove that merely a charismatic personality was not sufficient to gain minds and votes of the masses. There is a need for something more than a capable leader that could attract them to the party and provide a majority. The engine has to be fuelled with a proper package of programmes that would hold out hopes for the masses. Does the Congress Party have a proper engine of an attractive programme in its chariot? Then there are geopolitical realities that have to be taken into account. The results of the Assembly polls do indicate a definite picture that nearly 200 seats were out of the reach of the Congress Party. There was not even a fighting chance. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has suffered losses but the Indian National Congress has not gained from these losses. In Bengal, Bihar and Tamilnadu also the Congress has come out as a pauper despite its association with the leading parties in these States. The Congress played the role of B team to the regional outfits in these States and yet failed to gain any major political advantage in these states. It has been reduced to playing the role of the junior partner in these States and thus it has geographically shrunk.

The Congress has under its rule the major States of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Punjab. It is the major partner in the ruling alliances in Maharashtra and Kerala and a minor partner in Bihar. It would need a clever electoral strategy to overcome the wrath of the anti-incumbency factors in these States to retain at least the present strength if not to improve it. It would need a well-knit poll machinery in these states. It would mean that the Congress President would have to encourage the growth of the second rung of leadership by putting up credible leaders in the State party machinery. However the selection of the party candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections by ignoring the demands of the State chief ministers and the State leaders only indicated that the high command was not in a mood to encourage the growth of the second rung of leadership. None of the four Congress chief ministers were pleased by the selection of candidates for the Rajya Sabha.

The Congress stance towards the economic reform programme is not clear. It is still unable to decide whether it would like to continue with the liberal economic reform programme or would like to fall back onto the Nehruvian model for economic growth? The Pranav Mukherji Committee that was asked to clarify the economic model for the party submitted its report nearly two years ago. But the party had no opportunity to discuss the report and come to a final conclusion on its economic stance.

The Congress leadership has yet to understand that two post-independence generations constitute two-thirds of the Indian electorate. Their language, their idioms, their aspirations and their ambitions were totally and radically different from the pre-independence generations. To communicate with the two new generations, the political parties would need to radically change their own language. The Congress is yet to identify the social sections that it would like to attract. The minorities have run away from the Congress Party because others espouse their causes more efficiently. Barracking proceedings in the two Houses of Parliament for a week over the Gujarat situation was not enough to win back the hearts of the minorities.