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Congress shell shocked by Scindia's death

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Mutterings have already begun in Congress circles how the party high command would tide over the blow dealt to it following the death of senior party leader Madhavrao Scindia in a plane crash.

"For all practical purpose, Madhavrao was the second-in-command in the Congress. Barring party chief Sonia Gandhi, nobody could hold a candle to him, although many tried to outmanoeuvre him," party leader Wasim Ahmed said.

He pointed out that the 'second line of Congress leadership' contained the likes of Scindia, party's chief whip in the Lok Sabha Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Pawan Kumar Bansal and S Jaipal Reddy.

"While all these leaders have admirably served the party in one capacity or another, it is only Madhavrao, who was a notch above the rest -- a good orator in both English and Hindi, a 'gentleman' politician, who did not heckle political opponents, was sweet-tempered and balanced and had considerable potential as a party leader of the future," Ahmed pointed out.

Agreeing with this surmise, senior party leader and Congress Working Committee member Pranab Mukherjee pointed out that Scindia defeated Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the 1984 election to the Gwalior parliamentary constituency.

Vajpayee was a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader then.

"If Vajpayee today alighted from his car outside Scindia's (Safdarjang Road) residence out of respect to the departed soul and walked the distance inside, I am sure the prime minister would have been reminded that this was the man who had drubbed him in the 1984 elections from Gwalior," Mukherjee pointed out.

In fact, this reporter, who covered the poll, noted how the electorate in the Gwalior constituency voted overwhelmingly in favour of Scindia, shouting slogans of 'Tere naam likh diya, Madhav Scindia (We have voted for you Scindia)'.

Vajpayee lost the poll by more than 160,000 votes

Vajpayee looked genuinely sad as he came out of Scindia's residence, and looked the other way when a few reporters sought to draw his attention for comments over Sunday's tragedy.

"Speaking of young Congress leaders, nobody can quite match the talents of Scindia. Now you run your eyes among the Congress benches in the Lok Sabha and you will find that very few can stand up to his personality," admitted Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj.

While hastening to add that she did not mean disrespect to any Congress leader, she pointed out that Scindia had a balanced blend of desirable qualities -- winsome manners, charisma, persuasive speaking backed by solid groundwork.

However, for somebody who had won nine parliamentary polls, Scindia was not a mass leader in the true sense of the term.

His critics whispered that Scindia could not mobilise at any given time even the support of four party MPs.

But that was more than made up by his level headedness, his 'patrician' deportment, his mild-manners and his respect for political opponents.

Never the one to shout, Scindia made his case through persuasion and dignity, in sharp contrast to what other young party members resort to nowadays.

It was not surprising that party chief Sonia Gandhi chose him as the deputy leader in the Lok Sabha.

In effect, he acted as the Congress leader in the house, because Sonia's participation in debates was few and far between.

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