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| Azad, Sonia and Kharge |
A man of letters that he is, Shashi Tharoor knows it best -- when to talk, how to talk and what to speak up!
Playing with words is his strength certainly.
On August 26, two days after CWC meeting in a media interview - Tharoor was asked - "Have you chanced upon an adjective that would adequately describe your affinity for words?"
His answer was - Ineradicable! (The Indian Express)
Well the meaning of the word is -- unable to be destroyed or removed.
Did he chose the word carefully?
It is said a dinner hosted by Tharoor triggered the 'Letter' writing moment among 23 Congress leaders and a move that was apparently backed by about 100 others.
"Deeply sad for our country. This is why #IndiaSaysBJPNoMor !," he tweeted on Friday sharing his views on Covid19 crisis and how India has been hit economically in last few months.
Manish Tewari as a Congress lawmaker is also known for directing his tirade against anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and calling him a 'Bhagoda'. This was in 2011 and Congress fate has turned for worse since then.
He was one of the '23 signatories' of the much discussed letter penned for Sonia Gandhi and that has earned them the sobriquet of 'dissenters'. This has happened in a party where sycophancy is minimum qualification and no leader has any right to 'question' or even raise anything called resemblance of questions against the 'first family'.
On August 27, 2020 he retweeted a missive from another compatriot and 'signatory' to the letter Kapil Sibal and wrote - "prescient".
Just google out and you will find hyperbolic synonymous words to this 'prescient'.
- Prophetic, visionary and far-seeing are some of these.
Kapil Sibal's tweets had run like this:
"Unfortunate that Jitin Prasada is being officially targeted in UP. Congress needs to target the BJP with surgical strikes instead wasting its energy by targeting its own".
Of course, we need to point out that when pressure mounted Manish Tewari, who had accused Anna Hazare 'steeped in corruption from head to toe' tendered apology later. All these were in the month of August only.
Coming back to Sibal's tweets and Jitin Prasada episode. Prasada is son of Late Jeetendra Prasada, who was once a trusted aide of P V Narasimha Rao, and later contested against Sonia Gandhi for party president's post.
Jitin Prasada has been unhappy the manner the Congress was functioning both at the national level and in Uttar Pradesh.
He was irked even prior to 2019 general elections and came closer to join the BJP!
Junior Prasada is also one of the signatories and thus - perhaps as expected - he has come 'under fire' after UP Congress leaders.
"Jitin Prasada is the only person from Uttar Pradesh to have signed the letter. His family history has been against the Gandhi family and his father the late Jitendra Prasad proved it by fighting elections against Sonia Gandhi. Despite this, Sonia Gandhi gave Jitin Prasada a Lok Sabha ticket and made him a minister. What he has done is gross indiscipline and the district congress committee wants strict action against him and condemns his actions " said a resolution.
This is not first instance of local efforts to make life difficult for the so called dissenters. Something more interesting has happened in Maharashtra - where Congress is now sharing power with Shiv Sena and NCP, whose founding president Sharad Pawar too had raised 'foreign origin' bogey against Sonia Gandhi in 1999.
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| Also a 'dissenter': Tharoor |
In Maharashtra, Congress minister Sunil Kedar threatened the rebel-3 from the state - Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan and Milind Deora - that Congress workers will 'see how they move' in the state freely.
This could be called height of tolerance in country's oldest outfit that slams BJP for being 'intolerant on daily basis !!
After two days of silence, veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad too has opened up on Thursday indicating clearly that there is an uneasy calm.
"Anyone who has a genuine interest in the internal working dynamics of Congress would welcome our proposal to have every state and district Congress presidents come through election. The entire Congress Working Committee should be elected," he said.
"The intention is to make Congress active and strong. But those who simply got 'APPOINTMENT cards' continue to oppose our proposal. What's the harm in having elected CWC members who will have stable tenures in the party".
He further said any elected president either in district level otherwise would enjoy support of 51 per cent of party workers and at present the appointed presidents do not enjoy support of even one per cent workers.
Referring to August 24 meet of CWC, Azad says :“We (23 signatories) have achieved one (of the goals) in the CWC because it has been decided that within six months…the AICC session will take place and a full-time president will be elected. At least, we are happy that Mrs Gandhi is there. Otherwise, there would have been some third person for another one or two years as interim president and who knows after that, there would have been a fourth as interim president,” Azad said.
“So, at least, it has been agreed upon that the need of the hour is a full-time president…whosoever that will be, we have no objection. We are not candidates for president. We only want a full-fledged, permanent president,” he said.
Another signatory Shashi Tharoor,however, backed Rahul Gandhi's criticism of the Modi government on taxation policy and tweeted saying: "Salaried professionals & the middle class are hurting, as
@RahulGandhi rightly points out.
The crushing weight of fuel prices, inflation, unemployment are ignored & healthcare & education neglected by this Govt. All of us in All India Professional Congress stand behind @INCIndia
(Congress party) in demanding justice".
Is it a mixed signal ?
Everybody seems to be buying time. The rebel team feels at least one one of them between Kapil Sibal and Ghulam Nabi Azad will be part of a panel that Sonia Gandhi is expected to set up to address concerns raised by the 'dissenters' and perhaps oversee election of a regular party chief.
Rebels are out and out determined to prevent Rahul Gandhi come back as party president so effortlessly once again.
Of course, for records, they say the new president could be anyone but should be full-term party chief.
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| Is he enjoying the drama? |
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