Landslide victory of Smt. Sonia Gandhi in the Congress presiden tial election was never in doubt. And yet a wave of enthusiasm has swept the nationwide spread of the party. Indeed it is not only the rank and file Congressmen who have been so affected, there are stirrings of a new hope among people who see the party as saviour of the nation from the disastrous impact of the rising sectarian and divisive forces. It marks a new chapter in the history of the party whose past is replete with instances of its capacity to adjust itself to every change in national situation.

The electoral process introduced by her had jolted every Congress worker out of complacency. The conduct of election by an autonomous authority created an atmosphere in which each Congress worker felt compelled to think of the challenges facing the country and of the leader who can gear up the party to help people face them. Opportunist permutations and combinations as paths to power have brought the country into a blind alley.

The situation resembles first decade of the last century when political discourse was confined to middle class drawing rooms and politicians sought relevance in ability to seek concessions from the British rulers for their respective communities. Gandhi pulled it out of the closets and drove political activists towards the huts and homes of common people. It is that activity which made Congress the vehicle of people's aspirations and transformed politics from sectarianism to nationalism. In that process Congress developed a national vision of independence as opportunity for every citizen to think and act independently. The long durability of Congress influence is the fruit of that vision.

When Smt. Gandhi assumed the leadership of Congress two years ago the party seemed to be drifting away from that vision. Rather than seeking strength through live contact with people a tendency developed to manipulate them through short cut of appeal to sectarian sentiments, methods that opponents of Congress had adopted to bring it down. Instead of exploring the corridors of power, Smt. Gandhi plunged herself into exploring the hearts and minds of Congress workers. She undertook extensive tours, got in touch with grass root workers and gave them a feeling that the relationship with the leader was not one-way traffic. The leader needed them as much as they needed the leader. She was bold enough to admit mistakes of the party and push it into self-introspection.

Elections are the instrument for making democracy participatory giving to the electors a feeling of sharing responsibility about decision-making for social order and development. Smt. Sonia Gandhi adopted it to inspire a feeling in Congress activists that they were not to expect directives but help in giving direction to the party. Rather than resorting to the practice prevailing in most of the Indian political parties, national as well as regional, to top-level management of consensus she threw the door open for free and fair expression of opinion. The overwhelming support she has received does not detract from the fact that the approval is a voluntary expression of opinion.

The significance of the process has been lost on the media which prefers to cater only to the urban middle class taste. This class has never taken kindly to Congress ever since it focussed attention on the under-privileged rural and urban population. On account of this identification its activity got a rustic complexion which the middle class treated as an object of scoff and sneer. That is why the rusticity of celebration has been jeered at. The media perceptions, based exclusively on one-line sound-bytes from city-based leaders, failed to appreciate what has gone into making this electoral victory of Smt. Sonia Gandhi.

I feel compelled to point this out for mainly two reasons. One, that our media persons do not care to study and report the positive activity within party calculated to rejuvenate the party while they pick on every critical comment, however baseless, as significant information necessary for public consumption. For example, last month Congress Sevadal held a cadre's camp at Jaipur. More, than six hundred leading workers of Sevadal participated. The Congress President stayed in the camp for nearly two days providing opportunity for a number of them to interact with her individually or in small groups. One full half-day session was kept for volunteers to freely express themselves on the state of the organisation.

The local media confined itself to reporting from the speeches of leaders views which those very leaders had often expressed or to cantankerously pick holes in the proceedings. Close interaction of the party President with grass root workers was something unprecedented and should therefore have been treated as news. It could also give an idea of the response that she was getting at that level. The margin of her victory then would not have given them the shock they seem to have suffered now.

My second complaint is that they minutely dissect the election process in Congress without giving the same treatment to other parties. Most of the other national parties elect their party chiefs through a mechanism which provides no scope for grass root workers so that the chiefs hold position almost in perpetuity. The BJP president, for example, is invariably decided upon by the RSS. Pt. Mauli Chandra Sharma and Balraj Madhok, for instance, were pushed out because they did not conform to the pattern of conduct dictated by the RSS. The general secretaries of communist parties remain unchanged even when policies and tactics are changed. So far as other parties are concerned they hang by thin threads of single individuals. And yet Congress alone is pilloried for showing reverence to a person.

The attitude of the media can, in a way, be treated as a compliment for it indicates higher expectation of adherence to democratic values from Congress than from other parties.