Corruption emerged as a key election issue — though admittedly not the only election issue — in Tamil Nadu. It hurt the Congress in Kerala as well — where a local anti-incumbency against the outgoing Left government competed with anti-incumbency against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre.

Given this, the UPA government has to take urgent measures to change the public discourse in the coming months. Its third year in power, which begins this week, offers it a last chance. As the third year concludes, in the summer of 2012, elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh will beckon. This will further constrict the political space for the Manmohan Singh government.
As such the six odd months from now till the end of the year are a make-or-break period for the UPA. If it allows the drift to continue, it is headed for failure in the run-up to the 2014 national election, and will go back to the people defending a patchy record and a wasted mandate. It doesn’t matter what sort of Opposition combine gains, but the fact is the Congress will lose credibility and votes.
In the coming weeks, the Congress leadership will need to focus on three areas. First is image management. The government has acquired a reputation of being indifferent to corruption, acting only when pushed and creating a situation in which the Supreme Court, rather than the Executive, is monitoring the 2G spectrum scandal investigation. More than that, the Congress has given the impression of falling back on its dirty-tricks reserves.
Take examples. It is now established that the Shanti Bhushan CD — seeking to present a discussion between Mr Bhushan, who is among the Lokpal Bill activists, and two politicians, Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav, on the possible bribing of judges — was a fake. Yet senior ministers from the UPA government were inviting friendly mediapersons for private briefings and sharing reports from allegedly credible state-run laboratories to paint Mr Bhushan as a fixer.
On another note, take the first major post-May 13 political drama. It has come not in a state that had a full-fledged Assembly election but in one that had three byelections, Karnataka. In October 2010, in a somewhat irregular ruling, the Karnataka Assembly Speaker had disqualified a set of Independent and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) before a confidence vote. A week ago, the Supreme Court nullified this disqualification. However, many of the concerned MLAs have now made their peace with the BJP.
True, it is all very dubious. Nevertheless, instead of clarifying matters and playing elder statesman, the Karnataka governor, a Congress veteran, has recommended the state government’s dismissal. He has refused it permission to prove its majority in the House. His crude approach has turned the focus from the embarrassment the Speaker would otherwise have faced following the Supreme Court verdict.
It is unlikely the UPA government will actually impose President’s Rule in Karnataka, but the role of the patently biased governor is not going to help. It will add to suspicions that the Congress is uncomfortable with a federalised polity, and will leave regional allies and would-be allies worried.
Second, there is the issue of the government’s economic agenda. For all the knocking he has taken, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh remains the UPA’s most potent mascot. If he is allowed the space to push ahead with economic policy decisions — particularly in infrastructure and in addressing supply-side issues and agricultural restructuring to tackle long-term food inflation — it can still change the conversation around the government.
Unfortunately, there are enough in the Congress who are philosophically hostile to such policy changes and politically unwilling to allow the Prime Minister the credit he would get for potentially game-changing decisions. They would rather allow him to sink. However, as he sinks, so will the rest of the government. The sullen mood in Indian business, with high cost of finance and low optimism leading to slowing capacity accretion and job creation, is not helping anybody. If Dr Singh is not given the space to start fixing it now, by early 2012 it will be too late.
Third, the party’s inability or unwillingness to allow regional leaders to grow under its broad umbrella has ceased to be a cliché; it has become a crisis. The new chief ministers of Puducherry and West Bengal are former Congress politicians, turfed out of the mother party by conspirators and armchair “leaders”. In the case of Mamata Banerjee it is ironical that Somen Mitra, the state unit president who announced her expulsion from the Congress, now serves as a member of Parliament in her party. This year, his wife was elected as a Trinamul Congress MLA.
These examples are not unique. Provincial politicians and Congress workers know a strong mass leader from a distant figure in New Delhi, who may visit occasionally. Even the Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh) byelection, where loyalty to Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s family scored over any institutional association with the Congress, illustrated this phenomenon.
In Tamil Nadu, the Congress has national-level faces, stalwart ministers in New Delhi, but is missing as a factor in local politics. If Kerala’s election had been presidential, V.S. Achuthanandan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) would have trounced Oomen Chandy of the Congress.
The biggest test will be in Uttar Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi’s foray into land acquisition politics in the western parts of the state was not his first attempt at such direct contact. He has attempted it in desperately-poor Bundelkhand and in flood-hit Gorakhpur and eastern Uttar Pradesh. In each case there has been absence of effective follow up by a robust enough local leader. Beyond a point, Mr Gandhi cannot seek votes for the Congress and promise only tired has-beens — say a Rita Bahuguna or a Pramod Tiwari — as prospective chief ministers.
This will cost the party dear in the Uttar Pradesh election. The “Mayawati versus Who?” question will come back to haunt it. Of course, there is one audacious step Mr Gandhi can take. He can announce himself as the chief ministerial candidate and say Uttar Pradesh will be his training ground before he moves to New Delhi. It’s a high-risk, high-gain strategy. One suspects the Congress doesn’t have the gumption for it.

Ashok Malik can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com