Power games and fair-weather friends

Congress insiders are convinced that communications department chief Randeep Singh Surjewala is positioning himself for a key role in party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s office. In fact, they go so far as to say that the young Haryana MLA is aiming to become his “Ahmed Patel” in the belief that the Nehru-Gandhi scion will eventually take over as Congress president and, after his elevation, will require a political hand to assist him in managing party affairs.

Mr Surjewala has become close to Mr Gandhi because as communications department head, he is in constant touch with Mr Gandhi seeking his clearance on the party’s position on important issues. It is well-known that as Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmed Patel enjoys immense clout in the party. He attends all internal meetings, leads the party’s fire-fighting operations and deals with major organisational matters. Mr Patel was said to be the third most powerful person after Mrs Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was in power. Given the power which comes with this post, it is not surprising that many young party leaders want to follow in Mr Patel’s footsteps. But Mr Surjewala has a tough choice at hand. Although he would like to be in Mr Gandhi’s inner circle, he also has an eye on the 2019 Haryana Assembly polls hoping that he may be projected as the next chief ministerial candidate. It is expected that Mr Gandhi will promote young leaders once he takes over as party chief.

Having successfully used social media to connect with young voters during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraged his ministers to do the same after he came to power. While his Cabinet colleagues have responded positively to his suggestion, Union minister of human resources development Smriti Irani is not willing to extend the same privilege to her children. She makes no bones about the fact that she is a strict parent and has banned her school-going children from using any gizmos, including a mobile phone. Their friends have been told to get in touch with them on the landline. Not just that, the minister has even told her children’s teachers and their school principal to discourage their students from using smartphones or spending too much time surfing the Internet. However, not many parents have taken kindly to these suggestions. Some of them apparently shot back, saying that as liberal parents, they did not want to place any undue restrictions on their children.

As deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia wielded immense clout in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. He also enjoyed a special status and played a key role in shaping the previous government’s policies because of his known proximity to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Although the Planning Commission was disbanded and replaced with the new National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Aayog) by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, its new vice-chairperson Arvind Panagariya would like the present dispensation to accord him the same importance as enjoyed by his predecessor.

It was after a prolonged gap that the government clarified last year that Mr Panagariya would be given the status of a Cabinet minister. However, he is still not in the same league as Mr Ahluwalia, as the powers of the Niti Aayog have been significantly diluted and Mr Panagariya does not have the same equation with Mr Modi that his predecessor had with Dr Singh. Last heard, Mr Panagariya invited Mr Modi for a proposed conference at the Vigyan Bhavan to mark Niti Aayog’s first anniversary, but he is still waiting for a reply from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Last year, when Lok Janshakti Party leader and minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan hosted a traditional Bihari lunch at his residence on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and a host of Cabinet ministers, including minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari, minister of defence Manohar Parrikar and minister of state for environment, forests and climate change Prakash Javadekar, put in an appearance. In fact, Mr Modi missed a similar lunch at his party colleague minister of agriculture Radha Mohan Singh’s place to accept the LJP leader’s invitation.

This year, however, Mr Modi and Mr Shah skipped Mr Paswan’s lunch and only a handful of Union ministers like minister of home affairs Rajnath Singh, minister of law Ravi Shankar Prasad and MoS external affairs Gen. V.K. Singh (retd.) landed up to partake in the festivities. It is apparent that Mr Modi and Mr Shah had an eye on the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections last year.

Being a key ally and a senior leader from Bihar, the BJP leaders obviously wanted to keep Mr Paswan in good humour. But now that the BJP-led alliance has been routed in Bihar, Mr Modi and Mr Shah probably decided they could afford to give the LJP leader’s lunch a miss.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist