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Nepotism and the Congress

The resignation of Congress general secretary Margaret Alva and her removal from the party’s all-important Working Committee and Central Election Committee is a stunning development for more than one reason. Loyal to the party and loyal to its first family, Ms Alva seemed to be the epitome of Congress political correctness. In a career spanning 36 long years, she handled with ease a gamut of responsibilities in the party and in government, both in her home State of K arnataka and at the Centre. Ms Alva had stayed with the party through its highs and lows, refusing to abandon Indira Gandhi after the Congress debacle of 1977 and steadfastly standing by Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi even when they were not in power. But what made Ms Alva’s resignation particularly intriguing and added to its shock value was her publicly stated accusation that party tickets were sold during the recent Assembly election in Karnataka. The Congress high command has categorically rejected this charge. Predictably, the unofficial party version is that Ms Alva rebelled not on a point of high principle but because her son was denied a ticket to fight the Karnataka election. Yet Ms Alva herself has been rather open about the latter aspect, asking to know why her son alone was deemed unfit to fight an election that saw participation by many other political sons.

Clearly, there are two separate issues here. Ms Alva’s allegation that party tickets were sold is serious. The timing of the charge may be open to question but not the fact of the charge itself. The Karnataka election trail had buzzed with talk of money and muscle power, and it was an open secret that merit was not the sole consideration in awarding ticket, whether by the Congress or by the Bharatiya Janata Party. This episode has highlighted afresh the troubling fact of double standards in the party’s approach to ethics. Its leadership cannot ignore the implications of this credibility crisis. It must order a thorough and dispassionate inquiry into the allegation of ticket sales while simultaneously dispelling the notion that political families can make presumptive claims to ticket and other handouts. The irony is that it would be difficult to assert this high principle of equality in a party ruled by a political dynasty and crowded with children of political clans. That Ms Alva felt no compunction in publicly airing her grievance over the denial of party nomination to her son, and indeed saw herself as articulating a point of principle indicates how entrenched nepotism has become in the Congress.

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