Former Union minister and senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat who recently resigned from the party and announced his retirement from politics is in no mood to negotiate or toe the high commands line – at least for now.
Kamat who was the secretary of the All-India Congress Committee and in-charge of Congress unit in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu has stuck to his guns. In fact, he was instrumental in Congress’ win in Gujarat zilla parishad and panchayat elections and expected to be rewarded for his hard work. Considered a Congress loyalist, Kamat was close to Rajiv Gandhi. However, according to several senior Congress leaders, he has been left out of the Rahul Gandhi camp.
According to an Indian Express report, several “old guard” congress workers and leaders in Mumbai are batting for Kamat: “The work that has been going on in the last six months could have been done in a better way. He (Kamat) is a senior leader and he may have been hurt by the way things were taking shape,” said former NSUI president Sadaf Aboli. Congress corporator Sheetal Mhatre said: “Within six months, we have an election coming up in the city (BMC civic body) and we need someone like him.”
Several hundred Congress workers from the old school opined that Kamat’s resignation will be a major blow to the Congress ahead of next year’s Mumbai civic polls. Kamat commands a sizeable clout among party corporators and youth workers who will either rebel and join rival parties or take the back seat – both ways hurting the party’s prospects.
The impact is being felt all over the country. According to a PTI report, when it was pointed out that many top leaders are quitting party in several states, Ramesh Chennithala said “some people have resigned”, but appealed to five-time Mumbai lawmaker Gurudas Kamat to withdraw his decision to quit politics. Recalling his association with Kamat during his Youth Congress days in the 1980s, the senior Congress leader said, “I succeeded him as the national president of the Youth Congress. I hope that Kamat will reconsider his decision to quit”.
Even as several senior Congress party leaders are batting for Gurudas Kamat, the Congress core team is finding it difficult to convince its senior leader Kamat to retract his resignation and return to the party fold.
According to a PTI report, the party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala reiterated on Wednesday that he is still a part of the Congress, but in the same breath he said Kamat was not in contact with the leadership. “We are not negotiating anything with him and he is not talking to us either. But we are hopeful that he will come back,” said Surjewala.
Several top leaders, however, doubted his return. “He had issues with the Congress leadership in Mumbai for a very long time and he felt the high command was not listening to him,” said a Mumbai based Congress leader. “There is a fifty-fifty chance of having him back.”
Several Kamat loyalists are fed up of Sanjay Nirupam‘s autocratic style of functioning. According to a news report, “Discontent among party leaders has grown in the past one-and-a-half years. Even when Rahul Gandhi visited Mumbai, he had advised Nirupam to take everyone together, but it doesn’t seem like he got the message. He continued with his same unilateral style,” said a former corporator and a local Congress functionary.
Many congress workers claim that Nirupam has appointed his loyalists to key party posts without taking senior leaders into confidence and left out Kamat totally out of the decision-making process in Mumbai.
“Congress will go ahead under his leadership. We will fight the 2019 Lok Sabha polls under his leadership. We are sure that the party will make a comeback under his leadership,” he said when asked whether the elevation of Rahul as AICC Chief would help the Congress win elections. Chennithalas statement comes a week after senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Rahul Gandhi is the de facto Congress chief, “but he should become de jure” and make the party battle-ready without waiting for anti-incumbency to build up against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to an Economic Times report, people familiar with the Mumbai Congress said Kamat’s resignation reflected the wounded sentiments of traditional leaders since Rahul Gandhi asked Shiv Sainik-turned Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam and Samajawadi-turned AICC general secretary Mohan Prakash to “teach them Congress politics and ideology.”
For months, senior state leaders have been complaining to both the Gandhis against the Nirupam-Prakash team. Sources said Sonia Gandhi aide Ahmed Patel tried to reach out and pacify Kamat, ET reported.
“The case of Ajit Jogi, whom Soniaji made CM a decade back despite opposition from majority of MLAs, shows how the loyalty factor can cut both ways,” quipped a party MP, says ET. “There is a basic contradiction in Rahulji’s approach.
Though he (Rahul Gandhi) advocates democratic approach on organisational matters, he and his personal advisors unilaterally appoint PCC chiefs in many states, brushing aside views of senior leaders. This happened in Kerala, Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan, Haryana, Mumbai, etc,” said a party insider. Last week’s PCC executive meeting in Kerala saw delegates attacking PCC chief VM Sudheeran for working at cross-purposes with Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala in the run to the assembly polls. It took veteran AK Antony’s intervention to stop a couple of delegates from criticising Rahul Gandhi’s approach, says the Economic Times.
For months, senior leaders from Rajasthan, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have been complaining to the Gandhis against the PCC chiefs. Even within the AICC set-up, the likes of CP Joshi, Mohan Prakash and Madhusudan Mistry are seen as a ‘parallel team’ vis-a-vis traditional leaders. “There is a growing impression in the party that Rahulji does not feel at home with senior Congress leaders and that he is comfortable more with rank outsiders or lightweights,” said a party insider.
Even before Jogi’s and Kamat’s resignations, party leaders said that Rahul Gandhi had a ‘live demonstration’ of what kind of responses his approach could evoke from entrenched and self-confident seniors: “In Punjab, Amarinder Singh openly criticised Rahulji’s approach to force him to finally dump Bajwa and name him PCC chief. In Assam , Himanta Biswa Sarma responded to Rahulji’s blind opposition by destroying the Congress itself,” the party insider said.