It is hard to avoid the feeling that Sonia Gandhi is being badly advised. Last month, she was pushed into a confidence motion that she did not want. And then, to add insult to injury, her advisors assured her that they had gathered opposition support for a Congress minority government when, in fact, this was not the case. In the process, Sonia lost an important personal advantage. In 1991, when the Congress offered her the prime ministership on a platter, she refused it. She joined politics in 1998 when the party was at its lowest ebb and when there seemed no hope of the Congress ever forming the government. This gave her the image of a woman who was not interested in power but had entered public life only to help revive the party for which her husband had given his life. That image took a knocking during the confidence motion drama. She was ill advised by those who told her to attend J. Jayalalitha/Subramanian Swamy?s tea party. Her advisors assured her that an eight minute appearance at a social gathering had no particular political significance. They failed to assess the mood in the Jayalalitha camp accurately. Had they done so, they would have recognized that Jayalalitha was ready to withdraw support to the Vajpayee government and was desperate for some sign that Sonia would help bring down the regime. By attending the tea party, Sonia provided that sign. After that, it became increasingly difficult for the Congress to stick to the stand that the government?s problems were of its own making. Each time Congress spokesmen said that the confidence motion was necessitated by the collapse of the Bharatiya Janata Party alliance and not because of any endeavour on the part of the opposition, cynics said: Oh yeah! Then why were Sonia and Jayalalitha conspiring together? The consequence is that in the minds of many people, Sonia Gandhi is now not very different from the average Indian politician. She has lost that halo of reluctance and seems just as eager as anybody else to become prime minister. It is hard to imagine a greater reverse for a politician who had enjoyed such a positive public image. Worse, from Sonia?s point of view, this is one occasion where the image accurately reflected reality. Sonia had no desire to become prime minister through the back door. Her time table called for a winter election and a Congress government based on a popular mandate. Sadly, it is getting more and more difficult to convince people that this was indeed Sonia?s intention. Instead, they ask: what do you mean ?reluctant?? She was dying to be prime minister. All this is history now. But just as the Congress allowed the initiative to be seized from it during the confidence motion, it is now making another mistake. It is allowing the BJP to choose the battleground for the next election. The sangh parivar has finally recognized that it has one great advantage that no other political party enjoys. In Atal Behari Vajpayee, it has India?s only tried and tested popular national leader. So, the parivar has based its appeal on Vajpayee?s charisma. To reasonable people, it says: vote for us and you are voting for Vajpayee. To its own supporters, it says: the old Hindutva agenda is still very much alive, don?t worry too much about Vajpayee. Because the BJP has been able to frame its appeal in personality terms, it is keen to convert this contest into a presidential style election. It would like to pit Vajpayee?s record and national stature against Sonia Gandhi. For the parivar, such an approach has many advantages. Sonia Gandhi may well turn out to be a greater prime minister than Vajpayee, but as of now, she is still seen as a political novice, whose experience is no match for Vajpayee?s. Moreover, by going for a Vajpayee versus Sonia battle, the BJP is also able to play dirty. As long as Sonia was just Congress president, it did not matter too much that she was born in Italy. But in a presidential style battle, birth matters much more. The question is now phrased in these terms: who do you want? Our very own Vajpayee? Or one Italian born housewife who has kept saying that she does not like politics? Put in those terms, even Congressmen will concede, Sonia?s background can become a disadvantage. The BJP does not stop there. By raising the matter of the Madhavsinh Solanki prosecution, it has tried to exhume the Bofors issue. The BJP is savvy enough to realize that voters do not take kindly to abuse of a dead man. So it will treat Bofors not as an anti-Rajiv issue but as a foreigners-looting-India issue. It will then drag Ottavio Quattrochi into the saga and suggest that Bofors represented an attempt by Italians to rob the Indian taxpayer. To re-emphasize the Italian angle, it has already begun to repeat a Big Lie in the hope that if it is shouted out often enough, people will believe it. The