Agatha Sangma.

New Delhi, June 22: The “war room” where strategies to defeat UPA President candidate Pranab Mukherjee will be hatched is located at 34 Aurangzeb Road, the official residence of junior rural development minister Agatha Sangma.

The UPA has decided to blink at this anomaly as its leaders feel “poor” Agatha cannot be punished for father Purno A. Sangma’s “wrongdoing”. The Congress is not in a mood to punish the “little girl”.

The Nationalist Congress Party, which forced Sangma to quit before becoming the Opposition President candidate, has also taken a liberal view of Agatha’s “plight”. Senior leaders insist her predicament is not her doing. The NCP has, however, asked Agatha not to openly campaign for her father.

A Congress leader appeared to speak for Agatha when asked why a “little girl” who has been made a minister could not be expected to behave responsibly (not offer her ministerial bungalow for Opposition activities, which was unethical).

“This presidential election will teach us to live with contradictions and ironies. If we can digest what Mamata Banerjee is doing, Agatha’s crime looks comical in comparison. The poor girl, after all, is not playing politics but is a victim of politics,” the leader said in jest.

NCP spokesperson D.P. Tripathi suggested it was inhumane to even consider punitive action against Agatha. “Have a heart. Can’t a daughter keep her father in her house? Do you want families to split on political lines? Should Acharya Kriplani not have shared the house of his wife, Sucheta?” he asked The Telegraph, declaring Agatha would continue in the NCP and at the Centre.

Acharya Kriplani, who was Congress chief in 1947, gradually got disillusioned with Jawaharlal Nehru’s policies that he thought were not in tune with Gandhian ideals. He ultimately quit the Congress after his defeat as party chief by Purushottam Das Tandon and formed the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party. This party later merged with the Socialist Party and came to be known as Praja Socialist Party.

Acharya Kriplani remained in Opposition for the rest of his life. But his Bengali wife Sucheta had a phenomenal rise in the Congress, becoming India’s first woman chief minister (of Uttar Pradesh) after holding charge of several Union ministries.

Sucheta used to have frequent fights in Parliament with her husband, who emerged as the Congress government’s worst critic. He nurtured his anti-Congressism till his death, even backing the JP movement that unseated Indira Gandhi.

Indira’s husband Feroze Gandhi was never prevented by Nehru from staying in his house despite their political hostility. Feroze would, at times, stay in camps meant for security personnel on the Nehru residence premises and enter the house during the day to meet his sons.

The Scindia family is vertically split between the Congress and the BJP. Even Digvijaya Singh’s brother Laxman revolted against the Congress and became a BJP MP. Senior Uttar Pradesh Congress leader Begum Noor Bano’s son stayed with her after joining the BSP. There are many other families whose members belong to different parties.

Sources said the real reason for NCP boss Sharad Pawar’s “tolerance” of Agatha is political as he does not want to cut off the party’s Northeast base. The NCP got recognition as a national party because of its existence in Meghalaya.

Pawar has put up with several such things in the Northeast. The NCP, for example, is the main Opposition party in Meghalaya against the ruling Congress. In Assam, the NCP fought the Congress in alliance with other Opposition parties.