While Sonia had clarity, Rahul flits from cause to cause

Rahul Gandhi’s problem is not the culpability of others, but sins within

Every general election eats up at least six months of governance, and perhaps nine when an administration lingers too long on its deathbed. A prevailing myth, reheated by Dr Manmohan Singh at his farewell press conference, is that this UPA still has five months of life in it. Make that closer to five weeks. The moment the Election Commission announces its 90-day calendar, the government becomes a holding operation until a new one can be sworn in.

But the price is worth paying this election, because 2014 will be the most important year of the next decade. A stable government in May will set India on course for revival. A rickety coalition will be an invitation to collapse of confidence, and street anger turning to violence.

Oscar Wilde, a British playwright addicted to wit at the expense of drama, described bigamy as having one wife too many. He added that monogamy was the same. The Congress election strategy for 2014 has acquired some Wilde overtones: no relationship is good enough. After winning two general elections crafted by multi-party alliances, Congress has been shedding the old faithful with the conviction of a zealot who has discovered asceticism.

Rahul Gandhi, who will lead Congress, hopes to deflect allegations of sleaze by distancing himself from polluted allies, like DMK. This is bad news for his latest ardent admirer, the ebullient Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is desperately seeking Congress in Bihar. Rahul can hardly claim the mantle of Crusader Extraordinary if he walks arm-in-arm with a convicted politician. Morality is a hard schoolmaster.

Rahul Gandhi’s problem is not the culpability of others, but sins within. A knight in shining armour is better suited for the frontlines of opposition. Ten years in power leave you vulnerable to slippage towards a Don Quixote, tilting at windmills in the hope of heroism. Rahul is reinventing himself as a blueblood warrior against sleaze. He rolled up his sleeves yet again and became avenging angel on Adarsh. That slipped on the banana peel of farce when Congress chief minister Prithviraj Chavan decided that all politicians involved were innocent. Rahul Gandhi cannot reopen this subject, unless he wants to replace the Maharashtra CM and sack UPA home minister Sushil Shinde.

Take a second gesture of furious piety. Defence minister A.K Antony cancelled the purchase of nine out of 12 luxury helicopters from the Anglo-Italian company Agusta-Westland, impelled by allegations of kickbacks that had begun to lap around high-level feet. The contradictions lie in fine print. India has already paid 45 per cent of the Rs 3,546 crore total cost for twelve luxury choppers. Only three have been delivered. In other words, the Anglo-Italian company is three machines ahead already, the cash in its bank. Delhi will demand its money back, but tell that to the lawyers. With that kind of surplus, Agusta-Westland has enough money left over for both legal fees and endless celebration. The cats who paid 51 million Euros – so far as we know – in kickbacks have become a little fatter.

In both cases Congress is reversing decisions made by Congress rulers, not by an Opposition party. That is the nub. And now Virbhadra Singh has been discovered accepting cheques for services rendered. Dr Manmohan Singh slipped through this minefield by claiming he did not know anything. Rahul Gandhi will not have the luxury of such indulgence in an election season.

Sonia Gandhi’s route to power had two maps: maximization of electoral spread through regional alliances, and largesse from the national kitty, in the name of distributive justice, to targeted demographic clusters. Rahul Gandhi has chosen to take a stand on corruption. The difference will have consequences. There might have been criticism of Sonia’s handouts, but there was no contradiction in her strategy. Opposition parties could at best claim that they had done the same earlier, and were ready to do more. But on corruption, Congress can be accused of hypocrisy. One can almost hear that old Urdu proverb being repeated across the northern states: Nau sau choohe kha ke billi Haj pe chali [After eating 900 mice, the cat is going on Haj].

A general election is always a bazaar sale of a jumble of issues. But, equally, there is one theme that becomes decisive. This will not be the Gujarat riots, as the PM believes. No politician has been subject to the kind of police and judicial scrutiny that Narendra Modi has faced, and then cleared by SIT and a lower court.

The party that wins in 2014 will be the one that can offer an economic policy framework for the future. The young, who will determine the result, want radical ideas to lift their spirits, revive hope and restore the dream of prosperity. The promise and platform that captures their imagination will command the coming decade.