Crunch fortnight awaits Sonia Gandhi, Congress

New Delhi, May 30: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will be back in the capital from a brief summer break this week and will get down to taking decisions which will be crucial for the party and the UPA government in the interregnum before Lok Sabha polls. It is being seen as a crunch fortnight for the party.

Soon after her return from the cool climes of Kausani, Sonia has to consult UPA supporters, call a meeting of the Congress Working Committee and hold endless rounds of confabulations. At stake is who should be Congress's nominee for president: a pivotal call on which a number of crucial issues may hinge.

The CWC meeting, scheduled tentatively for June 4, is likely to focus on the economic crisis in the light of declining value of rupee, rising prices and the growing perception of the economy going downhill. The outcome, especially the stand on petrol price hike, will determine whether the party has the stomach for reforms before the realists within step up pressure for populism in view of coming elections.

But the organizational interest may be focused more on presidential elections: an issue which has to be settled outside the party talk shop.

The issue of who gets the nod will have a fallout for some nettlesome decisions to be taken later: reshuffle in organization and government, an imperative to tone up the two wings in the lead-up to the 2014 contest.

Congress's victory in the top contest is almost a certainty. The trouble is that because of lack of numbers, it is not a free agent in deciding its nominee. Its calculations went awry when Trinamool boss Mamata Banerjee vetoed Vice-President Hamid Ansari because of his perceived proximity to the Left. Then, Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose UP numbers make him one of the deciding factors, struck another blow to the vice-president's prospects by saying that he would not accept a former government servant as the president.

Thanks to the double whammy for Ansari, the candidature of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has been revived. Though she was on Congress's list, the Speaker had lagged way behind Ansari and Pranab Mukherjee. Thanks to the quirk, she is back in the reckoning and, according to some estimates, ahead of Ansari in current seedings.

That should have, ordinarily speaking, left Mukherjee as the sole contender for Sonia's coveted endorsement but for the continuing reluctance of a section of Congress to relieve the so-called Mr Dependable of the government. Unfortunately for them, Mukherjee is not too enamoured of the citation and is eager to eject from North Block to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Ignoring him even on the ground of competence carries a strong risk of rendering him aloof and indifferent.

Mukherjee's movement from the government will present Congress with the tricky issue of finding his successor in the finance ministry as well as a leader of Lok Sabha, the latter being a bigger challenge considering the stature expected of the office.

The government also has to choose a successor to Ansari, perhaps even if he does not get elevated. No vice-president has got a second term after S Radhakrishnan. Congress may not like to make an exception; especially if the post becomes part of a package deal with Samajwadi Party: something which continues to be speculated about despite denials.

Whether the deal with Mulayam is eventually signed and what is going to be the state of ties with Mamata, perhaps even with Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, may all turn on the choice that Congress make in the next fortnight.