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Pawar heads ginger group against Sonia

George Iype in New Delhi

Congress president Sonia Gandhi's bungle after the fall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government has triggered a confrontation between her and the party's Lok Sabha leader Sharad Pawar.

Pawar held a series of closed door meetings with the 30-odd members of Parliament who support him on Wednesday and Thursday, where the topic of discussion was Gandhi's mismanagement of the party during the recent political crisis.

Some of the MPs who heard Pawar feel that Gandhi's stooping to conquer power at the Centre without consulting the party's Lok Sabha leader has exposed her political immaturity and considerably tarnished the image of the party.

Resentment is brewing in the Congress as a section of senior leaders led by Pawar now privately say that they are dissatisfied with Gandhi's style of functioning and secretive manner of taking crucial decisions.

"No Congress MP has liked the way Gandhi behaved to anyhow succeed the Vajpayee government. Right now there are only whispers of resentment, but my fear is that these whispers will turn into loud protest voices soon," one MP said.

Many Congressmen believe such a mild protest came from Pawar himself on Thursday when, addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry, he chose to stun Gandhi by stating that mid-term elections was unlikely to throw up a " very different mandate" than was seen in the last three polls.

Party circles and anti-Gandhi leaders interpreted Pawar's CII address as a warning to the Congress president that she has been politically marginalising him in the last few months.

Pawar loyalists say he is unhappy with the Congress president for two reasons. First, Gandhi never consulted Pawar in the past one year on any crucial issue -- whether it is to pull down the Vajpayee government, prop up a new Congress government or to appoint new pradesh Congress presidents and other party functionaries.

Secondly, Gandhi is said to have let loose her coterie on Pawar, to accuse him of sabotaging her efforts to form an alternative government after the defeat of the Vajpayee government.

In the 12th Lok Sabha, Pawar headed the largest contingent of 33 party MPs from Maharashtra.

"Pawar is sure to repeat the feat in Maharashtra in the coming elections. But he wants to ensure that Gandhi no more ignores him," a Pawar supporter said. Therefore, he said, Pawar in the coming days will be giving indications to the party president that he could emerge as a spoiler if she continues to keep him out.

After the collapse of the Vajpayee government, when Gandhi was frantically holding parleys with opposition groups and her own party leaders in an attempt to form an alternative government, Pawar was completely sidelined by Gandhi.

Instead Gandhi depended heavily on those close to her like Arjun Singh, Natwar Singh, M L Fotedar and R D Pradhan for political counsel.

In fact, Congress sources say, the only assignment that Gandhi doled out to Pawar during the fortnight-long political crisis was to contact a couple of MPs from two or three states.

Many in the party now believe that had Gandhi assigned Pawar the task of arranging the required number of 272 MPs, he would have done a wonderful job, rather than leaders like Arjun Singh, Fotedar or Pradhan.

Faced with dislike from Gandhi, Pawar loyalists say the Maharashtra leader's strategy now is to cash in on the major weakness in Gandhi's style of functioning -- her over-dependence on the coterie.

"Sonia has exposed her inexperience in politics. But the tragedy is that her advisers have convinced her that leaders like Pawar only pose threats to her," one Congress leader said.

Despite the setback she received in the last fortnight, Gandhi's antagonism towards Pawar continues. The Congress president is said to be in no mood to pacify Pawar, and she has not shown any inclination to invite him to examine what went wrong with the party strategy.

Pawar is also in no mood to meet Gandhi and make up. He will leave for a summer holiday to London over the weekend.

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