The very effective theme of the Congress in this parliamentary campaign was inclusiveness. The catchphrase was reiterated in President Pratibha Patil’s inaugural address to the new Lok Sabha last week. Inclusiveness has been the defining characteristic of the 113-year-old party. It symbolises different things to different people, accommodates varied ideologies and different strata of society under one roof. The Congress has a pan-India image, and an appeal cutting across caste, religion and income levels. In the first 25 years after independence, like the all-encompassing banyan tree, the Congress did not let any other political party grow under its branches.

It was in the wake of the Mandal agitation that the inclusiveness which the Congress boasted of as its core strength turned into its Achilles Heel. The party’s message was too broad-based and diffuse to appeal to all sections at the same time. In contrast, other political parties were targeting specific sections of the electorate on the basis of caste, regionalism and religion. These smaller political parties began expanding at the expense of the Congress. The Congress, by continuously maintaining a balancing act, lost out on major issues — whether it was Mandal, the Ayodhya mosque or regional aspirations.

The grand old party was no longer unassailable. The first body blow was in 1977, a referendum on Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule, which saw the Congress tally fall to 154 seats. But it was after the Mandal reservations for OBCs gained momentum that the rot really set in. The nadir came in 1999 when the Congress tally was a dismal 114. Pundits claimed that the Congress was a dinosaur, out of place in the era of coalition politics. Finally, the Congress scrapped the Pachmarhi resolution of 1998 that had committed itself to going it alone and shunning alliance politics. When the Congress formed the government in 2004, its own tally was a modest 145 and it was dependent on fractious allies and outside support from the Left which handicapped the UPA government and constrained the fulfilment of its agenda.

... contd.