Tenure of longest serving chief ends

The nearly two-decadelong tenure of Sonia Gandhi as the Congress president comes to an end as she hands over the reins of the party to her son Rahul Gandhi, leaving behind a legacy of ups and downs.

Chaos and confusion reigned supreme when she assumed the charge of the party in 1998. A fragmented Congress then ruled just four states of Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Mizoram and Nagaland and had 141 members in the Lok Sabha. The party’s flagging fortunes forced her to come out of self-imposed political hibernation. Within six years under her leadership, the party’s fortunes swung considerably.

Having been the driving force behind the Congress for more than 19 years, the 71-year-old Sonia delegated most of her responsibilities to her son in the past few years. She has already created history by becoming the longest serving chief of the party.

EARLY TURBULENCE

After her husband and former PM Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, Sonia rejected pleas to join the Congress. However, she finally shed her reluctance and agreed to join politics in 1997.

On March 14, 1998, she was elected Congress president. But more than a year later on May 15, 1999, just before Lok Sabha elections, she resigned after senior leaders Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar opposed her being projected as the party’s PM candidate.

“Although born in a foreign land, I chose India as my country and would remain an Indian till my last breath. India is my motherland, dearer to me than my own life,” Sonia wrote in her resignation letter to the CWC. The move prom-pted agitation from Congress workers and she agreed to take back her resignation after the party expelled Pawar, Sangma and Anwar on May 20.

MULAYAM SNUB

After the fall of the BJP-led NDA government on April 17, 1999, by just one vote, Sonia met the then president KR Narayanan on April 21 to seek time to form the next government. “We have 272 and more are coming,” she said.

But in a U-turn, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav announced his party would not support Congress. Yadav instead floated the name of veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Jyoti Basu for the PM’s post but Sonia rejected the move.

FIRST SUCCESS

In 2004, the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee looked invincible and the BJP-led NDA unassailable but Sonia demolished both. Her ‘aam aadmi’ slogan crushed the BJP’s “feel good” and “India shining” catchphrases. It was her efforts that saw parties come together to stitch a coalition that came to be known as United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

THE MASTERSTROKE

Sonia stunned the world in 2004 when she declined the PM’s post after the Congress-led UPA came to power. She again gave a shock to her political adversaries on March 23, 2006, when she resigned from the Lok Sabha and the National Advisory Council in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy. However, she was re-elected.

CRITICISM

Though Rahul had virtually taken over the Congress as its de facto head, it was under Sonia’s leadership that the party registered its worst ever electoral performance bagging just 44 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

WITHIN SIX YEARS UNDER SONIA GANDHI’S LEADERSHIP, THE PARTY’S FORTUNES SWUNG CONSIDERABLY