The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Politics and Rajya Sabha nominations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 18, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Politics and Rajya Sabha nominations

By K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI, JUNE 17. What were the compulsions behind the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi's decision to nominate three senior leaders for the coming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha even though they were rejected by the people in the recent Lok Sabha elections?

In the process, Ms. Gandhi violated a norm established by her husband and former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, not to give "back door" entry to party members soon after they lost in the Lok Sabha polls. There was an unwritten understanding that such leaders would undergo what is known in administrative jargon a "cooling" period.

The current biennial elections would see three such candidates: the Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, who lost from Latur in Maharashtra, Satish Sharma, who was trounced in Sultanpur and Sukhbans Kaur, who lost for the third time in a row to film star and former Union Minister, Vinod Khanna of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Power Minister, P.M. Sayeed, who too lost, would have to wait for a while to be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha. He is tipped to be nominated from Delhi against the vacancy caused by the resignation of AICC general secretary, Ambika Soni, now a candidate from Punjab.

Interestingly, it is not the first time that Ms. Gandhi has done so. Soon after taking over as party president in 1998, she nominated two senior party members, Oscar Fernandes and Santosh Mohan Deb, to contest from Karnataka and Assam. Both these leaders had lost the March 1998 general elections and yet got the ticket for the Rajya Sabha elections. It is another matter that while Mr. Fernandes made it to the Council of States, Mr. Deb lost — a second defeat within a month.

Subsequently, Ms. Gandhi said she expressed regrets for having cleared those candidates. She said she was unaware of the norm evolved by Rajiv Gandhi and suggested that there would be no repeat of the violation. The immediate fall out of the reiteration of the "Rajiv principle" was that the senior leader, Arjun Singh, who was then tipped to be accommodated from the Madhya Pradesh quota later that year, had to wait for a longer period to enter the Rajya Sabha. Mr. Singh had in 1998 lost from Hoshangabad constituency. He later entered the Rajya Sabha and continues to be a member of the House.

Ironically, Ms. Gandhi's observation on the "Rajiv principle" was made at her first-ever interaction with correspondents at the residence of Najma Heptulla, who had just completed an assignment as the spokesperson of the Congress. The cycle has now taken a different turn with Dr. Heptulla having crossed over to the BJP.

For the present, the Congress president can cite a precedent in the party when the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, appointed Narayan Dutt Tiwari to head the Planning Commission after he lost from Nainital constituency, a result that robbed him of being a potential Prime Ministerial candidate then.

The Congress can, of course, draw comfort by pointing out that the Bharatiya Janata Party had initiated the practice in 1998 when the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, inducted Jaswant Singh and Pramod Mahajan into his Government, even though both had lost the Lok Sabha polls.

It is well known that Mr. Vajpayee was keen on making Jaswant Singh the Finance Minister, a move that was torpedoed by the Sangh Parivar. Mr. Singh was then accommodated as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, while Mr. Mahajan was appointed as Political Secretary to the Prime Minister. A few months later, both were made members of the Rajya Sabha and later they found their way into the Union Cabinet.

This time too, the BJP has nominated the former Ministers, Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha, both of whom fall in the category of candidates rejected by the electorate in the April-May polls.

While the BJP may have by choice given up its claim to be a party "with a difference," the signals emanating from 10 Janpath show that the Congress leadership has been unable to resist pressure and, in the process, has set an unhealthy precedent.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

DISSOLVING CAUVERY TENSIONS

A CONSTRUCTIVE STEP

The track to success

The urge to modernise West Asia

Politics and Rajya Sabha nominations