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Sleuth Mukherjee trails mole in Congress

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

A mole in the Congress?

That is the question prominent on senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee's mind now.

As the chairman of the party's media department, he has a grave assignment. Namely, fix responsibility for the controversial interview featured in the latest issue of the party's official mouthpiece, the Congress Sandesh.

The chairman of the magazine's editorial board, former Union minister Vasant Sathe, has explained how it could have happened to Mukherjee and other senior leaders. His version: the controversial interview of Ajit Pawar, nephew of Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, might have been "inadvertently" included.

He explained that maybe the editorial staff was unaware of the distinction between the NCP and the Congress.

But that is something that an enraged party chief Sonia Gandhi is not willing to buy. Although certain leaders are seeking to play the matter down, the fact that Mukherjee has been asked to look into it indicates the guilty will not be spared.

"Madame is livid," Congress sources said.

But naturally. For, in the interview Ajit Pawar has extolled the virtues of his uncle and his NCP.

"And Pawar had stabbed Madame in the back by not only quitting the party but forming his new outfit (along with former Lok Sabha speaker Purno A Sangma and former All India Congress Committee general secretary Tariq Anwar)," they added.

When the matter was brought to Gandhi's notice, she virtually threw a fit -- how could her bete noire be featured so glowingly in her own party organ? Sources said insult was added to injury when NCP activists went to town with the interview, claiming their leadership had "moles" in the Congress.

The controversial article describes Ajit Pawar, a Maharashtra minister, as a "Maratha strongman" while state Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has merely been described as a "Maratha."

Sources revealed that the Maharastra chief minister personally rang up Gandhi and complained to her that the official organ was being misused by vested interests to polish Sharad Pawar's political image.

While members of the magazine's editorial board including senior leader Mani Shankar Aiyar and spokesman Anil Shastri were tight-lipped, party general secretary Ahmad Patel is reported to have told Sonia that the "matter is not as innocuous as it seems," and that a thorough probe is needed to ascertain the facts and pull up those responsible for what was "highly avoidable."

"There is a method in this madness," said Major Ved Prakash, another veteran partyman. "I think the leadership is looking into it. It will not spare the guilty."

Senior leader Janardhan Diwedi, who has been entrusted with the responsibility of writing the Congress chief's speeches in Hindi, described the incident as 'wholly incongruous', one that sent wrong signals to the people.

He referred to the fact that during the last AICC session, Gandhi had told party delegates that she had been stabbed in the back by Pawar, Sangma and Anwar and the people would teach them a lesson.

So is there a mole in the Congress?

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