New Delhi, April 2: Arjun Singh may be ailing and infirm, but “sacrificing” him at the altar of youth would be “politically suicidal” for Sonia Gandhi.
M.L. Fotedar has also aged, but when the Congress chief decided to quit after the office-of-profit and ordinance controversy, he was one of the first she called.
And when Sonia went to meet the people of Rae Bareli, her Lok Sabha constituency, she had another member of the “old guard”, Mohsina Kidwai, by her side.
In the Congress, where the dynamics of power and the equation with 10 Janpath are inferred from the order in which persons are called or the distance they are seated from Sonia, the recent signals were too “significant” to overlook.
Sources said while it was too early to surmise if they marked the return of the old guard, it proved one thing: the so-called loyalists and the eager beavers had let Sonia down. When it was time to stave off a crisis, she had to turn to her children and old friends like Suman Dubey, Arjun, Fotedar and Kidwai.
But the sources stressed that Sonia’s relations with the Prime Minister were “perfect” and that both realised if one suffered an image dent, the other would not emerge unscathed.
“If anyone thinks the Prime Minister remained unaffected by the ordinance fiasco and the subsequent developments, they are mistaken. Sonia and the Prime Minister are inextricably linked to the party and government,” said a minister.
Congress sources said one of the lessons Sonia and her colleagues reportedly learnt from the episode was not to “trust” the BJP. They said law minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj had reportedly “consulted” Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj on how the problem should be tackled.
But Bhardwaj’s approach, the sources rued, landed the government and the party in trouble because word spread that an ordinance was being planned to “save” Sonia.
It now seems that though Sonia was not keen on a major overhaul of the Union cabinet because it could see Bhardwaj and home minister Shivraj Patil being dropped or moved to another ministry, there could be a rethink when the next shuffle is planned.
But the sources said Arjun would remain untouched.
A section in the Congress was against his re-nomination to the Rajya Sabha and had suggested that he should be “pensioned” off as a governor. But Sonia judged otherwise because a Rajya Sabha denial on the ground of “age and failing health” would have sent a wrong signal in a party that places a huge premium on loyalty.
The sources said a more important reason was Arjun is seen as a countervailing force against the “pro-reforms” and the “pro-US” group. So, at a time when the Congress is looking at polls in Assam and Kerala to suss the impact of the nuclear deal with the US and the Iran vote on Muslims, “sidelining” Arjun was the last thing on Sonia’s mind. They claimed that if the party lost these states, the HRD minister is likely to have a bigger say in party politics.
As Sonia’s earlier “advisers” like Ambika Soni, Salman Khursheed and Janardhan Dwivedi may have to retreat for a while, the party is also eagerly looking at what role Kidwai and Sanjay Singh may play in the days to come. They were the only leaders to share the dais with her in Rae Bareli. Khursheed, who heads the Uttar Pradesh Congress unit, and Ashok Gehlot, general secretary in charge of the state, could not travel beyond Lucknow with Sonia’s “caravan”.
