She just has to respond: say the right thing, visit the right place. The party in power will take care of the rest. So there she is, in the backdrop of a burnt church, in the divine precincts of Tirupati, always as the self-consciously secular Congress president.

From Tirupati, which incidentally falls in a state ruled by one of the BJP's allies, she has given the final call for mutiny: the BJP allies are hypocrites, less than secular, and it is time for them to redeem themselves by breaking the government. Well, it looks like Sonia's moment has come.

From the First Widow to the Only Leader to the ruler-in-waiting, her political evolution has reached astage where it is not the virtues of the party she heads but the disorientation of the party she opposes that makes her the most viable alternative in Indian politics.

That is, the BJP has become the oxygen supplier to Sonia's leadership. The failure of governance may not have reached the sub-zero level. But the failure of communication, perhaps the method of communication, has become suicidal. The campaign against Christian missionaries may not be a BJP agenda. The violence may be beyond the control of the party. Still the party has made conversions debatable. Debate, after all, is a civilised way of sorting things out. Is conversion worth debating? No.

The Prime Minister didn't think so. He thought conversion was a subject worthy of national debate. Translation: Conversion is an issue. The mad periphery of the sangh parivar also thinks it is an issue. And they debated, in their own well-known language. The enemy has been created, and the Hindu-equivalent of the mad mullah has got a national project.While the periphery erupted in violent frenzy, sending out the divisive energy of hate and paranoia, the sane centre spoke without conviction. Another situation for Sonia Gandhi to speak sanity.

So there seems to be a consensus: reactive Sonia is at her political best. But how honest is Sonia's reaction? In Tirupati she said the BJP allies are hypocrites. Isn't there a touch of hypocrisy in Sonia's carefully sculpted symbolism? Take her religious neutrality.

Secularism is not a negation of religion. For Sonia it is. Why is she so defensive about her Christian origin? She has every reason to be publicly proud of it. And why is she so `spectacular' about her temple visits? Another curiosity: why did she refuse to declare her religion in the Tirupati temple register? What is religion for Sonia Gandhi? Will she publicly say that she doesn't believe in religion? Or, will she publicly declare her religion? Oh, it is a private matter. Or a politically significant public hypocrisy. There is nothing wrong withgesture politics.

But the politics of the ruler-in-waiting, or the president of India's GOP, can't forever remain a choreographed gesture. Her only advantage is that every gesture of the other party is terribly wrong. So far an accidental leader with a privileged inheritance. Today Sonia Gandhi is the most blessed politician in the market. She gets everything free.