Sonia gets big 'I' certificate

So what''s the latest political fad? Next to lining up to be counted on either side of the Ayodhya debate, it''s showering praises on the suddenly acceptable, not-so-much-a-foreigner-after-all Sonia Gandhi.
Just look at who''s going soft on the Congress chief. Going by the number of "Indian" certificates she has been suddenly getting, the Lady of 10 Janpath should be feeling more patriotic than Sunny Deol in a golden wig.
After the confused mumbles of the MCP.sorry. NCP leader Sharad Pawar, who is now gracing Opposition Assemblies under Gandhi whatever he may say, and the more forthcoming for now Mulayam Singh Yadav, the latest on the list is Mayawati. Who has discovered the Hindu within Sonia, because the Congress chief made a courtesy call to ask after the ailing Kanshi Ram. Now, Sonia is known to be very proper about social niceties and such propriety would tend to have little political connotation.
Mayawati would like the BJP - including her rakhi brother Lalji Tandon, one presumes - to take immediate lessons from Sonia in Hindu culture. That is rich coming from her. The BSP boss had made a hobby of Gandhi bashing - and we are talking about the Nehru-Gandhi strain here - in the last year or so as UP chief minister, picking particularly on scion of the century Priyanka Gandhi. She took the battle to what the Gandhi''s consider family turf, Amethi, changing the name to a mouthful - Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar.
Last reports say a rechristening could be in the offing. It will be called Rajiv Gandhi Nagar if Mulayam Singh Yadav obliges. Who, in his moment of extreme satisfaction may well be inclined to. Anything but actually acknowledge Sonia Gandhi as prime ministerial candidate.
Four significant years ago, Sonia Gandhi was a foreigner, despite her 30-odd years as the first bahu of the country, and you couldn''t convince the Samajwadi Party chief otherwise. Not because she spoke atrocious Hindi or had phirang relatives, but because she did not deign to entertain Mulayam''s lieutenant Amar Singh when he sought an audience. So she was not Indian enough to be prime minister.
That degree of Indian-ness may still be lacking, but it could well be made up in a year''s time, depending on how the political scene develops. It was Amar Singh actually who, a couple of years ago, gave the first sign that she could be becoming ''Indian'' after all. On the day that a private members Bill moved by him was to come up in the Rajya Sabha, on the subject of non-Indian leaders, Singh crept away sheepishly into the badlands of UP, only to emerge a day later and admit he had run away.
Now, of course, she is as Indian as Mulayam Singh is UP chief minister, and one suspects for as long as he is that. The lieutenant though does say: "If the Shankaracharya accepts her as such, and the Supreme Court too, who are we to say she is not."
What he does not say, and the beleaguered Mayawati too and for that matter the shrewd but marginalised Sharad Pawar, is that it is imperative that they recognise Sonia Gandhi as Indian soon enough to hitch on to a potential gravy train.
There is no place on the other convoy, led by the BJP, for these erstwhile Sonia bashers. They have enough arsenal of their own thank you, in the very potent combination of Pravin Togadia, Narendra Modi and their ilk. Do not discount J Jayalalithaa, architect of the last Sonia-is-a-foreigner campaign, who''s waiting in the wings to begin again. Perhaps P A Sangma, virulently anti-Sonia and the author of a hate book on the subject, could be tempted to join this party.