The Congress party’s determination to ensure victory for Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha election on August 8 has a sub-text: defeat for Patel will be a defeat for Sonia.

As parliamentary secretary to Rajiv Gandhi, Patel — who earlier served Indira Gandhi — absorbed lessons in political court craft that have stood him in good stead as Sonia’s back room courtier. Patel is today as close to the Gandhis as any non-family member. In the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal, the initials AP in middleman Guido Haschke’s scribbled notes on bribes paid were widely alleged to refer to Patel. He has vigorously denied the allegation, but there’s little doubt that in the past ten years he has assumed a critically important position in the Congress hierarchy. Sonia consults him on all sensitive political decisions.

Patel rarely speaks in the Rajya Sabha. The exception was when Dr Subramanian Swamy named him in the AgustaWestland case. Patel defended himself with a ferocity few even in the Congress had suspected him of possessing. Patel’s low-key style enabled him to operate beneath the media radar for years till the AgustaWestland scam exploded in Parliament in July 2016.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi had expected Patel to play a pivotal role in the Gujarat assembly election to be held this November. Hardik Patel had been carefully set up to divide the powerful Patel community vote. AAP, a malign Congress progeny (like the Shiv Sena five decades ago), was expected to weaken Prime Minister Narendra Modi further on his home turf.

Advertising

Advertising

All that changed after the Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur elections in March 2017. AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal has since imploded. Ahmed Patel was the first to recognise that AAP could divide the Congress vote in Gujarat as it did in Goa. That would lead to a BJP landslide in a state where party president Amit Shah has targeted winning 150 seats in the 182-seat assembly. Within weeks, a chastened Kejriwal announced AAP would not contest the Gujarat elections. It was a sea change in tone from a winter afternoon in January 2014 when an aggressive Kejriwal tried to barge into then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s residence but was stopped on the Ahmedabad highway by the Gujarat police. I happened to be in Gandhinagar that afternoon on work and Kejriwal’s swagger defied description. Modi remained unmoved and Kejriwal’s convoy was turned back. Kejriwal today is a cipher, fighting for political survival in Delhi. Hardik Patel, like Kejriwal, too is a spent force.

As Ahmed Patel faces his toughest test next week in a quest for an eighth parliamentary term (his fifth in the Rajya Sabha), Sonia has pulled out all the stops to ensure Patel wins. A loss for Patel will have several consequences. Most critically, it will undermine Sonia’s authority within the party. Till now, Congress leaders and workers have been content to blame Rahul Gandhi for the party’s steep electoral decline. Not one has had the gumption to criticise Sonia.

That could change after August 8. The BJP has deliberately converted the Rajya Sabha poll into a Sonia Vs Shah contest, dehyphenating Sonia from Modi. The change in her stature will not please the Congress president.

Moreover, she faces a stern test in Raebareli in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. If Patel loses his Rajya Sabha seat, it will embolden the BJP to put up a strong candidate in Raebareli. Rahul already faces a challenge in Amethi from newly minted I&B minister Smriti Irani.

The Gandhis are meanwhile in a dilemma over Priyanka Gandhi’s electoral debut. Priyanka opted out of pan-Uttar Pradesh campaigning in the February-March 2017 Assembly election. The plan is for Sonia to “bequeath” her Raebareli seat to Priyanka in 2019. With the Congress in disarray, and Priyanka’s own sheen dimming, that plan too could now become a casualty.

Rahul’s ascension to the presidency of the Congress has been delayed for nearly two years. With his political acumen drawing criticism from even within the Congress following the collapse of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, Rahul is increasingly being seen as a liability rather than an asset.

Two pieces of glue have for decades bound Congress leaders and workers to the Gandhis. The first is the enduring feudal appeal in rural India of dynasty. That appeal for young, aspirational Indians is gradually fading. The second is the resources the Gandhis have access to. Out of power in all but one “ATM” state (Karnataka), that advantage too is receding.

The success or failure of Ahmed Patel’s election bid next Tuesday could determine how quickly the glue will come unstuck.

The writer is author of The New Clash of Civilizations: How The Contest Between America, China, India and Islam Will Shape Our Century