In a party that thrives on speaking only when spoken to by the high command — Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, political secretary Ahmed Patel and a handful of other senior leaders — the depth of feeling that has emerged in the Congress party’s rank-and-file against the handling of the Anna Hazare agitation is striking.
On Tuesday, Praveen Aron, Congress member of Parliament from Bareilly, complained in a letter to Congress Secretary General Rahul Gandhi about the “inappropriate” handling of the agitation, which he characterized as one with a “techno-legal approach and not political far-sightedness.”
This was an apparent reference to Home Minister P. Chidambaram, and Kapil Sibal, minister for Human Resource Development and Telecommunications. Both men are lawyers and well-known technocrats, who had led the early days of the government’s response to Mr. Hazare’s anticorruption fast.
Mr. Aron told India Real Time that “a lot of people within the party support my move” though he declined to name the targets of his attack. “They are a few lawyers,” he added somewhat darkly.
There was no response from the Congress party to Mr. Aron — itself a telling indication that the criticism has been well-received in high places. In the shadow play that the party revels in, comments as well as their absence are cues to what the party high command thinks, noted one party insider.
Mr. Aron had earlier, at the height of the agitation, on his own behalf sent Team Anna’s bill on creating a Lokpal, or anticorruption ombudsman, to Parliament’s drafting committee to debate. But aside from him and a handful of others, most of the Congress party’s younger MPs failed to steer or lift the national debate on corruption as it unfolded in Parliament, on the streets, and on television over the last two weeks.
Now, much is made of the Congress party’s young MPs, not only because several are highly articulate and have studied in universities abroad, but because they are widely expected to be in the vanguard that carries the party and Rahul Gandhi into the next elections.
Only a handful publicly responded to their constituents’ criticisms of Congress’s handling of the matter. They include Sandeep Dixit, Congress MP from east Delhi and son of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit; Priya Dutt, MP from Mumbai North-Central; Sanjay Nirupam, MP from Mumbai North and Mr. Aron.
Many of the young MPs, if they reacted at all, preferred to privately lobby Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the government’s chief interlocutor and finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee.
Several, including Sachin Pilot from Ajmer, R.P.N. Singh from Kushinagar, Milind Deora from Mumbai South and Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, spoke up after Mr. Gandhi’s own speech in Parliament two days before Mr. Hazare’s hunger strike ended – the only speech put out on the Congress party website – thereby reaffirming the perception that they were unwilling to get out of Rahul Gandhi’s shadow, at least not yet.
“If people feel that we responded only after Rahul Gandhi spoke, well that is partially true,” said one young MP. “But it’s not as if we didn’t feel strongly about the matter. As parliamentarians, we believe in the sanctity of the Parliament, but as people’s representatives, at the end of the day, it is about serving the people’s desires.”
To be sure, Mr. Aron also hedged his bets not only by addressing his letter to the party’s heir-apparent, but also by pointing out that he sensed a “conspiracy to undermine the credibility” of Mr. Gandhi’s leadership as well as to question the integrity of the Prime Minister.
Another Congress official told IRT that the party rank-and-file have, only half-jokingly, nicknamed Mr. Sibal and Mr. Chidambaram “IPC” and “CrPC” respectively, because of the perception that they were much quicker to invoke the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code than they were to respond to political challenges with political arguments.
Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Sibal declined comment.
A third party official pointed out that a “third lawyer” — law minister Salman Khurshid –also had faced criticism but “saved himself by the skin of his teeth” by responding to overtures by Sandeep Dixit and Mrs. Dixit’s political secretary, Pavan Khera, who had already opened a backchannel to Team Anna through their connections with the NGO community.
According to one Congress official familiar with the negotiating strategy, Messrs. Dixit and Khera did not seek the party’s advice or permission nor were they seconded by the party to break the ice with the Hazare camp.
Mr. Dixit brought his friend and fellow parliamentarian Mr. Khurshid into the talks on Aug. 22 – six days after Mr. Hazare had been arrested, sent to Tihar jail and then ordered released. Mr. Khurshid then asked Mr. Mukherjee to join the discussion. Sheila Dixit had, meanwhile, spoken to the Prime Minister to inform him about the ongoing conversation, according to this official.
“Mr Khurshid held several rounds of talks with Team Anna, then requested Pranab Mukherjee to come in,” this official said. Mr. Khurshid couldn’t be reached for comment.
As the momentum around Mr. Hazare’s hunger strike grew, especially in urban centers like Delhi and Mumbai, this group began a regular dialogue with Team Anna, this official said.
With someone as experienced and powerful as Mr. Mukherjee now on board — and with Mr. Patel, the political secretary, attending a party core committee meeting with Prime Minister Singh — Mr. Singh was persuaded to abandon the hard line that had been pursued and instead launch political negotiations with Hazare’s camp, according to this official.
He added: “What was frightening was that the Congress party, if it is the Titanic, was not going to sink because it clashed into an immovable object, but that it simply seemed unable to turn and maneuver itself out of a dangerous situation.”
“Once Pranab Mukherjee became part of the negotiations we realized that compromise was possible,” said Bibhav Kumar, the Team Anna member with responsibility for the media. “We can proudly say that there are no winners or no losers, only that this compromise is a big win for democracy. But if parliament had not bowed, there could have been a collision with civil society,” he added.
