In 1997 when the Congress party held elections to the post of party president, it was only the third such grand occasion in as many as 112 year history.
Sitaram Kesri had won the polls defeating two juniors -- Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot. By 2001, Pawar was expelled and NCP was already floated. Sonia Gandhi's 'foreign origin' bogey as raised by Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar was the trigger.
"I may not be a great leader but I am a humble worker and the Congress workers identify with me," Kesri said.
But there were two other developments too. Rajesh Pilot died in a road mishap and Kesri also expired on Oct 24, 2000.
Well, it goes without saying that Sitaram Kesri as an individual leader should be defined as someone who exemplifies LONELINESS. He died in self-isolation -- utterly sad; even 'rendered homeless' technically and as they say in a planet of unrewarded loyalty. Hence without pride and prejudice, there are merits to what Narendra Modi said in Rajya Sabha on Feb 7, 2024.
"The Congress party threw Sitaram Kesri, who was from Other Backward Classes (OBC), on the footpath. That video is available. The entire country watched," PM Modi said in his address in the Rajya Sabha.
Kesri was perhaps the most trusted AICC Treasurer in the Congress history. What he 'said' was accepted as the chartered accountant's final accounts closure.
Congressmen and women believed: "न खाता न बही, जो चचा केसरी कहें वही सही".
(Na khata na bahi, Jo Chacha Kesri kahi wohi sahi (No book keeping in our party, what uncle/chacha Kesri says is acceptable to all.)
Of course, Kesri gets all sympathies for the manner he was booted out in a coup type operation of Sonia Gandhi and her loyalists including Ghulam Nabi Azad. It is paradoxical by 2021, Azad himself was denied Rajya Sabha berth by the 'family' as madam's so developed dislike for him. It is doubly ironical, now he has friends in the likes of Narendra Modi -- who even shed tears in Rajya Sabha 'bidding farewell' to Azad.
But it is also true and perhaps lesser remembered political anecdote that Kesri had humiliated P. V. Narasimha Rao out of the office of chairman of the Congress party in Parliament. Slowly, Kesri walked into a trap. He became a target for Sonia loyalists who had by then swelled the Congress ranks. By 1998, little wonder "Madam" was the chairperson ! Exit of Rao made former Bihar CM, Jaggannath Mishra lament that even servants were not ill treated such in Congress party !!
Kesri also had called H D Deve Gowda 'a nikkam-ma'. And for his part when Gowda was to move out of his office, he called Kesri -- "India's old man in hurry".
In March 1998, the Sonia brigade didn't have to try much to author an unceremonious Kesri exit. But its a fodder for Narendra Modi even in 2024.
Personal memories:
On Oct 24, 2000, I was traveling ... reached PTI guest house at Jungpura, Delhi much late in the evening. The office and my 'reporting department' knew about my return from Defence Correspondents' Course Training .... It was a long train journey from Mumbai.
But jealousy works more in the world of jugadu journalism. So, by 7.30 am or so, I was in Kesri's house. Another TV journalist -Sumit Awasthi (also part of DCC-2000) had landed up with the same assignment.
Our 'defence course' expertise ... was into something else. We smiled, we could not laugh at our fate as it was a house of mourning. And crying was too 'unmanly' for two bachelors. Of course, both of us shared some north Indian adjectives for both journalism and respective bosses !!
I have the clippings of the story, I reported on Oct 25, 2000 (senior colleague SKN, Siddharth Kanungo guided me..while drafting the piece...
"Mourners thronged former Congress president Sitaram Kesri's residence in Delhi on Wednesday morning (Oct 25, 2000) to pay their last respects to the late Leader, who passed away on Tuesday night after a prolonged illness.
A pall of gloom enveloped Kesri's Purana Qila Road residence as many of his followers and admirers, cutting across party lines, assembled to pay homage to the veteran Congress leader. The 84-year-old former All-India Congress Committee chief died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). His body was brought home early on Wednesday morning.
There is another anecdote. When the then President K R Narayanan visited 'ailing Kesri' at his residence I was deputed. The house looked deserted. That's the only occasion, I could personally interact with the then illustrious president; and could ask him on what he would say about Sitaram Kesri.
Of course, Kesri's house had a story. A 'India Today' article runs like this:
"When his (Kesri's) house became a centre of activity, Sonia grew suspicious and denied him a Rajya Sabha nomination. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government allowed him to retain the bungalow as a freedom fighter and redeemed his honour. The irony was overwhelming: it took a BJP Government to rehabilitate the senior leader of India's GOP. There was no tragedy in Sitaram Kesri. Only pathos."
Yet again, 'The Hindu' article by Harish Khare, was also a reflection of ground zero.
"....the country silently watched the physical humiliation of Kesri and drew its own conclusions about the Congress and its leadership; there was a disagreeable note to that evening of May 20 (1999) and put in place rough attitudes, which inhibit wholesomeness in decision-making. Though the Congressmen failed to protest this organised hooliganism and all that its symbolised, the electorate had its say soon in the general elections."
In 2009, when Sonia vetoed appointment of Sanjaya Baru as media advisor to PM Manmohan Singh, Khare had joined the PMO.
ends
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