(Each week, the National Political Bureau of The Indian Express examines a political party and a leader, tracking their moves and explaining why they matter.)
After sparking a row with his remarks that he is a “Gandhian”, “Nehruvian” and a “Rajivian”, but not a “Rahulian” as Rahul Gandhi “is far too much younger than me and far too distant from me in his political life”, veteran Congress leader and ex-Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is back in Delhi, trying to get back to his “regular routine”.
But Aiyar, 84, seems to be struggling in this effort as he is besieged with media persons and their phone calls in the wake of a string of barbs that he recently fired at his party and its top brass including Rahul.
Aiyar says his phone never stops ringing. “Every time I pick it up, there are missed calls and messages from different people – many of them journalists,” he tells The Indian Express, as a TV news anchor leaves his sprawling bungalow in south Delhi after exchanging pleasantries with him.
It is 10 am, but Aiyar has not had breakfast yet, which seems to have upset his wife Suneet Mani Aiyar. Aiyar says she is not fond of journalists making trips to their home.
Last Sunday, while addressing an LDF-led Kerala government’s event in Thiruvananthapuram, Aiyar said the only state in India where progress has been made in “Gandhiji’s direction” was Kerala, and expressed confidence that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan would retain his post after the upcoming Assembly elections. With the Congress keenly hoping to return to power in the state this time following two consecutive terms of the CPI(M)-led LDF, Aiyar’s statement sent the party high command and its communication team into a tizzy.
The All India Congress Committee (AICC)’s media and publicity department chairman Pawan Khera claimed that Aiyar was no longer with the party. A communication team insider told The Indian Express that the Congress was used to “dealing with such situations” involving sidelined leaders. “We have enough veterans who can give us a headache. We know what to do with them, but it still results in some frantic decisions to manage the situation,” said a senior member of the AICC communication team.
Aiyar remains unfazed, though. Sitting in his library with more than 1,000 books, he may look frail but remains as razor-sharp mentally as he might have been at the peak of his career when he was one of the closest confidants of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
A Congress section feels that leaders like Aiyar have hurt the party more than they have helped its cause. Aiyar rejects it, saying he has not harmed the party. “Kerala is an uphill task for the Congress,” he says, adding that he would have expressed the same opinion if the Congress had “given him an opportunity to use a Congress platform… I wouldn’t have to (then) send this message through public discourse”.
He is clearly upset for being left out of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body. “I have not been allowed to speak at an AICC platform for 22 years,” he says.
The Congress has also been left red-faced by Aiyar’s another comment that the Opposition INDIA bloc should be led by Tamil Nadu CM and DMK president M K Stalin. “For any alliance to work, the convener has to be from a minor party because the major party – in this case the Congress – is locked in battle with all its national allies in states. This can’t work,” says Aiyar, as he gets ready for his day’s engagement, which “vary day-to-day”.
His day Friday looks busy as he has a scheduled lunch at India International Centre with some Dutch policy analysts, following which he would head to Parliament Library to do some research for his book.
“My primary source of livelihood is pension that I get as a former MP and former IFS (Indian Foreign Services) officer, and then, I get paid for my column as well,” says Aiyar.
“The second thing I am involved these days is the research for my upcoming book on Jinnah’s 1927 Delhi Proposals. I have been using the Nehru Library (Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library) and Parliament Library,” he says, as he eats breakfast with his wife in a neatly designed dining room in his house surrounded by greenery and plants.
During their breakfast, he also grapples with his “podcast emergency” and is in constant touch with his producer in Srinagar as his latest podcast has become “outdated” due to recent news events. Aiyar, who does three podcast shows for his YouTube channel, also recorded a podcast this week with senior Congress leader P Chidambaram.
On whether he had ever imagined a situation like the current one where he finds himself relegated to the margins of Congress politics, Aiyar says, “No, I never thought so. I always imagine that if I live long enough, I would become an elder statesman with respect and honour – something I have been denied without any reason.”
While Aiyar is no stranger to controversy, he claims his remarks are “always taken out of context”. He even defends himself for his “neech” jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019. “They (Congress) made me scapegoat in 2014. It was said that I had said that chaiwala Pradhan mantri nahi ban sakta hai. I never said it. Then, in 2019, I had said that Modi ek neech kisam ka aadmi hai. I had never said Modi neech hai… They twisted it because they needed a scapegoat. The same is being done in Kerala – because they know they will lose,” says a visibly angry Aiyar.
Khera’s statement that Aiyar is not a Congress leader and does not represent the party made him “furious”, he says, as he asks for the door to be closed because he does not want his wife to hear him getting angry. “Please tell me as a veteran Congressman of 35 years… Before Pawan Khera was even born, I have been representing the Congress,” adding that “I am a PCC member. Why can’t Khera use his words carefully.”
“As a TV anchor said that I am a frustrated octogenarian, whom everybody has forgotten and then, why does the Congress treat me as so important. It is a question worth asking Mr Khera…. I don’t hold any post, but that doesn’t mean I don’t represent the Congress,” says Aiyar, as he gets into an SUV in his bungalow’s parking. “I am a fully occupied octogenarian. And I am not an old crock,” he adds before being driven off.