HOME | NEWS | CAPITAL BUZZ
		Virendra Kapoor

	This was billed as the Congress Party's comeback rally. A lot of planning had gone into it. And a lot of money, too. If her late husband Rajiv Gandhi had begun the 1989 Lok Sabha campaign from Faizabad near Ayodhya by promising to usher in Ram Rajya, Sonia had chosen to kick off the 1999 campaign from the holy Hindu city of Varanasi. The public meeting was supposed to be the culmination of the 10-day long non-stop yagna performed by a battery of Hindu priests to propitiate the gods and to seek their blessings for Sonia's prime ministerial bid. Her shrewd advisers had taken care to rope in the grandsons of the late Kamlapati Tripathi just on the eve of the yagna. The Tripathis had been marginalised even by the marginalised UP Congress. Since theirs was an old Brahmin family of Varanasi which at one time had wielded much clout, it was felt that they would help bring back the upper castes to the Congress fold. But Sonia's advisers hadn't reckoned with the deep-seated Congress culture. Since the success of the rally would have bolstered the standing of the UP Congress chief Salman Khursheed, the dissidents ganged up against him. Khursheed, certain that the show would be a huge success, had taken scores of journalists from Delhi at party expense to make them witness the "triumphant return of the Congress in UP". In the event, it turned out to be a damp squib. And it might result in Khursheed's ouster as the UP Congress chief. Things went wrong right from the moment Sonia landed in Varanasi. The priests performing the yagna had an altercation among themselves over her participation. The majority was against it on the ground that she was not a Hindu. Eventually, it was their view that prevailed. Sonia didn't personally participate in the yagna. Congressmen close to her, however, maintain that she was asked not to participate for fear of hurting the sensitivities of the Muslims. Later in the day, the public rally was a total washout. Despite it being held close to a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood, the minority community pointedly boycotted it. The most optimistic estimate of the audience did not exceed 15,000. Sonia's rally in the same place during the Lok Sabha campaign last year had drawn ten times that number, even though the party didn't win a single seat in the entire state. The immediate fallout of the Varanasi flop show is that Khursheed is in the doghouse. Despite his attempts to mollycoddle Sonia's aides, his head is on the chopping block. Congress strategists argue that a Muslim chief of the UP Congress is unlikely to woo back the upper castes. As for Muslims, they will vote for the Congress, not because of Khursheed but only to defeat the BJP. Therefore, the best bet for the party is to replace Khursheed with an upper caste Hindu who could try and win back the sizeable upper caste vote back for the party. The rise of the personality cult The BJP has always accorded primacy to its organisation and its consensual decision-making process. The saffron party has consciously shunned the personality cult. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while in the Opposition, was but only first among equals. He was not the sole arbiter of the party. But not anymore. Old-timers in the party rue the fact that power has broken the healthy consensual method of decision-making. Now Prime Minister Vajpayee and to a lesser extent Home Minister L K Advani call the shots while the rest of the party follows them. Veteran leaders of the Sangh parivar lament that the party was now playing second fiddle to the government. Said an angry BJP office-bearer, "Isn't it strange that the meetings of the party's top decision-making bodies are now held in the prime minister's house and not at the party headquarters. This sends a wrong signal to the cadres and it makes the party subservient to the prime minister. As a member of the BJP, the prime minister is its leading light but he is not its supreme leader. We are not the Congress party..." A metamorphosis, ain't it? Over to Wharton Rajesh Pilot is a typical Congress leader who has flourished immensely on entering politics. He might make a great show of his integrity but those who know him know him to be as good or as bad as, say Bhajan Lal or Balram Jakhar, etc. He was in it with Pawar, Sangma and others over the issue of Sonia Gandhi's Italian origins but developed cold feet at the last moment. Now lying low, Sonia's advisers nonetheless have him on their list of suspects whose loyalty wasn't 100 per cent pukka with her. Pilot, meanwhile, has managed to get his son, Sachin, admitted to one of the most prestigious business management schools in the world allegedly through his connections with a Bombay-based industrial group. The Wharton School of Business Management in the US is rather picky in admitting students for its courses. But in the case of Sachin, the industrial house opened the door even though he did not have the best of grades to get a shy at the most sought-after business school in the world. Is she disqualified? The following letter in an English daily needs no preface. Those familiar with recent events leading to the split in the Congress Party would have no difficulty in appreciating the context and contents of the letter by one Pamela Singh of Chandigarh. It reads: " Sir - I am an American by birth. I gave up United States citizenship the day I married an Indian. I became a naturalized Indian citizen in due course. I do not have any Bofors-like skeletons in my cupboard. I am aware Indira Gandhi was not the greatest daughter of India. There were women like Laxmibai, Bina Das, Pritilata, Matangini Hazra and Sarojini Naidu. I have no love for anti-Indian people -- the Indian communists or scandal- tainted leaders like Laloo Prasad Yadav and J Jaylalitha or 'friends' like Ottavio Quattrochhi. Besides being a housewife I am a doctorate in political science. I know Indian history, geography and its society as well as any Indian by birth. I can read and write English, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Sanskrit. One of my uncles in law fell to a British bullet while carrying out raids on the Chittagong armoury. My brother-in-law died fighting Pakistan in 1965. My husband's family received no compensation for the two lives it sacrificed for the nation. Nor did it ask for any. Will a look at my bio-data convince Indians I am as good a prime ministerial candidate as any?" Capital Buzz
HOME | NEWS | BUSINESS | SPORTS | MOVIES | CHAT | INFOTECH | TRAVEL SHOPPING HOME | BOOK SHOP | MUSIC SHOP | HOTEL RESERVATIONS PERSONAL HOMEPAGES | FREE EMAIL | FEEDBACK