Kesri-Prasada tussle was smokescreen for withdrawal

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The carefully-nurtured impression that Sitaram Kesri and UP Congress chief Jitendra Prasada would contest the Congress president's post now appears to be a smokescreen created by the party leadership as a diversionary tactic for the actual purpose -- pulling the carpet from under the United Front government's feet.

Quite evidently, the Congress leaders including those in Uttar Pradesh were encouraged by Kesri and his supporters to keep alive certain reports which indicated that the party president and Prasada were keen to bag the Congress president's post by contesting the organisational elections scheduled in May.

This was done even as Kesri and his supporters in the Congress Working Committee had made up their minds to withdraw support to the Deve Gowda government.

The CWC's authorising Kesri to take appropriate steps to stake the party's claim to form a government by meeting President Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma revealed that the Congress leadership's strategy was carried out in utmost secrecy.

Significantly, Prasada, who is also a CWC member, was present during Kesri's press conference at the AICC headquarters which briefly gave the reasons for the Congress withdrawal of support. Besides Kesri and Prasada, the other party leaders present were Tariq Anwar (Kesri's political secretary), Oman Deori, K Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Meira Kumar, R K Dhawan and others.

Later Azad pointed out that "there is no division in the Congress" about who the prime minister would be . He said the CWC had authorised Kesri, who was the party chief and Congress Parliamentary Party leader, to take necessary steps for staking the Congress claim to form a government. Azad pointed out that the CPP leader always became the prime minister according to the party convention.

That the Congress is still bargaining with various other parties, including some constituents of the UF, to support it after it formed the government headed by Kesri was indicated during Azad's conversation with journalists. When asked by a reporter how the Congress hoped to form a government, Azad said, "when Mr Deve Gowda can form his government by having just 40 members, we can also form a government because we have 144 members in the Lok Sabha."