HVK Archives: Destination anywhere
Destination anywhere - Mid-day
Vitusha Oberoi
()
8 August 1997
Title: Destination anywhere
Author: Vitusha Oberoi
Publication: Mid-day
Date: August 8, 1997
Chacha Kesri planned on a historic train journey from New Delhi to Calcutta
to preside over the AICC session. But his Youth Congress was intent on
repeating history a la Nagpur.
'The young, budding Congressmen pillaged food from the pantry without
payment, carried away the bread meant for breakfast and feasted on cold
drinks which were to be served to the VVIPS travelling on the train.
For once, the women were not to be left behind. Forced to sweat it out in
their non-air-conditioned compartments, which also leaked in the heavy
rains, they too declared a guerrilla warfare on food.
The men at least had a reason to be aggressive. They had paid a thousand
bucks or more for the travel but were not getting enough to cat.
The women were free loaders, their fare waived by an accommodating Congress
president who wanted a fair representation to the fairer sex at the session.
The food crisis occurred because instead of the 1,100 people the trim was
to have carried, 1,500 boarded it. So riotous was the scramble for seats
that Jagdish Tytler, in charge of the train, had to manhandle the Seva Dal
workers who stormed the compartment meant for the media and then refused to
leave repeated requests by the former minister.
A relaxed Kesri who fell while getting into his two bedroom saloon, turned
down the simple fare of aaloo and ghiya ki sabzi offered by the organisers.
He wanted chicken and he had it, with the train stopping at Tundla in Uttar
Pradesh beyond its scheduled halts that freshly slaughtered "pullet" could
be bought for his lunch.
But then, chicken freed was all that Kesri and the Congress received in
terms of crowd response at Tundla.
A group of about 30-odd supporters shouting feeble slogans greeted him with
the platform deserted but for this clutch.
So unnerving was the reception in the state from where Kesri has chosen his
vice-president Jitendra Prasada, that he refused to come out of the saloon.
The scene was no different at Kanpur but by then, the Congressmen on board
had found a novel way of swelling the crowds.
The Seva Dal, the Mahila Congress and the Youth Congress contingents
travelling with Kesri got down and joined the handful of people who had
come to greet the Congress president.
After the customary garlanding, they scampered back on board before the
train pulled out, leaving behind them a thin string of people waving
desultorily.
Dhanbad in Bihar was just a bit better, producing the biggest crowd which
came out to meet the AICC special anywhere en route.
A maximum of 150-old people milled about the train, with an adamant Kesri
still refusing to come out and say his piece. The job was left to Political
Secretary Tariq Anwar who thanked the crowds on behalf of Kesri.
"Tundla achcha thha, Kanpur mein bhi train kahi baahar rukti to achha tha,"
Kesri commented, surprising newspersons who had scrambled into his saloon
after much persuasion. He actually wanted all to believe that he was averse
to crowds.
"Lekin dekhna, Ahhahabad mein bahut gadbad hogi" he said, proved hopelessly
wrong when a couple of hours later that city too turned out to be a damp
squib.
The train carried the core of the Congress party but the level of
enthusiasm it generated in the two most populous states of the country,
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, put to the Kesri's repeated bids for power at the
Centre and his assertions that the Congress is on the come back trail.
It was only at Calcutta, where the Pradesh Congress Committee pulled out
all stops to make his arrival a grand show, that the train was given a
welcome.
Kesri was taken away from the railway station in a float shaped like a swan
to the bungalow where he will be staying for the duration of the AICC
jamboree.
The tram cost the AICC Rs 21 lakh with the delegates paying for their own
fare. Kesri's exclusive saloon, meant for use only by the chairman of the
railway board, cost another Rs 2.5 lakh.
The food bill was to have been realised from delegates as well but the open
loot by the Youth Congress and the Mahila Congress closed that option. For
all the response the train received, was the AICC special on a journey to
nowhere?
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