Nov. 9: Is loyalty no longer valued in Sonia Gandhi’s Congress? The Natwar Singh saga has opened a sideshow where party leaders are whispering how “loyalists” of the Nehru-Gandhi family have been falling by the wayside for one reason or another.

Besides “fall guy” Natwar, Sheila Dikshit, Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, R.K. Dhawan, M.L. Fotedar and N.D. Tiwari are some of the other “loyalists” who have been “sidelined”.

Sheila may have been able to retain the Delhi chief minister’s chair but it is an open secret that her ties with 10 Janpath are no longer what they used to be.

Arjun was seen as an indispensable member of the “coterie” but today the human resource development minister has little say in crucial matters of party or government.

The unofficial “number two slot” in the Manmohan Singh government belongs to defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and, to a lesser extent, to finance minister P. Chidambaram. The two have emerged as men of all seasons.

It is an open secret that Azad was more than reluctant to leave Delhi for Srinagar. But as the date for the transfer of power in the border state inched closer, the Union minister for urban development and parliamentary affairs realised he had no option. The seasoned politician bit the bait without making a fuss.

Old family retainers R.K. Dhawan, M.L. Fotedar and V. George too have lost their once feared clout. Uttaranchal chief minister Narain Dutt Tiwari was seen as a politician among politicians but in recent months, his attempt to leave Dehradun for the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad or Bangalore has failed to find favour with Sonia.

Sources close to Sonia, however, deny that she ever played favourites. As leader of the Congress, she does not distinguish between one leader and another on the basis of the past. The sources said she had delayed her entry into politics ? she was under pressure to take the plunge in 1995, when the “loyalists” led by Arjun Singh and N.D. Tiwari had split from Rao ? because she did not want to be seen as a factional leader. By 1998, when she finally took over, they had returned to the parent party.

The “loyalists” are, however, obsessed with the past, recalling the days when P.V. Narasimha Rao was calling the shots and the queues outside 10 Janpath were getting shorter. At that time, Natwar, Sheila, Arjun, P. Shiv Shankar and others had raised the banner of revolt against him, alleging that the Congress Prime Minister was drifting from Nehruvian secularism. These “loyalists” claim to have resisted temptation to stick to the time-tested principles of the Congress.

But as one loyalist after the other gets the stick, a story from the lore of Laila-Majnu has begun doing the rounds in the Congress. Laila, having heard that her beloved was wandering in the streets of Baghdad hungry, sent her chambermaid with milk for him. A greedy beggar, his eyes on the milk, started shouting “hai Laila”, pretending to be Majnu. On hearing that Majnu’s condition had deteriorated further, Laila sent out her maid again, substituting milk with blood.

This time, the beggar pointed to the real Majnu and said: “Hum to doodh wale Majnu hain, khoon wala woh raha (I am the Majnu for the milk, the one for the blood is there).”

Their lips are sealed but the “loyalists” are hoping the milk of Sonia’s kindness will flow before the blood.