The challenges before the 88th AICC president, Mallikarjun Kharge, are numerous, but retaining self-respect is perhaps the most crucial. Kharge, from Day 1, is under hawkish scrutiny, from friends and foes alike, on how the Gandhi trio — Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka — are treating the new party chief, either as a remote or with a hint of disdain.
Day 1 was therefore crucial and a litmus test of sorts. Both Kharge and Sonia Gandhi passed with ease. The picture — of Sonia offering the central, presidential room to Kharge, and then Sonia, Kharge and Shashi Tharoor (who fought the presidential polls and lost) sitting side by side — was high on optics.
But the trial continues. The real test would be Kharge’s handling of the Rajasthan political crisis. If he puts the ongoing political tussle of supremacy, led by chief minister Ashok Gehlot, on a backburner, he would be seen as a ‘weak president.’
If he opts for adventure and tries to dislodge Ashok Gehlot, Kharge would earn a ‘leader’ tag. However, if the mission to topple a crafty Gehlot boomerangs, Kharge would be proving his in-house astrologers wrong who are claiming a ‘hassle-free’ tenure till September 2024.
The history of Congress’s in-house astrologers is not glorious. The day PV Narasimha Rao was convicted in May 1997 for criminal conspiracy and abetment to bribery, his astrologers had predicted a favourable alignment of stars enhancing Rao’s mood, personality, and environment. By the time Sonia Gandhi had reached Rao’s residence offering him services of AICC’s legal department, Rao’s dry wit was back in action. Rao had mumbled something to the effect that he wished to get acquitted not to increase legal complications by employing ‘good for nothing’ Congress lawyers.
Kharge’s immediate task would be to hold the Congress Working Committee (CWC) polls. It is an open secret that the outgoing leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha got the so-called G-23 group of dissenters’ backing in exchange of his promise to hold CWC polls.
The truncated G-23, consisting of Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari and Prithviraj Chavan, had decided to back Kharge as the Congress president primarily for two reasons. First, they were unhappy with fellow dissenter Shashi Tharoor’s move to contest the presidential polls without consulting them. Some G-23 protagonists saw this as an attempt to upstage them. Others felt Tharoor bought an insurance policy of sorts in moving up the ladder in the Congress hierarchy. It is worth remembering that Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, etc, had cabinet rank in the Dr Manmohan Singh cabinet while Tharoor was merely a minister of state, and Prithviraj Chavan had served as a minister in PMO and as chief minister of Maharashtra. The second part of the deal was Kharge’s categorical assurance to ‘democratise’ the CWC polls.
The recent history of CWC polls is rather chequered. At Tirupati in April 1992, PV Narasimha Rao fancied himself in command both as a prime minister and the Congress president. He had not imagined that arch-rivals Sharad Pawar and Arjun Singh would join hands and transfer votes for one another. Minutes before the CWC polls, an informal list of their favourites was circulated among the 700-odd AICC delegates. Nine of the ten members of the Arjun-Pawar panel were elected.
A somewhat astonished Rao then sought the resignations of all the 12 elected CWC members and nominated them to the apex body, just as a ploy to show himself the boss. By the end of the month in 1992, Rao lost his political authority further when the Babri Masjid outrage took place. Five years later in September 1997, Sitaram Kesri sought to act as a democrat. An informal Kesri panel was formed but except for Tariq Anwar, the regional satraps, having tacit understanding among themselves, made it into the elected category. Kesri had to live with a CWC which was largely hostile to him. In 1998 when he was evicted rather unceremoniously, only Anwar stood by him. The coup that took place on March 14, 1998, was not so much Sonia Gandhi’s masterstroke, but an unpublished account of betrayal and perfidy by those Chacha Kesri trusted — Dr Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, Jitendra Prasada, etc.
More than political challenges, Kharge has to be careful about in-house storytellers or those who carry tales far and wide. Like Kharge, Kesri had studied in the college of hard knocks. He would declare himself a commoner who had been elected to the post of president by the party rank posting a landslide victory by getting 6,224 AICC delegates’ votes against Pawar’s 882 and Rajesh Pilot’s 354. Like Kharge, in established Congress tradition, Kesri’s opponents in 1997 had sung a chorus of congratulations and promised to cooperate with him.
Kesri had taken the challenge of being elected AICC chief very seriously. His commoner reference was taken as an act of defiance against Sonia and the Nehru-Gandhi family. Days after Kesri’s election, some party leaders began passing on rumours and gossip to Sonia’s private assistant, Vincent George. In the absence of any confirmation or denial, George was constantly informed about what Kesri was saying about Sonia and her loyalists. For instance, a leader from Madhya Pradesh told George quoting Kesri, “He says he will finish off the Nehru-Gandhi family,” and added another Kesri quote, “The days of rajas and maharajas are over. Foreigners must go back. I have fought thousands of Angrez and…”
Sometimes, Kesri would speak of how Subhas Chandra Bose was greater than Jawaharlal Nehru. “I was part of the Forward Bloc and Netaji’s team in Kolkata,” he would say, closing his eyes. He would ruminate on how India would have been different if Gandhiji had not made the mistake of picking Nehru over Bose. The non-violent pacifist would give way to the radical Kesri who would say, “We have a slave mentality. We have not got freedom after shedding blood. The non-violent method made us impotent. Had Subhas been around, the country would have been different,” Kesri would go on propagating the theory that the Nehru-led, Delhi-centric Congress had consciously suppressed leadership from Bengal.
At a notional level, Kesri, as a Congress chief, had the final say but for all practical purposes, Sonia’s arrival in formal politics in December 1997 had changed everything. Kesri was further reduced by the day and watched mutely as Oscar Fernandes walked in carrying files from 10 Janpath to 24 Akbar Road that were sent by Vincent George, and to which he, Kesri, duly affixed his signature on the dotted line. Kesri suspected that Arjun Singh was acting in concert with George. His suspicions proved right because when he met Sonia and tried to broach the subject, she told him: ‘Kesriji, please consult Arjun Singhji and Madhavrao!’
Kharge, therefore, needs to be more vigilant against the famed palace intrigue than the electoral setbacks, particularly when Team Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are manning the party organisation at various levels of the party hierarchy.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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