The Centre Cannot Hold

Summary

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Last fortnight saw Sonia Gandhi firefighting dissidence in three Congress-ruled states. The party chief sacked one chief minister and issued showcause notices to rebels in two states. Suddenly, the party's scorecard of 14 chief ministers seemed to lose its sheen. D.D. Lapang of Meghalaya is only the third chief minister to have been dismissed by Sonia in the last eight years (apart from Vilasrao Deshmukh and Giridhar Gomang) as opposed to Rajiv Gandhi, who changed chief ministers in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra four times in five years. Sonia, however, has retained the Congress culture of divide and rule: each chief minister is saddled with a powerful PCC chief so that no state satrap can outgrow 10, Janpath. A look at the battles within.

B.S. Hooda

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The Centre Cannot Hold

HARYANA

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is caught between the machinations of the Opposition Indian National Lok Dal and sniping from within. In the 16 months since Hooda outsmarted the wily state Congress chief Bhajan Lal in the race for the top post, Lal's younger son Kuldeep Bishnoi, MP from Bhiwani, has emerged as the most vocal-and vicious-critic of the chief minister's style of functioning. While a sulking Lal and his elder son, deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, maintain a studied silence, Bishnoi has not missed any opportunity to attack Hooda, accusing him of "poor ...

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