Who came for dinner?
So what exactly happened that evening at Mani Shankar Aiyar’s house, where the creme de la creme of India’s old foreign policy establishment had gathered for some good Track II tete-a-tete? Like a good spy thriller, the exact sequence of events lies behind a speculative haze. Most of India got to hear of the dinner when PM Narendra Modi launched into a broadside at Aiyar in a Gujarat campaign speech. Why was Aiyar hosting former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri on the eve of a crucial Assembly poll in Gujarat, Modi asked. Then he made the sensational allegation that Islamabad was conspiring with India’s Opposition leaders. Well, one version is that the hubbub outside Aiyar’s residence attracted the attention of the neighbours. Besides Kasuri, there were former PM Manmohan Singh, former Vice-President Hamid Ansari, former Army chief and foreign policy veterans like Chinmaya Gharekhan and Salman Haider. A BJP leader noticed and apprised the voluble star anchor of Republic TV, who went to town with the piece of ‘news’. Modi picked it up from there. A more credible version is that Aiyar had apprised the authorities beforehand since a veritable political-diplomatic pantheon was going to be present — and the grey eminences were none too pleased with the clear presence of IB spooks in the crowd outside.
All good in Gujarat
How did the new Congress chief Rahul Gandhi receive news of the Gujarat results? Initially, it was said that he shut himself up in an isolated room — communicating perhaps only with Sonia Gandhi — and no one knew if the tidings had left him in a peaceable state of mind. But his long-time colleagues from the younger set in the party gradually got in touch with him and he called them over for a chat. When one of them suggested to him that a haul of 80 seats — just a dozen short of majority — was probably an even better result that a victory, he initially asked in a surprised way: “Why do you say that?” Because, the young Congress leader explained, the expectations would have been too much, and the state Congress would not have been able to establish a coherent working relationship with the new troika of Gujarat — Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor. And a fractious government getting things wrong from the beginning wouldn’t have been the best advertisement going into 2019!
Three to tango
Speaking of the Gujarat troika, the Congress is said to be a bit wary about the way they have hogged the limelight and slightly unsure about whether they would have been too domineering a presence. Hardik’s camp had already placed demands that created infighting within the Congress and any series of defeats in Surat. Nor could their demands on reservation have been too easy to accomplish. The same reason was cited for the Congress deciding to stay at a comfortable arm’s length from Jignesh and support him from outside rather than create instability within the party.
Welcome to Sujanpur
Nor is the BJP free of mutual suspicions and subtle infighting, even under the Modi-Shah regime. Take only the case of Prem Kumar Dhumal. He had accepted the last-minute shift to Sujanpur constituency — moving away from his comfort zone of Hamirpur — only on condition that his other son Arun Thakur, Anurag Thakur’s brother and an equally ambitious budding politician, would be given Hamirpur. As it turned out, Arun neither got his seat, nor did Dhumal manage a win. Amit Shah and Modi are said to favour J P Nadda for CM’s post. Dhumal, incidentally, is in some ways a creation of Modi. This dates back to the time when Modi was the BJP’s ‘prabhari’ for Himachal Pradesh and he propped up Dhumal against the original BJP strongman Shanta Kumar. But later they apparently had a less than harmonious relationship, and it still shows.
The author is Political Editor, TNIE. Email: santwana@ newindianexpress.com