Embedded in the complaint is an unfortunate assumption that at critical moments like general elections journalists inject into their analyses their personal preferences, that there is no such thing as objective analysis.To avoid compounding my guilt let me straightaway give my reasons, not why Vajpayee will improve but why Sonia Gandhi will not.

She campaigned vigorously for the March 1998 elections without improving the lot of the party. I remember that first election rally in Rae Bareli. What a crowd there was. On the elevated platform sat Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra, Robert Vadra, Rahul Gandhi, Jitendra Prasada, Narain Dutt Tewari, Pramod Tewari, Deepa Kaul, Rajiv Gandhi's cousin and candidate for Rae Bareli and, of course,Captain Satish Sharma, Rajiv Gandhi's co-pilot, candidate for Amethi. It was a gathering of the family, close friends and clansmen in occupation of the podium. Satish Sharma kept up the chant "Soniaji, yeh janta aapko pradhanmantri ke roop mein dekhna chahiti hai". (Soniaji, this crowd wants to see you as PM).

In spite of this theatre, repeated fifty times all over UP, the party returned not a single seat from a state which has returned seven Prime Ministers since independence. So, where was the Sonia charisma?

Let me, for easy communication, transform this lot on the podium in Rae Bareli into a sort of metaphor for the dominant tendency in the Congress High Command. I realise the CWC had such ``heavy weights'' as Arjun Singh, Pranab Mukerjee, Madhavrao Scindia, Vijaybhaskar Reddy and so on. Analysing this lot in detail would lead me to extensive and incommunicable digressions. For easy communication, let us assume that they constitute the most powerful tendency guiding Sonia Gandhi.

Now considerthe Ides of March, 1998. The Congress President is Sitaram Kesri, sticking out like a sore thumb for that galaxy on the Rae Bareli podium. ``Look,'' someone whispers, ``he might be working out a coalition with the social justice leaders in UP and Bihar.'' The backroom boys (and girls) echo in chorus. ``No to coalition'', particularly with the inelegant lot with whom Kesri routinely sups.

In an operation of military precision, Kesri is physically removed from the office of party President. Leaders like the ones on the podium go around. The Congress headquarters supervising the removal of Kesri's name plates! All in 12 hours.

But a question remains: was Sonia Gandhi, in adherence to a long term strategy of shunning unwieldy coalitions, leave the way open for the BJP to discredit itself in power managing a cacophony of 18 discordant voices or did that lot on the podium prefer Vajpayee to Kesri in the company of Laloo, Mulayam and suchlike?

Sonia Gandhi followed an impressive script up to the Pachmarhisession of the Congress in September, 1998. The resounding `No' to coalitions made sense because in the November state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi the contest was a straight one between the Congress and the BJP. No coalitions were required in these three states. But the lot on the podium, guided by its own prejudices, extrapolated from this limited experience (the Congress won in the three states) that Ekla Chalo was the song for eventual absolute majority. Absolute majority without coalitions in UP and Bihar? By the time the absurdity of this proposition was realised it was already too late.

Moreover, was it realised at all? After the BJP lost its majority by a solitary vote, a situation arose again whereby a coalition (with the Congress in it) was possible. Sonia Gandhi dropped this catch as well. The result is that BJP remained in power for its most impressive six-month spell up to the current elections. Those who were willing to be in that coalition with the Congress aretoday the BJP's heroes for having saved the day for Vajpayee.

Again that galaxy on the podium was in play. Moreover, the authors of globalisation (who had direct access among the backroom boys) were averse to a coalition in which the Left would have a decisive voice.

Then came the Sharad Pawar episode. What Pawar and Sangma said publicly is exactly what every member of the Congress had been whispering furtively. Sonia Gandhi could have risen above the din, kept Pawar in the fold, promising to have the party take a view. But the podium sees the game differently.

By avoiding the media, Sonia Gandhi denied herself direct access to the urban middle class. Indira Gandhi could shun the media and the middle class because they did not affect her voters. A sea change has taken place since. The electronic media and the language press has reached every corner. The middle class is much, much larger. This middle has became prosperous in a short spell and seeks protection from any quarter even if this protectioncomes from fascism in Bombay. This powerful, avaricious middle class has no ideology. It will go with you if you are seen to be a winner.

If you agree that this selfish middle class does not perceive Sonia Gandhi as a possible winner at this stage, then it may be possible to speculate that she may well have had it.