THERE are indications that 10 Janpath will once again hold the centrestage of Congress politics after Narasimha Rao's exit. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Sonia Gandhi will lead the party—at least not yet.
This fortnight, for the first time in the five years following Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, she agreed to lend support to the cause and appeal to Congressmen to revive the party. The rebel camp couldn't hide its delight. Instead, it geared up its energies to hold a 'requisitioned meeting' of the All India Congress Committee fearing that Rao would once again stonewall the demand for a regular session. And if Sonia Gandhi used the convention as a forum to appeal for unity, it would only boost the oust-Rao campaign.
Clever enough to preempt the rebels, Rao declared on September 12 that the AICC meeting would be held sometime in October. He also declared that it would be a "valedictory session" for the current set of office-bearers—and that organisational elections would be held by January 31.
But the rebels did see a chink in the armour—after all Rao hadn't announced the date. The rebels—Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sharad Pawar, K. Karunakaran, Rajesh Pilot and Balram Jakhar—began collecting signatures of the 200 AICC members required to requisition a session. They announced they would hold the meet on October 2.
"The move would have split the party, but we were prepared for it. Sonia Gandhi had agreed to attend the convention and issue the appeal for unity there. Ours would have been the real Congress," said a member involved in the exercise.
The idea was to get rid of Rao. But with his resignation as party chief, the entire exercise has been proved futile.
But there were some positive developments too—besides deciding to come out of hibernation, Sonia Gandhi also said she would support the move to elect either Sitaram Kesari or A.K. Antony as party president. She conveyed her decision to Karunakaran.
What provoked her to agree to speak out against Rao this time round is still not known. Earlier, she had refused to associate with Arjun Singh and N.D. Tiwari when they broke away from the Congress in May 1995. In fact, the last time she took an anti-Rao stand was when she crit-icised his government for the slow probe into the Rajiv Gandhi assassination.
