The reason for her decision to quit was speculation yesterday. It is almost clear today. Sonia's theme of sacrifice and service to her adopted nation without desire for position, repeated the second time, has obviously not cut ice. On the contrary, as an opposition spokesman said, it confirms her guilt even more eloquently. The facts, undeniable and undenied, speak for themselves.

First, that the government shut down the Parliament and had braced to issue ordinance to save her from the humiliation she had heaped on Jaya Bachchan is no more denied, nor deniable. That it was an intrigue to subvert the Constitution reminiscent of conspiracies that led to the imposition of the Emergency in 1975 is becoming increasingly difficult to deny. The attempt of the ruling party now is to conceal that Sonia was privy to the conspiracy to shut down the Parliament and to issue an ordinance to save her being knocked off the rolls of the Lok Sabha. But, as a newspaper said quoting the Congress party sources, ''nothing happens in the party or the government without Sonia being informed'', the decision to shut down the Parliament and issue the Save-Sonia ordinance could not have been taken without her approval. Obviously, there is no taker for the 'Sonia-does-not-know' fiction.

Second, why then the ordinance move was aborted? Why instead of going ahead with subverting the Constitution to save her from the humiliation of loss of Lok Sabha membership, she changed her tack to 'sacrifice' theme, of course with little credibility this time. It was because of what was becoming obvious by Thursday morning itself. First, the uproar the Opposition raised in the Parliament where the ruling party had no logical explanation for the early closure of the Parliament. Second, the timely exposure by the media about the hidden conspiracy to bring out an ordinance.

Third, the way the UPA allies began distancing themselves from the ordinance move and some even opposed it. Fourth, the tone and the tenor of the Chief Election Commissioner B.N.Tandon's statement that ''the law is equal for everybody and the EC will consider the petition against Sonia Gandhi once the President referred it''.

This should have shocked the Sonia loyalists. By the time the ordinance was ready the CEC's unequivocal statement had come. This virtually nailed the ordinance. And finally, as reported by the media, the very advisers of Sonia themselves had the doubt whether President Kalam would put stamp or stop the ordinance. In the mind of many, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the President would examine the ordinance in the light of the complaint of electoral law violations pending with the President himself which the ordinance would seek to nullify.

Imagine the government had issued the Ordinance and the President sought clarification from the government about its effect on the existing complaint against Sonia and others. That would have finished not only Sonia but the government itself! After meeting the President on Wednesday, Atal Behari Vajpayee told the media, ''I don't think the government will bring in the ordinance. And if it does, along with the ordinance the government will go.'' This one-liner was sufficient to underline the risk the Sonia and the government faced on Thursday morning in sending the ordinance to the President. So posting the ordinance to the President was fraught with grave potentialities.

Imagine the other possibility, that is, the President sends the complaint against Sonia to the EC ahead of the government sending the ordinance or the President sends the complaint to the EC and awaits its fate before signing the ordinance. This will not only destroy the credibility of the government but also disastrously fail the very object of the ordinance conspiracy.

So the sacrifice theme this time was undoubtedly an inevitable political necessity to save Sonia from embarrassment and humiliation. Just compare the Sacrifice theme of 2004 with the Sacrifice theme of 2006. How the media lapped it up then and how the same media ridicules it now. The reason is simple. In politics, the same card, that too a moral one, cannot be played a second time. Not only does the second card fail, it casts doubts and fails the first one also. Was the 2004 sacrifice also a drama like this one undoubtedly is?

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, March 25, 2006