Rahul may not take up party post in next rejig

Rahul will remain the party's star campaigners for the next Assembly elections of four states in February-March 2007. The heir-apparent will be formally launched a few months before the Lok Sabha election in 2009.

By Sanjeev Acharya

Congress president Sonia Gandhi seems to be in a mood—again—to disappoint her party cadres and political pundits by not assigning her son, Rahul Gandhi, a long-expected leading role in the party. Neither she nor the party's managers are in favour of launching junior in a hurry just to oblige the sycophants' cacophony.

Instead, Rahul is to remain one of the party's star campaigners for the next Assembly elections of four states in February-March 2007, in charge of carrying out road shows. If everything goes according to the strategy of the managers of the Gandhi family, this interminable heir-apparent will be skyrocketed a few months before the next Lok Sabha election in 2009. Like with his father, Rajiv Gandhi, he will be entrusted with the general-secretaryship of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), heading a new team of preferably young and fresh faces to assist him. But all that's in the future.

For the moment, though, the general mood within the Congress party seems to be entirely in favour of not delaying his launch, whatever might be the hunched prognostications of the managers. This is a feeling that has been aired since the AICC plenary session in Hyderabad in the last week of January.

The Congress president had left five seats vacant in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) during the revamping of 25 members of the CWC ahead

of the AICC plenary. It was a move that political observers saw as clearly intended to accommodate Rahul and four "Gen Next" leaders of his choice into the CWC after the session itself. For the following eight months, however, nothing transpired.

During the bated-breath hiatus, Sonia received a snowstorm of requests from several Congress state unit chiefs and office-bearers of frontal organisations to nominate Rahul to the CWC forthwith. Her daughter, Priyanka Vadra, once the lady with the lamp, pointedly kept herself away from the plenary session, ostensibly only to allow her brother to bask in the limelight.

But all hopes have continued to be dashed. In a minor reshuffle at the party level in January this year, Rahul Gandhi's name was again excluded. In the twisted manner of all things political, that led to the rumours in political circles that he might be inducted in the Manmohan Singh ministry as minister of state for information and broadcasting, much in the manner in which his grandmother, the late Indira Gandhi, was sidled into active politics. But that was not to be.

Congress needs the effective bridge between government and party that Sonia had seemed to promise that she would be. Rahul seems, for all purposes, the only choice.

Sonia Gandhi understands the urgent organisational need for this connective tissue. This is precisely why she had inducted Digvijay Singh and Ashok Gehlot, along with G Venkatswamy (the Scheduled Caste leader from Andhra Pradesh), Janardhan Dwivedi, Margaret Alva, Satyavrata Chaturvedi and Salman Khursheed as new office-bearers

immediately after the party shot to power. Old hands Ambika Soni and Mukul Wasnik were retained in that reshuffle, and senior leader M L Fotedar staged a comeback.

But with Assembly elections staring the party in the face, the Congress high command is under tremendous pressure to galvanise itself. A K Antony and Oscar Fernandes have been inducted as Cabinet ministers in the Manmohan Singh government, leaving behind two yawning vacancies in the organisation. Fernandes was actually the hardest working of office-bearers and a close confidant of Sonia Gandhi.

Today, there are two views doing the rounds at the party headquarters: one faction of senior leaders is of the view that Sonia Gandhi should go in for a major organisational reshuffle and pull in Rahul Gandhi in order to infuse a new youthful energy and enthusiasm in the party in the cameos of Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot.

Unfortunately, this section is pitted against the dominant opinion that runs against pulling in Rahul Gandhi at a time when there are dim chances of the Congress winning in any of the states due to go to the polls. This glowering section favours Rahul's launch during the Lok Sabha polls. Till then, it believes, he should remain just a “star” campaigner.

What is clear is that changes are imminent at both levels of party and government. There is long list of aspirants waiting to be given importance. M L Fotedar had been tipped for a gubernatorial post but he had refused-he is keen on a political assignment. Mohsina Kidwai has also been upset over the denial to her of a ministerial berth. She might be included in the AICC as a general secretary. The bigger task, however, is the reshuffling of the organisation's 32 secretaries (up from the earlier 20). Not more than a dozen secretaries are sincerely doing their jobs. Party insiders say that the thrust of the next reshuffle will be more on wooing the minorities, the backward classes and Dalits. Leaders from these communities might be given prominence. Begum Noor Bano and C K Jaffer Sharif, and Yogendra Makwana and Ashok Ram from the Dalit community might get prominence. General secretaries Ashok Gehlot, Mukul Wasnik and Margaret Alva could be handed other assignments. Gehlot has made it known that he would like to return as Rajasthan Pradesh Congress chief. Motilal Vora is also very keen to join the government as Cabinet minister.

According to sources, a senior Jat leader might be inducted in the organisation. Haryana finance minister Choudhary Birender Singh has conveyed to Sonia Gandhi that he is willing to work for the organisation, and Ramniwas Mirdha, another Jat, is also in the reckoning.

One suggestion doing the rounds is that high command should bring in more young faces as secretaries and drop veterans from secretaryships.

Furthermore, insiders say that Sonia Gandhi has a poor opinion of the way frontal organisations—parrticularly the Youth Congress and the Mahila Congress-are being run. A shake-up here is imminent, too.