Ironically, the UPA-II’s success in 2009 may be responsible for the deterioration, slight though it is. Earlier, the Congress’s unexpected victory in 2004 and the ease with which it cobbled together the ruling alliance had made the party careful about not spoiling its sudden good luck. But, UPA-II has been different.

First, the BJP’s decline has continued at the national level and may get worse as the RSS strengthens its grip on the party as Uma Bharati’s return and Sadhvi Rithambara’s appearance at Baba Ramdev’s circus showed. Secondly, the Left’s decline has removed another major challenger for the Congress, at least for the time being.

Before the eruption of the various scams, the party was looking forward to an easy ride to and beyond 2014. The scene may have changed since the appearance of Anna Hazare and Co although the yoga guru has faded away. But, the government seems to believe that it has turned the corner on the Lokpal issue since it will now be up to parliament to decide on its fate.

Even if the bill’s final form is disliked by the civil society warriors, they will have little option but to beat a retreat if it is accepted by the House. Anna Hazare may threaten to face the bullets, but an agitation of his emotive nature based on fasts and feistiness cannot be sustained for long in the absence of an organizational base.

The slight easing of the situation for the Congress has made Sonia Gandhi’s NAC active once more, suggesting that it has recovered its nerve in contrast to the period when it did not know how to react to the snatching of its moralistic NGO platform by the civil society activists. Hence, the eagerness with which the NAC has returned to business with its outlandish legislative proposals based on the formation of large bureaucratic organizations to oversee its ethical projects.

One of these, according to its plans, will be a gigantic outfit which will focus, first, on the maintenance of communal harmony; secondly, on battling its breakdown by directing the central and state governments during an outbreak; and, thirdly, on looking after the relief and rehabilitation of the riot victims. A similar organization has also been proposed by the NAC for overseeing the food security act, which will provide subsidized food to a huge percentage of the population.

The communal harmony and the food security outfits will be, like the NAC itself, extra-constitutional panels which will essentially do what the governments at the centre and the states are supposed to do. There is little doubt, therefore, that they will basically be interfering busybodies, which will create confusion and foment bitterness, especially if the governments are run by non-Congress parties.

The point, however, is to what extent will they reinforce the prime minister’s present lame duck image. That he is aware of this reputation is no secret. The fact that at two successive press meetings, he had to deny that he was a lame duck was prove enough that the hurtful charge had breached the PMO’s walls. The time has come, therefore, for Manmohan Singh to take a stand. So far, he has been almost constantly on the retreat, except for pushing through the nuclear deal with Rahul Gandhi’s help.

Otherwise, he agreed to the wasteful rural employment scheme although it will not create any durable assets, and acquiesced in the caste-based census operation, which presages the opening of a Pandora’s box of numerous castes and sub-castes, all of which will clamour for reservations. But, the prime minister’s most unfortunate instance of retreat was in allowing a veritable loot of the treasury by tainted ministers for years on the plea of coalition dharma.

There is little doubt that the pressure for turning a blind eye to ministerial shenanigans came from the Congress, whose sole concern was the government’s survival because it dreaded returning to the pre-2004 days. Yet, it was a politically suicidal move to let the government acquire its so-called ethical as well as governance deficits because this led to the Congress’s crushing defeat in Tamil Nadu and a narrow majority in Kerala, not to mention the opprobrium it has earned at the centre.

The only thing that stands between the party’s further collapse into ignominy is Manmohan Singh’s personal reputation for uprightness and his modernistic vision of the country’s progress based on economic reforms. Unless he follows the path he chose in 1991, the party is doomed since none of the NAC’s bureaucratic behemoths will save it. (IPA Service)