So the Congress (I) leadership has given Andhra a new chief minister – the fourth since the party was swept into office in New Delhi in January 1980. In this case, the Congress (I) leadership is not a euphemism for Mrs. Gandhi. She has shown no preference for any particular candidate. She has chosen Mr. Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy in consultation with, if not at the instance of, other colleagues who claim to know who is what in Andhra. For all we know, the new Mr. Reddy may be ideally suited for the job. But will he be allowed to perform? Will the disgruntled elements at least lie low and give him a chance? On the face of it, it is doubtful. By all accounts, the Congress (I) legislature party is divided into so many rival factions that no one can seriously expect it to unite. Mr. Reddy is supposed to have been chosen as a “compromise” candidate. But in today’s Congress (I) lexicon, a “compromise” candidate is not one whom all rival groups are willing to accept. He means one who has not been in the field for the office in question, which Mr. Reddy has not been by virtue of being an MP and late-comer to the organisation. His non-combatant status is thus at best a negative qualification and cannot enable him to bring the local warlords together. Mrs. Gandhi could not have been unaware of this reality. Why then, has she replaced poor Mr. Venkataram? – incidentally also a Reddy who chose to drop this powerful surname when he was elevated to the “august” office of chief minister.
In a sense the answer is obvious. The matinee idol, Mr. NT Ramarao, is posing a serious challenge to the Congress (I) and Mrs. Gandhi is desperately trying to find someone who can meet this challenge. But to state this superficially self-evident compulsion is to expose the hollowness of the consequent action. NTR’s challenge is not to the state chief minister or the state unit of the Congress (I). It is to Mrs. Gandhi’s leadership; she has to meet it; no one else can do it for her; she has to do it herself. This reality is obscured by a variety of factors. Andhra has been very badly governed under the Congress (I). Rightly or wrongly, Dr. Chenna Reddy as chief minister became a byword for corruption and its inevitable companion, arbitrariness. And on top of it all, he was extremely arrogant. Mr. Anjiah distinguished himself from his fabulous predecessor only by his incompetence and ineptitude. Mr. Venkataram has just sat through his all-too-brief chief ministership. Perhaps he could not do anything because he was not allowed to by the factional leaders in the state on the one hand and the central leaders speaking in Mrs. Gandhi’s name in New Delhi on the other. And, of course, the chief ministers and the ministers have visited New Delhi all too frequently in order to keep their jobs and or improve their prospects. NTR has exploited these weaknesses – an incompetent and corrupt administration, lack of self-respect on the part of the state chief ministers and ministers and constant factional fights in the Congress (I). But all this does not mean that he is challenging Mrs. Gandhi’s “satraps” and not her.
Like Tamil Nadu, Andhra is a special case on some counts. NTR is the Andhra counterpart of MGR in Tamil Nadu. Such is the sweep and influence of films in Andhra that the people there, like the people in Tamil Nadu, are willing to raise a matinee idol to the status of a political hero. But otherwise Andhra is like most other states under the Congress (I) rule. The ruling party may be facing its gravest challenge in Andhra on account of the presence of NTR and the closeness of the polls to the state legislature – latest by March 1983. But the ruling party is in trouble everywhere. The evident causes are of course local in every case – incompetent and/or venal chief ministers and ministers and endless squabbles within the Congress (I). But it will be naive to believe that this has not weakened the people’s faith in Mrs. Gandhi. She remains the country’s tallest and most popular political figure. But the impression has spread that she is either not willing or not able to act firmly against men and women in her party who are playing ducks and drakes with the country’s future. It will be an exaggeration to describe it as a crisis of confidence in her leadership as far as the common people are concerned. They still wish to believe in her. But they are no longer sure that she will act – not against her critics in the opposition and the press but against those who swear by her and yet do everything to bring her leadership into discredit.
In war it is quite common for generals to open a new front to ease pressure on an existing one by compelling the enemy to divert forces there. Such a strategy may not be inappropriate for Mrs. Gandhi in her present predicament. She can, for example, win the battle for Andhra in another state. She can select one where the challenge to the Congress (I) is not immediate and tough and make an example not only of a corrupt chief minister but of the entire set-up by dismissing the ministry and dissolving the legislature. By one such stroke, she can galvanise the people’s faith in her leadership and make it difficult for her detractors, including NTR, to call it into question. In the process, she will have done the country a lot of good. It needs her and a smack of firm government, especially in certain states. One does not need to name the one crying most loudly for the surgery, everyone knows its name.