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Pawar, Anwar struck to save their careers

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The fear of being pushed to the margins in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election made Congress politicians Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar revolt against party chief Sonia Gandhi, Anwar's supporters said today.

Asked why they and former Lok Sabha speaker Purno A Sangma chose this moment to question Sonia's credentials to be the Congress's nominee for prime ministership, Anwar's supporters said they merely fended off a cruel blow by the leadership which was planning to send them to political oblivion.

According to these supporters of the Congress MP from Katihar, Bihar, Anwar learnt during recent visits to the state that Sonia had decided to deny him the party ticket for the next election.

They said Anwar got indications to this effect from no less than Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Sadanand Singh.

While Anwar had maintained cordial relations with Singh despite his cold vibes with the central leadership, he was disturbed of late to find that the BPCC chief was beginning to keep a distance.

Subsequently, Sadanand Singh's followers in Patna told Anwar that the chances of his getting a Congress nomination for the general election were poor.

Anwar's supporters said Pawar too had learnt recently that most of his supporters in the Maharashtra unit of the Congress, all members of the outgoing Lok Sabha, would be denied Congress tickets. Soon after, he resolved to take on the leadership.

In a recent address to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi, Pawar let it be known that the Congress was unlikely to get even a simple majority and the country would again return a fractured mandate.

This stirred the proverbial hornet's nest in the party though Sonia desisted from pulling up the Maharashtra strongman.

Instead, the leadership waited to see what would transpire on May 11, when Pawar had invited senior reporters covering the Congress party for a talk. But nothing untoward happened and Pawar gave no inkling of his imminent revolt, though he repeated his belief that the country was heading for a fractured mandate.

But Pawar, Anwar and Sangma had apparently resolved by then to hit out Sonia's leadership. They knew she enjoys wide popularity among all sections of the Congress, but felt her Italian origin could be her Achilles heel.

According to Anwar's supporters, Sangma joined the rebels because he felt cheated when Sonia went to Rashtrapati Bhavan after the fall of the Vajpayee government to stake her claim to form an alternative government. As a former Lok Sabha speaker and a former Union minister, Sangma was hoping to be projected as the party's prime ministerial candidate. But the Congress chief had other ideas, aided by her coterie of advisers led by Arjun Singh.

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