Congress may go easy on Pawar loyalists

Meghe had said that party president Sonia Gandhi was being surrounded and advised by a coterie which could be fatal for her and the party. The party quickly reacted then too and AICC general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra, Madhavrao Scindia, was asked to deal with it. After a few days, Meghe said he was misquoted and the party let things lie.

In this case, Patel’s initial reaction was one of disappointment when he said in Mumbaiit was unfortunate that the party chose to send him a show-cause notice without talking to him. Patel also wondered what his role could have been in the Rajya Sabha elections. In any case, he has seven days from the time he receives the notice to reply. But in the Congress leadership, a feeling is growing that Pawar cannot be antagonised at this crucial juncture especially after he has proven his mass base twice. First in the Lok Sabha elections, leading the Congress to its biggest tally of MPs from any single State, and then in the Rajya Sabha elections when both his nominees, Najma Heptulla and Vijay Darda, won.

The message to go slow on Pawar was also conveyed to party Disciplinary Action Committee (DAC) chairman Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy yesterday. Reddy, who headed the three-member CWC team which probed the RS defeat of Sonia’s nominee R D Pradhan, is not exactly a friend of Pawar. Yet, he cooled off from the initial plan to issue show-cause notices to 10 MLAs apart from Patel, and in the end sent it toonly one MLA. In the current atmosphere of uncertainty with the BJP-led coalition being hit by an everyday war of words, especially with the AIADMK, the Congress is keen to have Pawar with it. Sonia too is understood to have agreed on a pacification of Pawar saying she had to clear at least one show-cause notice against Pawar loyalists or she would be seen as “feeble”. With the palpable change in stance on Pawar, the Congress expects this crisis to blow over and lend the party a united image. This is crucial as the other anti-BJP parties are gearing up for an alternative government lead by the Congress. In that eventuality, Pawar becomes a key man and a candidate for the top post. Besides, it has never happened that a party which holds the position of the Leader of the Opposition has initiated disciplinary action that very person. It thus looks like the Pawar storm will pass over and leave the Congress time to concentrate on organisational matters and formation of the next government.

Kamat to meetSonia

Mumbai MP Gurudas Kamat has sought a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the recent Rajya Sabha fiasco. Speaking to The Indian Express from New Delhi, where he has been camping for the last few days, Kamat said he had already met former party president Sitaram Kesri and other top-ranking Congress leaders.