'She wanted to be PM through the back door' (Interview with
Neerja Chowdhury
The Indian Express
May 23, 1999
Title: 'She wanted to be PM through the back door' (Interview with
Tariq Anwar)
Author: Neerja Chowdhury
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 23, 1999
TARIQ ANWAR has been a Congressman for 30 years, during the course of
which he has been the president of the Youth Congress, Bihar PCC chief
general secretary of the party, and political secretary to the
Congress president, among other things. Neerja Chowdhury interviews
him:
Q: Like Sharad Pawar, are you also happy with the expulsion?
A: I am happy to come out of the suffocation inside the party.
Q: You have been a protege of Sitaram Kesri. How come you broke with
him?
A: I have not deserted him. Humare madhur sambandh hain. But I was
left with no other option. I would not call this decision a political
one, it is above politics.
Q: Do you think Kesri will join you?
A: In the long run, all right-thinking people, with even a little
self-respect, will join us. We will be the real Congress. Grassroot
workers of the Congress will join us, because we represent the
sentiments of the Indian people.
This was the first time in the history of the Congress that we saw so
much goondagardi in the AICC. It is shameful that an 80-year-old man
(Kesri) should be attacked the way he was by anti-social elements who
had gathered there. It was all a natak going on with the consent of
10, Janpath.
Q: There were half a dozen members of the CWC who felt like you. Why
didn't they speak up?
A: Only they can answer this. I feel they are waiting for the right
moment.
Q: You have been close to Laloo Yadav and he has supported Sonia...
A: I have not yet talked to him. We shall do so now. We had first to
sort out our internal mamla. I feel, ultimately, he too will support
us. You must not forget that in the 1996 elections, I won despite the
Laloo wave. I have some following there.
Q: Why did you not protest when Sonia Gandhi was made the Congress
president and then the CPP chairperson? After all, she was bound to
become PM.
A: We should have raised it then. We made a mistake. Personally, I
regret this. If we neglected something in the past, at least we can
rectify it now. I never accepted her when she was made the Congress
president. I was alone in this. Some people had thought that she was
the only way to remove Kesri.
Q: Pawar said only 10 days ago that she was the natural choice for PM.
A: It is only after she was projected as a prime ministerial candidate
and we began to get the reaction from the masses that we realised that
we should have opposed her earlier.
Q: What you are saying is that you don't trust her with state secrets,
since you are prepared to accept her as Congress president but not as
PM?
A: That is one of the reasons. Besides, she doesn't know anything
about India, its problems, its culture.
Q: Do you propose to float something like Jan Morcha, like V.P Singh
did in 1987?
A: No. We will float a full-fledged political party. There is no
time for a morcha with elections only three months away. YR Singh had
two years.
Q: Will you welcome all the Congressmen who left the party in the new
outfit?
A: We will invite everyone who left the party at some time or the
other.
Q: Including Chandra Shekhar and V.R Singh?
A: These are big names. We have not decided on all that yet. We will
sit together and decide what we must do now. The sympathy of these
leaders is with us.
Q: What do you think will be the poll issue?
A: This, the foreign origins of Sonia Gandhi, will be the issue.
National pride will be the election issue.
Q: Since the BJP and you will have the same issue, will you be joining
hands?
A: There is nothing like that. The BJP also talks about poverty.
Does that mean nobody else should talk about it?
Q: Who will be your main target, the Congress or the BJP?
A: We will target both. Nationality will be our basic issue. Had
Sonia Gandhi accepted our suggestion, the Congress would have got an
absolute majority. Now the Congress will be damaged.
Q: Does that not benefit the BJI"
A: Not at all. We have hijacked their issue and made it into a
national one.
Q: Does not a weakening of the Congress benefit the BJP?
A: In the long run, it will be in the national interest and ultimately
it will benefit us.
Q: What really made you do it?
A: As a widow of Rajiv Gandhi, one had sympathy for Sonia Gandhi. But
how can she dictate to us? All the senior leaders of the party had to
line up to see her. Haath pair jorh kar kharha hona parhta tha and
that too before a foreigner. It was shameful. Even I have worked in
the party for 30 years. What is her contribution? Till a year ago,
she was not even a member of the Congress party. The way she captured
the AICC showed how power hungry she was. She wanted to become PM
through the back door.
Q: The Congress had accepted Annie Besant as party president 80 years
ago.
A: There is a difference between Annie Besant and her. Besant fought
for India's freedom and went to jail. Sonia Gandhi's plan from the
beginning was to capture power.
Q: But as a citizen, that is her right.
A: That is why we have suggested that there is a lacuna in the
Constitution which must be rectified.
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