The kicking and the screaming ended quietly tonight with K Natwar Singh calling up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Moscow to tell him he would turn in his papers to the PM on his return home on December 7. After this call, Natwar Singh then drove to 10, Janpath where he met party president Sonia Gandhi—by dropping him from the party’s steering committee last night, she had already spoken her mind—and apprised her of his conversation with the Prime Minister. Their meeting lasted an hour. The coincidence couldn’t have been more appropriate: when the Volcker report named him and the party in its annexures, Natwar was in Moscow and when he finally decided to resign—after a month of defiance that sometimes bordered on the passionate, sometimes absurd—he had to dial Moscow. It was also, in a way, full circle for the Prime Minister-Sonia Gandhi combine. Ever since the controversy broke, both have been in step, even in the last stage when it was time to bring pressure on Natwar to resign. While the party was always to take a political view—it was the Congress spokesman who formally announced Natwar’s decision tonight—the PM was to proceed administratively which meant looking at filling up the External Affairs Minister’s post in the upcoming Cabinet expansion. So, it was not surprising that Sonia spoke to the Prime Minister late last night on the decision to remove Natwar from the Congress Steering Committee after Natwar aide Aneil Mathrani’s latest revelations. The whole day today, Natwar refused to quit even after a blunt public message from his Cabinet colleague Kapil Sibal who met Sonia Gandhi and other senior Ministers. Sibal’s message was the most direct: ‘‘Description of his (Natwar) stay in the steering committee, headed by Sonia Gandhi, as untenable is a clear message. There can be no clear(er) message.He (Natwar) will understand the circumstances under which the decision was taken and I’m sure he will take appropriate steps which he considers best in the interest of the party.’’ With Natwar now agreeing to resign, the Prime Minister, sources pointed out, had been spared the trouble of dropping him from the Cabinet, a step which would not have been so simple. For, having termed the Volcker findings as ‘‘unverifiable’’ in the beginning, the government couldn’t have made that the sole basis. More so, the Congress party too has been named by Volcker. But the Prime Minister was also clear that he could not keep the External Affairs Ministry vacant for a long time. This logic was winning support and the PM indicated as much while flying to Moscow. His confirmation that he was planning to hold a Cabinet expansion after the current parliamentary session attached a timeframe of sorts. 40 DAYS OF DENIAL
