Congressmen rediscover Narasimha Rao

NEW DELHI, MARCH 24: Sonia Gandhi loyalists would like to shrug it off as an aberration, but the resounding reception accorded to former ...

NEW DELHI, MARCH 24: Sonia Gandhi loyalists would like to shrug it off as an aberration, but the resounding reception accorded to former Prime Minister — and till now, the forgotten party leader — P V Narasimha Rao by a large section of partymen on his return from United States last night has surely stirred things up in the Congress. By this evening, as many as 56 politicians — and they include five Congress Working Committee (CWC) members and over 25 MPs — were in the queue to meet Rao and have a quite word or two with him.

But what has actually startled the observers, as well as a few senior Congressmen who had written him off, is the emergence of Rao in his new avatar. Four months ago, On November 23, when Rao left for Houston for treatment, only a handful of trusted lieutenants had accompanied him to Delhi airport.

Exactly four months later, however, the Rao that arrived at IGI airport had a trouble sighting his lieutenants from a crowd of 1,500-strong, slogan-shouting Congressmen. Three CWC members, incidentally, were also present in the gathering. Shouts of “Long Live Narasimha Rao,” greeted the party leader as a cavalcade of vehicles escorted him to his Moti Lal Nehru Marg residence.

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Among those lined up to meet Rao is Subramanyan Swamy, now in the news for his tea-party scheduled for the month-end. When contacted, Swamy said he was not sure whether Rao could make it to the gathering. “I am told he is not well. Secondly, he has not been attending functions for quite some time. Let me first talk with him,” he said, cautiously — possibly because there is talk of Sonia Gandhi herself attending the party.

Why the sudden rediscovery of Narasimha Rao? Senior Congressmen, speaking on condition of anonymity, insist that this has to do with the party’s loss of face on issues ranging from support to RJD Government in Bihar and the change in Orissa leadership to its stand on the Vishnu Bhagwat issue.

With a section of senior Congressmen themselves distancing themselves from the party’s own stand on issues such as Bihar, a sense of disenchantment with the leadership has become rather too obvious. This is where Rao steps in. All of a sudden, a section of the party is finding virtues in their long lost chief — and now a potential alternative power centre within the party.

Apart from the three CWC members, former Union Ministers Matang Singh, Aslam Sher Khan, Captain Ayub Khan, Bhubanesh Chaturvedi and former AICC joint secretary Devendra Dwivedi — all belonging to Rao’s inner circle — were at the airport. A number of Congress and Youth Congress leaders as also AICC functionaries from Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana too were present

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Sources close to Rao said that he might have spent the past four months out of the country, but those were not exactly the months of hibernation. “The computer buff that he is, he was keeping himself abreast of each and every development through the Internet,” said one of them. So far, Rao has not met anybody as he is still fighting jetlag. He is likely to start meeting people in a day or two.