#dnaEdit: Unusual gesture

When former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was served summons by the trial court and named an accused along with former coal secretary PC Parakh and industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla in coal block allocation case, it seemed that it was an instance of another Congress Prime Minister in the dock on corruption charges. Singh was in the same plight as PV Narasimha Rao, who faced charges of corruption in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) bribery case. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not conceal its glee, though its leaders sought to maintain that they believed Singh to be a man of integrity but this case was a pointer to the corrupt Congress.

On Thursday morning, Congress President Sonia Gandhi struck a blow for Singh and for the Congress by marching to the former PM’s house across the road from hers to assure that the party stood solidly behind him. This is sure to stump Singh’s detractors in the party — and there are quite a few, including most of the senior leaders who were also his cabinet colleagues — and outside. It is a superb publicity gesture and it is something that no one expects from a party that genuflects only to the Nehru-Gandhis and no one else. It needed Sonia Gandhi to lead the party leaders to visit Singh. Rao, in contrast, became an outcast for the party soon after he lost the 1996 election and he was marginalised first by then party president Sitaram Kesri and then by Sonia herself.

Congress folk are sure to argue that there is no comparison between Singh and Rao. Singh’s credentials are impeccable while Rao had none. Rao remained a cunning politician while Singh was a non-politician who kept above the mud-pit of politicking. The grave sin of Rao was the demolition of Babri Masjid, which made Congress unacceptable to the Muslims for nearly a decade. There was also the perception in the Congress as well as in 10 Janpath that Rao connived to marginalise the Nehru-Gandhis, which is an unforgivable crime in the eyes of the family and the family loyalists in the party. The argument would hold good. It will be easier for the Congress to stand with Singh than it would have been to be with Rao.

This is a mere symbolic gesture with political valency. It will not have any bearing on the legal course of the coal allocation case. This would mean that after the humiliating defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress is gathering its wits as it were and willing to fight back. That is, it does not accept that there was any wrongdoing in coal block allocations and it is now ready to fight the perception battle that it went down because it was a corrupt government and party. 

The party is willing to rally around Singh by fielding some of its top lawyers to contest the summons in the Supreme Court. This is unlikely to succeed in shedding the negative reputation that it had gathered during the UPA-II term. This should not also be seen as the beginning of a revival. Singh could be a shield, if not a mascot, for the party that has always been seen for its corrupt and unscrupulous ways. Singh seems to be the only man who was free of all the Congress vices. And the party would want to use his clean image to claw its way back to political legitimacy. It is not going to be easy, and success is not assured.