As winter settles on Delhi, India's ruling party is suffering from a nasty chill. Beset by scandal, battered in a regional poll and split in an important state, Congress's leaders are out of sorts. Less than a third of his way through his second term, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leads a gloomy government. Even a relatively robust economy provides little cheer.
The party is preparing for a conclave of its leadership between December 18 and 20 amid a welter of corruption scandals. Indians might have wearily shrugged off one or two cases of high-profile graft, especially if the prime minister had been on his toes. But a series of horrors and leaden-footed official responses have riled them.
Parliamentary business has been all but shut down for three weeks by the barracking of opposition politicians who are demanding an inquiry into a dodgy sale of 2G mobile-phone licences in 2008.
One scalp has been taken. The telecommunications minister, A. Raja, who is an ally of Congress, quit in November (though denying any wrongdoing). But many Indians say he should have been sent packing years ago. Now the opposition wants public interrogations of all those connected with the affair, from Singh down. That could last for months.
New year will bring no respite. January sees the first report of an investigation into allegations of huge graft in the build-up to the Commonwealth Games. These were held in Congress-ruled Delhi in October and run by a leading member of the party.
And in Maharashtra, a state where a housing scam toppled Congress's chief minister last month, a new scandal is brewing. The private construction of a whole new city, Lavasa, has been halted over the brazen flouting of planning rules, presumably with the connivance of politicians.
Double standards
National politics looks grubby too. Newspapers have been gleefully reporting on leaks of tapped phone conversations which show a lobbyist, paid by some of India's best-known tycoons, apparently swaying the minds of ruling politicians. This sits ill with Congress's claim to uphold above all else the interests of the aam aadmi, or common man.
The Supreme Court last month upbraided Singh for moving far too tardily over the 2G scam. The same court this week raised doubts over another official appointment, that of P.J. Thomas who was installed in September as the head of a national anti-graft body despite being charged with corruption himself. Thomas may soon quit. A surer-footed prime minister would have cut him loose long ago.
More troubling for Congress are signs that Singh's presumed successor as prime minister, Rahul Gandhi, a scion of the party's dominant family, is fumbling too.
Last month, Gandhi led attempts to revive the local Congress party in Bihar, a dirt-poor but populous eastern state which has just held elections for its legislature. He guided the campaign, wheeled out Sonia Gandhi (his mother, Congress's president) and whipped up 16 big rallies of young supporters.
Yet his returns were dismal. Congress got a measly four seats (down from nine) out of 243. The incumbent coalition led by Nitish Kumar, a capable, low-caste chief minister who has built lots of new roads, schools and hospitals in the past five years, scooped 206 — one of the biggest electoral victories in Indian history.
No impact
Elsewhere too, in Tamil Nadu for example, Gandhi's efforts to attract young voters and promote able leaders in Congress have not brought electoral gains. He has other opportunities, notably in Uttar Pradesh's important state polls in 2012. But more poor results could weaken his claim to be prime ministerial material in 2014, when general elections are due.
A more immediate problem for Congress is a nasty split in a big southern state, Andhra Pradesh, one of the party's heartlands. On November 29, the head of a powerful local family, Jaganmohan Reddy, quit Congress, after months of bitter infighting. He was snubbed for the job of chief minister, a post his late father had held for the party.
The Reddys were behind much of Congress's success in the state in the past two elections. This week he said he would instead launch his own party and try to poach local Congress MPs.
Rich, bitter and set on revenge, Reddy may dent Congress's support. For the moment, however, the party can at least claim two big saving graces. Its national opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has dreadful weaknesses too, including the lack of a charismatic leader. And many voters are still likely to credit Congress for a strong economy (at least if inflation can be kept in check), with annual growth now running at an impressive 9 per cent.
Congress could do more to sustain that performance, for example by encouraging foreign investment in India's woeful infrastructure, shops and banks. Singh was in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to attend the 11th annual summit of India and the European Union, where he had once been expected to sign a free-trade deal.
This is now on hold for at least another six months while, among other things, the government works out how to deal with foreign investors. Decisiveness is not a virtue of the embattled Singh.
