Resignation, refusal and ‘gang of four’

Congress president Sonia Gandhi rejected the resignations ‘‘offered’’ by a handful of AICC office-bearers on Sunday night but the controversy over who and what triggered the resignations continues to rage.

Many Congressmen insist that the ‘‘coterie’’ around Sonia Gandhi instigated the resignation drama and falsely put out the story that the entire CWC had resigned. It was their way to pre-empt any action that could have been taken against them after the submission of the Pranab Mukherjee committee report.

But their plan backfired when senior CWC members (known as the ‘‘old guard’’) checked with Sonia and found out that she had given no instructions to any member to resign and the ‘‘coterie’’ had acted on its own. A miffed Sonia then let it be known that no resignations would be accepted and she would make changes as and when she saw fit.

Even as the anti-coterie group was gloating at the turn of events, reports have been put out that the whole resignation drama was actually at the behest of the Congress chief who later got cold feet when senior CWC members refused to resign.

A senior Congress leader rubbished these reports, pointing out that no Congressman — senior or junior, old guard or new guard — would ever refuse to resign if the party chief wanted that.

The bitterness within the party has reached such a level that several Congressmen have begun to rechristen the word ‘‘coterie’’ with the far less nebulous term — ‘‘gang of four’’, comprising Ambika Soni, Ahmed Patel, Kamal Nath and Mukul Wasnik — and blame them for the the resignation drama.

The Pranab Mukherjee committee, members said, was not going to indulge in name-calling but undertake a serious analysis of the ‘‘deficiencies at the party and government level’’, which led to the party’s defeat, and suggest remedial measures.