Opinion Disagreeable Congressman

If 10 Janpath could ignore the groundswell of support for Jagan Mohan Reddy even in the emotionally charged aftermath of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy’s death,surely it had many ways to rein in the seemingly defiant legislators from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema? How could Chief Minister K. Rosaiah,who is still tentative about his tenure,muster the courage to declare that he was “shocked,anguished and astonished” by Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s announcement? How could he defiantly announce that he had no instructions from the Centre about a Telangana

resolution in the assembly?

Inherent in these questions is the key to the Congress strategy on Telangana. The anti-Telangana campaign,though not orchestrated,was not undesirable either. Did the high command not know how Jagan loyalists were in the forefront of this campaign to destabilise Rosaiah?

The Congress under Sonia Gandhi is democratic but only to the extent that it suits the party in a given situation. In a culture in which the line between dissent and rebellion is not delineated,differences of opinion have surfaced once too

often in recent times. In fact,sometimes the party seemed to encourage dissent either to make painful decisions more palatable or to usurp the opposition viewpoint,or simply to get out of difficult situations like the one caused by

K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s fast.

Remember the nuclear deal? Some Congressmen were no less critical than the Left. Salman Khursheed and Mani Shankar

Aiyar even went public. But once Sonia Gandhi came out in its

support,everything and everybody fell in place.

The aftermath of the Batla House encounter witnessed similar equivocation on the part of the Congress. While the SP demanded a judicial probe into the incident,the Congress’s official party line was that it was “inappropriate” for a political party to take a stand on a police encounter. Some like Digvijay Singh,however,wanted the government to address the “questions” being raised about the police encounter. Parvez Hashmi,who also raised questions then,was nominated to the Rajya Sabha a few months later.

Then,before the general elections,even as Congress-SP alliance talks were on,Digvijay Singh and Satyavrat Chaturvedi took pot-shots at SP general secretary Amar Singh. Chaturvedi went to the extent of calling Singh a “mental case”. The party distanced itself — but,weeks later,they had the last laugh. At a function at the India Habitat Centre recently to felicitate Firozabad by-poll victor Raj Babbar,Chaturvedi was asked whether he had to face the wrath of the Congress president for those remarks. He took a long puff from his cigar before blurting out,“At no point did I get any instruction from the high command.”

There were similar conflicting voices on the controversial Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm el-Sheikh. Immediately after

returning to India,the PM had called on the Congress president to explain the statement; she was said to be convinced. For the next several days though,party spokespersons refused to endorse the joint statement,in a clear attempt to give an impression of disagreement with the government. The objective was to insulate the party against any adverse public reaction.

The projected split among party MPs from Telangana and non-Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh has also achieved the

desired results. K. Chandrasekhar Rao,who had quit the UPA

cabinet,has again developed a faith in the Congress,as he is in regular touch with the Congress leadership after breaking his fast. Publicly also,he today sings paeans to Sonia Gandhi.

Those who were privy to the deliberations in the Congress core group meetings claim that everything has happened “as per the script”. But,had TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu waited a little longer before making yet another somersault on Telangana,the Congress would have found itself caught in its own trap. The party’s crisis managers were counting on Naidu and he did not disappoint them. Of course,if Naidu had supported the resolution,it would still be one among many others gathering dust at the Centre.

dk.singh@expressindia.com