On Tuesday, Praveen Aron, Congress member of Parliament from Bareilly, complained in a letter to Congress Secretary General Rahul Gandhi about the “inappropriate” handling of the agitation, which he characterized as one with a “techno-legal approach and not political far-sightedness.”
This was an apparent reference to Home Minister P. Chidambaram, and Kapil Sibal, minister for Human Resource Development and Telecommunications. Both men are lawyers and well-known technocrats, who had led the early days of the government’s response to Mr. Hazare’s anticorruption fast.
Mr. Aron told India Real Time that “a lot of people within the party support my move” though he declined to name the targets of his attack. “They are a few lawyers,” he added somewhat darkly.
There was no response from the Congress party to Mr. Aron — itself a telling indication that the criticism has been well-received in high places. In the shadow play that the party revels in, comments as well as their absence are cues to what the party high command thinks, noted one party insider.
Mr. Aron had earlier, at the height of the agitation, on his own behalf sent Team Anna’s bill on creating a Lokpal, or anticorruption ombudsman, to Parliament’s drafting committee to debate. But aside from him and a handful of others, most of the Congress party’s younger MPs failed to steer or lift the national debate on corruption as it unfolded in Parliament, on the streets, and on television over the last two weeks.
Now, much is made of the Congress party’s young MPs, not only because several are highly articulate and have studied in universities abroad, but because they are widely expected to be in the vanguard that carries the party and Rahul Gandhi into the next elections.
Only a handful publicly responded to their constituents’ criticisms of Congress’s handling of the matter. They include Sandeep Dixit, Congress MP from east Delhi and son of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit; Priya Dutt, MP from Mumbai North-Central; Sanjay Nirupam, MP from Mumbai North and Mr. Aron.
Many of the young MPs, if they reacted at all, preferred to privately lobby Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the government’s chief interlocutor and finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee.
Several, including Sachin Pilot from Ajmer, R.P.N. Singh from Kushinagar, Milind Deora from Mumbai South and Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, spoke up after Mr. Gandhi’s own speech in Parliament two days before Mr. Hazare’s hunger strike ended – the only speech put out on the Congress party website – thereby reaffirming the perception that they were unwilling to get out of Rahul Gandhi’s shadow, at least not yet.
“If people feel that we responded only after Rahul Gandhi spoke, well that is partially true,” said one young MP. “But it’s not as if we didn’t feel strongly about the matter. As parliamentarians, we believe in the sanctity of the Parliament, but as people’s representatives, at the end of the day, it is about serving the people’s desires.”
To be sure, Mr. Aron also hedged his bets not only by addressing his letter to the party’s heir-apparent, but also by pointing out that he sensed a “conspiracy to undermine the credibility” of Mr. Gandhi’s leadership as well as to question the integrity of the Prime Minister.
Another Congress official told IRT that the party rank-and-file have, only half-jokingly, nicknamed Mr. Sibal and Mr. Chidambaram “IPC” and “CrPC” respectively, because of the perception that they were much quicker to invoke the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code than they were to respond to political challenges with political arguments.
Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Sibal declined comment.
A third party official pointed out that a “third lawyer” — law minister Salman Khurshid –also had faced criticism but “saved himself by the skin of his teeth” by responding to overtures by Sandeep Dixit and Mrs. Dixit’s political secretary, Pavan Khera, who had already opened a backchannel to Team Anna through their connections with the NGO community.
According to one Congress official familiar with the negotiating strategy, Messrs. Dixit and Khera did not seek the party’s advice or permission nor were they seconded by the party to break the ice with the Hazare camp.
Mr. Dixit brought his friend and fellow parliamentarian Mr. Khurshid into the talks on Aug. 22 – six days after Mr. Hazare had been arrested, sent to Tihar jail and then ordered released. Mr. Khurshid then asked Mr. Mukherjee to join the discussion. Sheila Dixit had, meanwhile, spoken to the Prime Minister to inform him about the ongoing conversation, according to this official.
“Mr Khurshid held several rounds of talks with Team Anna, then requested Pranab Mukherjee to come in,” this official said. Mr. Khurshid couldn’t be reached for comment.
As the momentum around Mr. Hazare’s hunger strike grew, especially in urban centers like Delhi and Mumbai, this group began a regular dialogue with Team Anna, this official said.
With someone as experienced and powerful as Mr. Mukherjee now on board — and with Mr. Patel, the political secretary, attending a party core committee meeting with Prime Minister Singh — Mr. Singh was persuaded to abandon the hard line that had been pursued and instead launch political negotiations with Hazare’s camp, according to this official.
He added: “What was frightening was that the Congress party, if it is the Titanic, was not going to sink because it clashed into an immovable object, but that it simply seemed unable to turn and maneuver itself out of a dangerous situation.”
“Once Pranab Mukherjee became part of the negotiations we realized that compromise was possible,” said Bibhav Kumar, the Team Anna member with responsibility for the media. “We can proudly say that there are no winners or no losers, only that this compromise is a big win for democracy. But if parliament had not bowed, there could have been a collision with civil society,” he added.
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