Big Lie is that Sonia is still an Italian citizen. Oh yes, she may have an Indian passport but that?s just for the sake of her image. She never really gave up her Italian citizenship. Though the Congress has now announced that Sonia renounced her Italian citizenship in 1983, this will not stop the BJP from repeating the Big Lie throughout the campaign. It is too early to predict how things will go during this election, but my guess is that the BJP will play down every issue and will focus on two things. It will praise Vajpayee. And it will badmouth Sonia. This cannot be good news for the Congress. Some of Sonia Gandhi?s advisors have reacted to the BJP?s campaign against the Congress president in tiresome and futile chamcha-like terms. They have bravely declared that Sonia would easily win any presidential style election against anybody, let alone Vajpayee. They have argued that Sonia is the single most popular leader in the country and dared anyone to contradict them. And they have been so cravenly sycophantic in public that one would think that the bad old days of the Emergency are back again. In the process, they have played into the BJP?s hands. The moment the Congress gets into the Sonia versus Vajpayee fight, it plays the BJP?s game. Vajpayee is a great leader and so is Sonia Gandhi. But that is not what this election is about. If the BJP wins this winter, then Indian politics will never be the same. I don?t think the Congress will be the same again after a major defeat. Sonia?s writ will no longer run throughout the party. There will be revolts and splits and the end result, I suspect, will be the death of the Congress as we know it. That will leave India with a political scene in which the BJP is the only national party and the opposition comes from small regional and casteist groupings. As for the BJP itself, it cannot remain the party of Vajpayee forever. For one thing, the prime minister is not immortal. And for another, much of his party believes in a hardcore Hindutva agenda that it has now dumped in an effort to get elected, but which it will certainly resurrect once it is able to do so. That ultimately, is what this election is about. Do we want Indian politics to be dominated by a Hindu fundamentalist party that has no real opposition? The BJP also says that it will fight on its record. The election, it says, is about governance. In fact, if you look closely, you find that governance is no more than an empty slogan. It is no more than a means of hiding behind Vajpayee?s popularity. Rare is the BJP minister who has performed well in office. The real surprise of the BJP regime has been the discovery that the party is so utterly lacking in talent once you get past the prime minister. Contrast this with the Congress. Whatever your views on Sonia Gandhi or the party?s policies, it is hard to deny that the Congress today has the best front bench in the recent history of Indian politics. Manmohan Singh is, of course, a giant, but there are several other leaders who proved to be exceptional ministers when they were in office: Pranab Mukherjee, Madhavrao Scindia, P.A. Sangma, Rajesh Pilot, Kamal Nath, Salman Khurshid and Margaret Alva, to quote just a few examples. If this election were really about governance, then the Congress would win hands down. My problem with Sonia Gandhi?s advisors and with the Congress?s more vocal spokespersons is that they have failed to adequately address the real issues in this election. Instead, they have fallen into the presidential trap. In the process, they have turned Sonia into a target and have bought the BJP?s fiction that Vajpayee represents the true face of the party. The Congress ? and Sonia?s advisors in particular ? needs to break out of that mindset. It has to attack the BJP for what it is and expose the seamy reality hidden under the layer of Vajpayee?s charisma. It has to stop behaving like a party of chamchas and it has to emphasize the strength of its front bench. It cannot afford to get caught up in a presidential style election. But, will this happen? I don?t know. For nearly a year, Sonia trusted her own instincts and successfully revived the party. Then she listened to the Arjun Singhs and M.L. Fotedars and this mess resulted. She needs to go back to her own instincts again. It is difficult to be detached when you yourself are the target of such a personal attack. It is only human to feel pleased when colleagues defend you aggressively and sing your praises. But if the Congress is to form the next government, then Sonia must break out of this impasse. She must ensure that the Congress goes to the polls not as a party of Sonia supporters but as India?s only truly secular, national party and as the party with the strongest claim to provide governance at all levels. Otherwise it could be all over for the Congress.