NEW DELHI, March 16: With the precision of a well-oiled machine, the pro-Sonia group in the Congress succesfully plotted her election as the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) today thus denying Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Sharad Pawar the post he coveted and consolidating Sonia's control over the party.Soon after, Sonia cleared the names of Pawar as the party's leader in the Lok Sabha, which makes him the Leader of the Opposition, and Manmohan Singh as his counterpart in the Rajya Sabha. She also set-up a six-member coordination committee in the Congress to deal with "other secular parties and liaise from time to time on issues that may arise". In this committee are Jitendra Prasada, Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh, Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, Pranab Mukherjee and Manmohan Singh, all members of the CWC.
The implications of this are manifold. One that Sonia may not continue with the post of a vice-president to which Prasada was nominated by Sitaram Kesri. The other that several "newfaces" could take charge in the AICC soon, as Sonia indicated today. Nominated positions in the party cease to exist once a president is replaced as Kesri was, meaning that Prasada is not vice-president technically.
Though Sonia had said while presiding over the CWC meeting after becoming the party president that the office-bearers will stay until fresh appointments are made, this is not being taken seriously.
Today, the pro-Pawar camp was given no chance to counter the moves shrewdly planned by 10, Janpath and word was sent out only around midnight yesterday that Sonia was "agreeable" to the post of CPP chairperson. Once the party leadership was clear on this score, the CPP executive went into action.
Around 27 members of the executive met for a mere 20 minutes in the afternoon in Parliament House and brought in two crucial amendments to the CPP constitution. One inserting a clause in Article 1 of the constitution saying the Congress president shall henceforth be a member of the CPP and the otheraltering Article 5 by saying that when out of power, the CPP shall have a chairperson who "need not necessarily be a member of either House of the Parliament". Kesri boycotted the CPP executive meeting but was coerced into proposing Sonia's name as CPP chairperson in the full CPP meeting. To add to his wounds, Pawar was asked to second the proposal which he could hardly refuse. Pawar apparently didn't take fondly to the proposal to sideline him and was clearly uncomfortable during the CPP meeting. For all his efforts in salvaging the Congress pride in Maharashtra, he has only inched forward.
In the last Lok Sabha, he was the Congress leader after applying immense pressure on Kesri to announce it in the CPP meeting itself. This time he gets the status of a Cabinet Minister as the Leader of the Opposition but Sonia held back the announcement till two hours after the meeting concluded.
Rumblings in the Congress are thus not likely to cease even though there is a sense of buoyancy in the party currently. Forexample, CWC members like Arjun Singh, Bhaskara Reddy, Prasada, Madhavrao Scindia and others like Rajesh Pilot and M L Fotedar were not keen on Pawar's elevation as CPP leader.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
