Vincent back from the cold to keep old guard warm

Although he retained his designation, he no longer sat in the ante-room in 10, Janpath. And though he was occasionally given 8216;8216;special assignments,8217;8217; his erstwhile powers were all but usurped by the rising star in the Congress firmament, Ambika Soni.

That equation suddenly changed a few days ago with George returning to his old office. Said a senior Congress functionary: 8216;8216;He8217;s been back just about a week but chief ministers have started calling on him, ticket aspirants are making a beeline at his door.8217;8217;

Despite repeated attempts, George could not be contacted either at his office or residence till late tonight.

Ambika Soni, when contacted, told The Indian Express: 8216;8216;There is no question of any return. I am told he has been coming here 10 Janpath three times a week regularly.8217;8217; Asked to clarify what she meant by 8216;8216;I am told,8217;8217; Soni replied: 8216;8216;I am not here all the time, I am no longer political secretary.8217;8217;

While no one is clear why exactly he has been brought back at this critical juncture, all are agreed that it8217;s linked to the raging battle in the party8217;s upper echelons between the so-called 8216;8216;old guard8217;8217; and the 8216;8216;new coterie8217;8217; that displaced it.

George may have been in semi-exile for the past three years but he remained a key member of the 8216;8216;old guard8217;8217; which includes Arjun Singh, Natwar Singh, and M L Fotedar.

The power of this group was considerably eclipsed by the 8220;coterie8221; led by Ambika Soni and her 8220;boys8221; Salman Khurshid, Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnik among others. In the last few years, Soni became a power centre unto herself8212;as Sonia Gandhi8217;s political secretary and AICC general secretary in charge of key states as well as the much coveted media committee.

While Soni8217;s wings were clipped in the reshuffle following the December debacle she was in charge of both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the Congress got a drubbing, some felt she continued to rule by proxy.

The biggest evidence of this, Congressmen point out, is that the 8220;entire decision-making in the run-up to the polls and campaign strategy8221; were handled by Ambika8217;s group, particularly Jairam Ramesh and Salman Khurshid. This has led to considerable heart-burn in sections of the Congress.

The rehabilitation of George, sources said, could be part of 8216;8216;a balancing act8217;8217; by the Congress president who does not want a sullen old guard ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls. The anti-Ambika faction also claim that George8217;s return is a direct fallout of the oblique threat meted out by Arjun Singh through his son, Ajay Singh. The junior Singh had a much-publicised meeting with BJP chief Venkaiah Naidu recently, sparking off speculation that another key Congress family after Digivijay Singh8217;s was being won over by the saffron camp.

While the Ambika camp insists that Arjun Singh was given 8220;an hour8217;s notice8221; by Sonia Gandhi to clarify his position, Arjun loyalists claim that the move sent 8220;tremors registering 8 on the Richter Scale8221; within the Congress ranks.

The Congress president, they say, realised that the 8216;8216;old guard8217;8217; still counted and knew the ropes of the Congress machinery better than the new whizkids on the block. The return of George is thus aimed not just at appeasing this group but also handing over the burden of meeting the 8216;8216;endless line of aspirants.8217;8217;

Incidentally, the case against George had its genesis in the corruption case lodged by the agency against former Delhi Chief of the Enforcement Directorate, Ashok Agarwal.

During his CBI interrogation, Agarwal had given some leads on assets owned by George and foreign remittances received by him after which the CBI had lodged an FIR. George8217;s house was subsequently searched by the CBI.