NEW DELHI, March 8: Upset at the move to make Sonia Gandhi chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), party president Sitaram Kesri today cancelled a scheduled CWC meeting and summoned Ghulam Nabi Azad for an explanation on what was happening ``behind his back''.The CWC meeting was slated for this evening and the AICC secretariat went ahead with preparations till the afternoon when Kesri abruptly ordered that the meeting was off and would be held over the next two days. Around 3.30 pm, the CWC meeting was officially postponed and till the time of writing, no time or date has been fixed. According to senior Congress leaders, Kesri was provoked by Azad's statement yesterday that the party could always make Sonia the CPP chairman like Indira Gandhi after she lost her 1977 Lok Sabha election to Raj Narain.This took the pro-Kesri group in the party by surprise and Kesri himself was believed to be miffed; especially when Kesri is working on an elaborate plan to have his loyalist Pranab Mukherjeeas party head in the Rajya Sabha, Pawar as the Congress chief in the Lok Sabha, Sonia as the party president and himself as CPP chief.Kesri, whose hold over the party is fast slipping, is keen to stay in a position of power in the changing Congress setup. Apparently, Kesri sensed that an ambush was being planned in the CWC meeting and was not ready for this. In the last CWC meeting, Kesri became one of the very few, if any, Congress presidents not authorised to take any decisions on the party's behalf, a clear indication of his waning clout. Soon after cancelling the CWC meeting, Kesri summoned Azad to his house for ``deliberations''. Sources close to Kesri said the Congress president questioned Azad on the planned elevation of Sonia which would give her practical control of the CPP, giving ample indications that he was not involved in any such step. That CWC members close to Kesri were taken aback was obvious from the reaction of Tariq Anwar, a confidant of the party president.``Nobody hasapproached me (on making Sonia the CPP chairperson). I am not aware of this. But it is possible that some people are moving on these lines. If Ghulam Nabi has said this, there must be something to it,'' said Anwar. The implication being that there are at least two separate groups working in the CWC.Anwar, one of the few Congressmen to have won the election from Bihar, added that no time or date has been fixed for the postponed CWC meeting. Sharad Pawar, who is being seen as the brain behind the moves to isolate Kesri, had different views. ``There will be no problem about the CPP leadership, it is a matter of a day or two. The CWC might meet tomorrow and the issue will be decided then,'' Pawar said.Pawar who is hoping to play a pivotal role in Congress affairs now, seemed confident of defeating a BJP-led government on the floor of the Lok Sabha.``We will not stop them from forming the government. But we must again take the line we did in 1996 (when the Congress and the UF allied to defeat the Vajpayeegovernment in the vote of confidence),'' he said.Pawar has been working hard to get former allies like Ramakrishna Hegde of Lok Shakti, Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee back to supporting the Congress.However, some hard work will be needed to swing these leaders over to the Congress side. But these moves will depend on how successful Kesri is in his plans.Pawar loyalists lobby for Maratha strongmanMoves are afoot by the Sharad Pawar lobby to install their leader as parliamentary party leader. Pawar supporter Datta Meghe said on Sunday that justice should be done to the former for he had worked hard to trounce the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra and had been able to secure the largest number of MPs from a single State. Pawar supporters met at Meghe's residence over lunch. Pawar, Sudhakarrao Naik and MPs belonging Republican Party of India, including Ramdas Athwale and Joginder Kavade, were also present.
