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| Pranab's flag flies high as J&K Congress reaches with invite in tandem with Rahul | | |
ABID SHAH
EARLY TIMES REPORT
NEW DELHI, May 13: Strangely, the invites from Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Party to general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to visit the State have got entwined.
And since these have been accepted by both the party heavyweights, answers regarding the imminent maiden visit by Mukherjee to J&K after taking over as Finance Minister are being sought in political circles.
This is more so since it may entail introduction, or at least initiation, of a new senior player from the Congress in the affairs of the Northern border State. Thus far J&K has mainly been looked after by Prime Minister's Office (PMO) with the help and inputs from Union Home Ministry.
A Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chavan is the central Congress Party observer for J&K. And it was he besides a few others who had accompanied party president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year to the State when a new railway line to connect the Valley from Jammu was to be opened at a function organised by Union Railway Ministry headed by Trinamool Congress leader Mamta Banerjee.
Thus, Congress shows in J&K have so far been confined to a select top few from the party though Rahul Gandhi has been trying to expand this; and he had sent a party team led by former Central Minister Jagdish Tytler for a talent hunt to rebuild Youth Congress in the State. The new faces, thus, selected are now to be baptised in Congress tradition and culture where the need for an experienced hand like Pranab Mukherjee has been felt all the more.
Yet, none expected Pranab Mukherjee's entry in J&K matters so soon and so easily until Pradesh Congress Party president Saifuddin Soz met the Union Finance Minister besides Rahul Gandhi on last Friday (May 7) in New Delhi to give invitations to them separately to visit J&K and attend events meant to mark the 125th anniversary year of the oldest party of the country.
Though the date, time and venue of the visit are still being worked out, Pranab's arrival on the J&K scene is hardly thought to be in any doubt. And as for the clues to his ascent in ticklish arena of J&K politics, the Congress insiders have interesting things to say which indicate that the Finance Minister's rise in his party's scheme of things is not going to be confined to J&K alone.
Those informed about the goings on in the Congress say that Sonia Gandhi has of late felt the need for a greater role for a social democrat like Pranab Mukherjee since the reforms agenda alone held aloft by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may not find an all season fascination among the people.
Sonia has not only been pushing Pranab to tackle as vexed a question as passage of women's reservation bill in the Rajya Sabha or the more recent IPL cricket row that took its toll with the resignation by Sahashi Tharoor from Union Council of Ministers, but also upped her social agenda by announcing the revival of National Advisory Council (NAC) that she once led until this was interrupted by her resignation not only from the stewardship of NAC but also from Parliament before she went for re-election from her constituency Raebareli in UP.
Somehow NAC is yet to become fully functional and the process for this is being held up for whatsoever reason. But in the meantime an old party hat like Pranab has certainly been gaining ground where the top stewards of the party are leaning more on him than his peers whether in the party or in Government.
Moreover, through initiating Pranab in J&K, the Congress top command wants to bring warring factions of Pradesh Party round its point of view. Significantly, former J&K Congress chief Minister and now Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad often had complaints about PMO bureaucrats like leaking missives meant for his Ministry besides flaunting his poor report card through media.
And Azad has been more comfortable ever since Pranab's stars started looking up vis-à-vis Centre and Congress Party's politics. And he cannot be more pleased by anything else than an invitation to Pranab to visit J&K though it came from Soz despite the two are thought to be rivals in State politics.
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