Commentary/Janardan Thakur

Fear and frustration finally drove Kesri into the desperate decision

Frustration and fear were the obvious reasons for Sitaram Kesri's sudden decision to withdraw Congress support to the Deve Gowda government: his frustration at having been totally marginalised, and his fear of being subjected to a 'witch-hunt' by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Kesri had for long wanted to upstage Prime Minister Deve Gowda and become prime minister of a Congress-led coalition, but his gameplan had been thwarted, primarily by the refusal of the Tamil Maanila Congress to play ball with him. Month after month, Kesri had suffered the humiliation of being ignored by H D Deve Gowda despite the UF government being dependent on the party that he led.

To add insult to injury, Deve Gowda had continued to show far greater deference to former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao than to Kesri. Deve Gowda had even struck a cozy relationship with Congress leaders like Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot.

One of Kesri's main grudges against the prime minister was that the latter had 'marginalised' the Congress, but it was actually Kesri rather than the Congress which had been marginalised. All the euphoria that had been created in the Kesri circle after he stepped into the shoes of Narasimha Rao had vanished into thin air.

Nobody even seemed to remember that Kesri was a factor in the government's survival. There was obviously no unanimity in the Congress, with the Lok Sabha leader Sharad Pawar and the voluble Rajesh Pilot openly denying the possibility of their party pulling the carpet from under Deve Gowda's feet.

What aggravated Kesri's anguish and pushed him to the brink was his perception that Deve Gowda was behind all the problems being created for him, over his property and a foul murder case in which he had been implicated. On top of this had come the 'shocking development' in Uttar Pradesh, with Kanshi Ram and Mayawati dashing Kesri's hopes of a Congress-BSP alliance.

Remember how hard Kesri had pleaded with the leaders of the United Front government to put Mayawati on the Lucknow throne? The smile had vanished from Kesri's face. He even looked harried and haunted. Fear and frustration finally drove him into the desperate decision of Sunday, March 30.

Kesri badly wanted to get back into the reckoning and he could do this only by upstaging Deve Gowda. There was nothing he wanted more than to become prime minister, if only briefly. He wanted his name up there on the board, with Nehru and Indira and Rajiv. It was an ambition that had arisen only recently, after Narasimha Rao had passed on the baton to him. Rao had thought this was his safest bet.

Kesri had often been critical of Narasimha Rao's politics, but had remained one of his most trusted aides. Being a loyalist of Rao and an older retainer of the Gandhi family, Kesri had a much wider support base in the party than any other aspirant for the president's post.

What is more, the 76-year-old party treasurer, who had begun his political career as a drummer of the Seva Dal, was unlikely to go overboard in his elevated position. What gave him further mileage was his strident support for reservations, not only for the backwards but for the minorities as well.

Sitaram Kesri, the only Congress leader apart form the party's recent prime ministers to whom the one-man-one-post rule never applied, has for long been considered a wily political strategist. Time and again he had thwarted attempts by partymen to have him moved from the post of treasurer, but to no avail. At one point the plan was to replace him by the Congress leader from Bombay, Murli Deora, Kesri was to be given a governor's job and shunted out of Delhi. But one party reshuffle followed another and Kesri sat pretty in his gaddi.

One of Kesri's strengths was the political line that he pushed. Ever since V P Singh rebelled against Rajiv Gandhi and became a great Mandalite, Kesri had gone hammer and tongs at him. Later he had become a great Mandalite himself, perhaps the only strident one in the Congress. He insisted that the party must strive hard to regain the confidence and support of the backwards and the dalits and the Muslims. Being a politician from the Hindi belt, Kesri was more concerned about the party's future in this region. Reservations for Muslims became his constant refrain.

As Kesri put it, "Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram have understood the social changes and taken advantage of them." The Congress, on the other hand, had deviated from its principles and was gradually losing its support base. "There is a vast difference between the Congress of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi or even Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress of today," Kesri was candid enough to say.

Not very long ago, the longest surviving treasurer of the Congress Party raised eyebrows all around when he wrote to about 200 companies to make 'openness' and 'transparency' in the funding of elections, obviously a result of the hawala scam. His plea generated only cynicism, and there were not many takers when he went around bewailing his party's 'empty war-chest.'

When he became party president, Kesri thought he would be able to ride to power with the help of friends in the United Front, most of all G K Moopanar. Between Kesri and Moopanar there had existed a strong affinity which many found difficult to understand.

Both were quiet, behind-the-scene operators who could fix political deals without anyone getting wind of them. Neither was ever too visible at the Congress headquarters. They preferred to work from their house, Kesri from his Purana Qila Road residence and Moopanar from one of his various hide-outs in Delhi.

The compulsions of Tamil Nadu politics created a divide between Moopanar and Rao, but Kesri kept saying that such fissures were only temporary. Moopanar was said to have played a crucial behind-the-scene role in Kesri's elevation.

Kesri's elevation was no doubt a personal triumph for him, but many were doubtful about what it would do to the party which is in such an advanced stage of decay. While there was satisfaction in some circles that the new Congress president was a veteran of many battles, and was also acceptable to the Rajiv-Sonia camp, others thought the choice of Kesri would only hasten the party's slide towards its final liquidation.

To many, the decline was only too apparent. Kesri's supporters, whose number had multiplied overnight, asserted that far from presiding over the liquidation of the party, Sitaram would reunite all Congressmen and put the party back into reckoning, especially in the lost bastions of the North.

The party was again headed by a leader from the North, but nobody thought Kesri had prime ministerial material in him. Obviously, Kesri cannot boast of any of the finer points of his predecessor: He has none of Rao's renowned wisdom of erudition, none of his flair for languages, none of his political finesse.

However, Kesri's overvaulting ambition has got the better of him, and it remains to be seen whether he would achieve his goal, even briefly, or be hoist by his own petard. The latter may be more likely.

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