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Five old-new faces in the Union Cabinet

Harish Khare

A look at the Congress veterans who have been inducted into the Government.

A. R. Antulay is a quintessential Congressman of the Indira Gandhi days. He was one of the general secretaries at the All India Congress Committee at a time when Mrs. Gandhi was in political purgatory (1978-1979). He was an aggressive organiser and a passionate advocate on her behalf. In those younger days, he practised a kind of rougher partisanship and was credited with the authorship of the controversial proposal to write a presidential form of government into the Constitution.

When Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980, he was rewarded for his loyalty. He became the first — and the only — Muslim Chief Minister of Maharashtra. His appointment was a statement of her assertive secular politics. However, as Chief Minister Mr. Antulay quickly overstepped the norms of fair play and had to step down when it was reported that he was collecting `donations' by cheques in the name of an `Indira Gandhi Prathisthan.'

In Maharashtra, for the most part he aligned himself with anti-Sharad Pawar forces, a stance that earned him a Cabinet slot in the Narasimha Rao dispensation. Mr. Antulay might have mellowed, but he is a hundred per cent `political creature.' He can be expected to use his new position of Minister for Minority Affairs to rival Arjun Singh as the UPA Government's least ambivalent champion of secularism.

Murli Deora: As in the case of Mr. Antulay, the political baptism of Murli Deora took place in the Indira Gandhi era. A leader in the manner of S. K. Patil and Rajni Patel, `Murli Bhai' is a `friend of friends.' He can claim to be a man with only friends and no known detractors. He also has a reputation as a man of known and confirmed loyalties: to the Nehru-Gandhi family, the Reliance group, the rest of the corporate sector, and the American establishment. But no one can assert with any certainty the order of these loyalties.

It was Indira Gandhi who appointed Mr. Deora president of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee, a position he held for nearly 20 years. He was and remains a loyal partisan of the family. His friendship with the other family, the Ambanis, also dates back to the late 1970s. When after Dhirubhai Ambani's death the two Ambani brothers — Mukesh and Anil — fell out, Mr. Deora perspicaciously chose the winning side. A genial host, at `Chambers' (at the Taj Mansingh) he regularly brought Congress politicos face to face with the corporate set. He can be expected to use his charge of the Petroleum Ministry to deepen communication between the party and business leaders. He is also a self-confessed friend of the Americans. He will happily chaperone any visiting American of some consequence around town. When in a relaxed mood, he can catalogue various doors he can get opened in Washington D.C., irrespective of the White House's political colour.

Before May 2004, Mr. Deora's house at Lodi Estate was the place where Manmohan Singh, Natwar Singh, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, and a few others would gather for an agreeable lunch and a spot of bonding.

The first thing Sushil Kumar Shinde will do is give Shivraj Patil, the most nattily dressed man in the Union Cabinet, a run for his money. This weakness for fine dressing in no way distracts from Mr. Shinde's well-deserved respect as party apparatchik. As a general secretary, he was always willing to put in long hours at 24 Akbar Road, the party's headquarters. He knows legions of Congressmen and Congresswomen across the country by name. He is the party's most best-known Dalit face. A party establishment man to the core, he cheerfully went to Mumbai to take over as Chief Minister when Vilasrao Deshmukh fell out of favour with the high command; and gamely made way for Mr. Deshmukh when the party leadership decided to back him to head the Congress-Nationalist Congress coalition.

Being an out-and-out political activist, Mr. Shinde was distinctly uncomfortable in the Hyderabad Raj Bhavan. He beseeched party managers to allow him to re-enter the hurly-burly of the political arena. Like Mr. Antulay, he adds to the political persona of the Union Cabinet.

Ambika Soni had her primary education in the Sanjay Gandhi school of politics, and went on to finishing school as a self-advertised Sonia acolyte. The new Minister for Tourism and Culture takes great pride in this fact. The very first appointment Ms. Gandhi made as Congress president was Ms. Soni as head of a front organisation. Since then, `Ambika-ji' has steadfastly served Ms. Gandhi. Notwithstanding this personalisation of loyalty, Ms. Soni is joyfully combative when it comes to projecting the Congress point of view. As the head of the media department at the AICC over the past few years, she has been the party's public voice and is respected for her unapologetic advocacy of the party's leadership and its priorities.

Although she can be deemed to have been rewarded for seven long years of organisational work, she can be relied upon to play her role as the watchdog of `Congress interests' in the Union Cabinet.

Vayalar Ravi, let it be put on record, was a member of the Congress Working Committee as far back as 1974-75, and has a reputation of being a bit of a `socialist.' Like Mr. Antulay, he represents the Congress old guard. He is well versed in the grammar of coalition working. In his various innings as general secretary of the party, he has consistently questioned the neo-liberal shift in economic policies. He is not known to be enamoured of the creeping pro-American bias in India's foreign policy.

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