New Delhi, Sept. 3: The rumblings over her foreign origins having died out, Sonia Gandhi today termed the Congress president’s job national duty and said the little she had been able to do so far was because of the realisation that being party chief meant “being responsible for the nation”.

Dressed in a khadi sari, Sonia made a brief speech that demonstrated her “Indianness”, sang Vande Mataram and took the certificate of re-election at 5.50pm sharp, the time having been fixed according to Vedic astrology. By then, heavy rain had all but pulled down the makeshift tent rigged up at the AICC headquarters, forcing senior leaders to wade through slush and water.

As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clapped after her re-election, Sonia said: “I am grateful to the country’s Congress members for unanimously electing me president. During my tenure, I have often felt the Congress president’s job is a big responsibility towards the country. We should be aware of this responsibility, that a Congress member has to serve all sections of the society whether we are in power or not.”

Sonia took over the reins of the Congress in 1998 when the party was floundering under Sitaram Kesri’s leadership and the BJP-led coalition had established itself under A.B. Vajpayee. Sonia overcame the Congress reluctance for coalition, set aside personal grudges to join hands with Sharad Pawar and M. Karunanidhi, and brought the Congress back to the helm in 2004 at a time observers were predicting its disintegration.

Although nobody can snatch the credit for this turnaround, Sonia’s achievements as Congress chief have been far from impressive. While taking over the reins in 1998, she had said the party’s foremost challenge was to regain lost glory in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Twelve years on, her political clout may have multiplied but the party is in tatters in both states. Her son Rahul has taken it on himself to finish the task; he has marginally succeeded in Uttar Pradesh and is faced with a hopeless situation in Bihar.

Under Sonia’s leadership, the Congress has gone from bad to worse in Orissa, lost power in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Himachal and Punjab, remained a marginal player in Bengal and Tamil Nadu, and suffered successive defeats in Gujarat. Even in Rajasthan and Jharkhand, the BJP has grown fast at Congress expense. Put together, all these overshadow the party’s success in retaining power at the Centre in 2009. Even at the organisational level, Sonia has failed to create an effective leadership.

While Singh and Pranab Mukherjee are respectively the products of the P.V. Narasimha Rao and Indira Gandhi regime, it is difficult to name a single leader in her secretariat who commands public support. An exception is Digvijay Singh who was created by her husband Rajiv Gandhi. The fresh faces on the Congress horizon are Rahul’s find.

Insiders say Sonia has not been able to implement her decisions in the organisation as effectively as she pushed for welfare policies. If the NREGA and food security bills demonstrate her resolve, the failure to create a Congress training institute shows her weakness. She may be in need of a stronger team; she now has the chance to constitute a new working committee and pick new general secretaries.