Sonia is facing perhaps the gravest challenge in her political life so far. She is being attacked on four fronts: political, legal, ethical and electoral. Her image, authority and credibility has come under question.

The leadership vacuum in the Congress is growing and it is threatening to suck party president Sonia Gandhi into it.

Sonia is facing perhaps the gravest challenge in her political life so far. She is being attacked on four fronts: political, legal, ethical and electoral. Her image, authority and credibility has come under question.

Allies have begun to flex their muscles, opponents are hitting hard and even insiders have begun to challenge her ability and capability to inspire and lead or nurse the party back to health. The halo of political morality she wore is fast vanishing. Instead, the National Herald court case is looming large over her head.

'Saviour' comes under a cloud.

Until now, Congress workers had pinned their hopes on Sonia to save the party much like she had done when left the cloisters of 10 Janpath to join active politics in 1997 and pull the party out of the quagmire into which it had fallen when Sitaram Kesri and PV Narasimha Rao were at the helm.

But with senior Punjab leader Jagmeet Brar demanding that the mantle be handed over to a new set of leaders for two years, she has come under direct attack. Although a show cause notice has been issued to Brar, the fact that he dared to make such a demand is considered ominous as it might embolden others to fire similar fusillades at her---something which was unimaginable ever since she steered the Congress to victory in the 2004 general elections to head its first coalition government at the Centre.

Indeed, Brar’s attack could spell a throwback to the pre-2004 days when Sonia was riled for her foreign origin---which eventually prompted Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar to break away from the Congress and set up their own outfit ---and ridiculed for her political inexperience which induced Jitendra Prasada to unsuccessfully contest against her for the party president’s post in 2000 and led the opposition to dub her as a 'reader' rather than a 'leader'.

Rahul vs 'inner voice' controversy

The stage for the latest attack was actually set by former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh when he punctured the halo around her head by disclosing that what forced her to turn down the PM’s post was not her 'inner voice' but Rahul’s fear of losing her, like he did his father Rajiv and grandmother Indira Gandhi.

His disclosure--endorsed by senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar in a TV interview with the rider that there must be other reasons too which Singh may not be aware of —has diluted the aura built around her for her 'sacrifice' which had paid political dividends to her and her party. The high political and moral standard she seemed to have set with her 'renunciation' were exposed as a sham from which she may find it difficult to recover.

Indeed, Singh’s expose has robbed the party of a single most emotive issue it had in hand other than the 'martyrdom' of Rajiv and Indira who fell prey to asssassins’ bullets: Which was that its leader had 'renounced' the prime minister’s post when others were hankering for it. Sonia’s own retort that she would respond with her own autobiography lacked the required punch to put down Singh.

Sonia vulnerable to attacks

The attacks on Sonia have come when the 129-year Congress is most vulnerable. The electorate had handed it a drubbing that left it with only 44 seats in the Lok Sabha---11 short of the number that would have automatically entitled it for the position of leader of Opposition.

This was preceded by equally humiliating defeats in a series of assembly elections in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

And the outcome would appear to be no different in the forthcoming polls in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir or Jharkhand where it will have to battle issues like incumbency, an aggressive alliance partner in the NCP which is demanding half of the 288 assembly seats or the fallout with the National Conference which will contest the polls separately.

The public anger against the Congress over price rise, inflation, corruption in high places and paralysis in decision making in UPA-2 that was reflected in the elections held so far is yet to reduce even though the Modi government is also being taken to task over rising prices. But talk to any Congress worker and he/she has already written off the forthcoming elections.

The fact that the party has no solid support base to call its own has added to its problems. Its earlier vote bank of brahmins-scheduled castes-muslims had long been raided by parties like the BJP, the BSP, LJP, SP and the RJD, among others. Despite this, Sonia, with the help of Manmohan Singh and Rahul, specially in 2009, reworked the social equations to successfully reach across the segmented vote banks by appealing to the poor, the middle class and the youths to bring the party to power for the second time. However even these sections have now abandoned the Congress, leaving it without a base to stand on. And until it manages to find or create one, it would continue to flounder.

To add to its woes, Sonia, Rahul and some of her senior aides are now caught in a legal tangle, with BJP leader Subramanium Swamy filing a case alleging cheating and criminal breach of trust by them in acquiring the ownership of the now defunct daily National Herald.

Leadership vacuum

Yet, the party’s electoral debacle or absence of a social base, though humiliating, is the least of its worries.

The results may have put the party down, but the Congress does not consider itself out, living as it does on the self-created hope that any mistake the new Narendra Modi government makes would automatically translate into the party’s revival. But what Congress members are despairing about is the growing leadership vacuum at the top.

The trimurti of Rahul-Singh-Sonia---the Congress’ own RSS---which had been considered a formidable group five years back, lies shattered. Manmohan Singh is considered a has-been and Rahul a damp squib whose earlier failures have been compounded by his refusal to lead the party in Parliament and use that platform to turn the decrepit organization into a fighting unit. Of the three, only Sonia had until now retained the faith of the Congress workers to revive the party, having proven her ability to do so earlier.

But even this is threatening to turn out to be misplaced. And it is not just because of the Natwar Singh’s revelation or Brar’s demand for a leadership change. Blinded in her motherly love for her son, Sonia herself has shown an unwillingness to lead from the front this time. It has been over two months since the party’s traumatic defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and yet she has not shown any sign to start the process of repairing the damage inflicted on the party.

In the initial days since 16 May, when the results of the Lok Sabha were announced, she did interact with leaders to fathom the reasons for the debacle and entrusted party loyalist AK Antony to prepare a report. But she has not offered any solace to despondent party workers looking to her for guidance.

There have been no brainstorming sessions, no AICC meeting, no large scale shakeups to reinvigorate the organization that has been gripped by inertia and ennui. Increasingly, the leadership vacuum seems to be spreading, with the Gandhis battling to save their name in the National Herald case.

"Unless some radical steps are taken, it would be difficult to revive the party,’’ lamented a senior leader. "It has to be race against time’’, he said, even as a Sonia loyalist ruled out any 'knee jerk' reaction that would show the party in a 'panic mode'. But by the time she acts it might get much too late even for Congressmen who believe that she and the Gandhis are a panacea to all problems.