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| Sonia Gandhi and Natwar Singh |
April 14 : Shashi Tharoor could be facing what some Congress leaders furtively refer to as the “Natwar Singh-Volcker report test”.
The junior foreign minister’s political future depends on Sonia Gandhi’s “perception” of whether the shareholding pattern in the Kochi IPL has brought disrepute to the party.
Insiders said that like Natwar in December 2005, Tharoor was under watch.
Until December 6, 2005, Natwar had a formidable presence in the Union cabinet. He seldom missed the opportunity to remind Manmohan Singh how close he was to Indira Gandhi, Rajiv and Sonia.
As a former UN official, Tharoor will need no introduction to the report of Paul Volcker, which made public a list of corporations and politicians across the world who had benefited from an elaborate scam devised by the Saddam Hussein regime to make money for itself from the global body’s oil-for-food programme.
The Volcker Committee — set up by the UN to inquire into the oil-for-food programme — named Natwar, his son Jagat and some other Indian companies as beneficiaries of the scam.
For a few days, Natwar was a picture of confidence till Sonia discovered that the name of India’s grand old party had indeed been misused. Natwar tried meeting her but the doors of 10 Janpath were firmly shut to him.
Natwar’s friends, such as Arjun Singh and Sheila Dikshit, did little to plead his case. Natwar cried foul, got expelled and tried his luck in the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. But the career diplomat could not find his feet in Indian politics again.
Over the years, several others too have failed the leadership’s “perception” test. After the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the then Maharashtra chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, initially saw nothing wrong in taking film director Ram Gopal Varma to the ravaged Taj Hotel. He kept giving sound bites till AICC observers landed in Mumbai to elect a new leader of the Congress legislative party.
Within the Congress, V. George, Ahmad Patel, Mukul Wasnik, Rajiv Shukla and dozens of others have tripped but recovered to stay on.
The latest to burn his fingers by flaunting the Nehru-Gandhi name is Anish Gandhi, who was appointed adviser to Meghalaya chief minister D.D. Lapang last August.
Realising that his claims of proximity to Rahul Gandhi were becoming too frequent, the Amethi MP’s office stepped in and Anish had to quit last week, sources close to Team Rahul said.
They confirmed that Rahul’s office had brought the “misuse” of his name to the notice of the Meghalaya government and asked it to intervene.
According to an order issued on April 3, 2010, by the Meghalaya chief minister’s secretariat, Anish’s resignation has been accepted. “You are accordingly relieved of all the duties and responsibilities of the assignment with immediate effect,” the letter addressed to Anish said.
However, for the record, Lapang said Anish’s resignation had been accepted as he wanted to take care of his parents in Canada.
Anish, 34, an electronics and telecom engineer, had apparently claimed proximity to the Amethi MP to get the adviser’s post — equivalent to that of a secretary in the government.
He had been an adviser to the National Institute of Rural Development and also to ministries such as panchayati raj and sport and youth affairs. He was drawing just Re 1 as salary.
