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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Reporting & Essays |
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Reportage |
The Invisible Hand
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| Understanding the inner world of Sonia’s consigliere—could Ahmed Patel provide a key to her inscrutable government? |
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SHEKHAR YADAV / INDIA TODAY GROUP / GETTY IMAGES |
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| Congress president Sonia Gandhi with her political adviser Ahmed Patel. Like her, the
adviser has consistently refused ministerships yet is more powerful than most senior ministers.
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| T |
HE VENUE WAS THE ASHOKA HOTEL in New Delhi, and the occasion a rare luncheon for journalists hosted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi after a motley alliance led by her party secured its second consecutive victory in the 2009 elections to the Lok Sabha. The Italian-born Congress chief, who had just stunned the nation yet again when she |
rejected the coveted post of prime minister, was to visit each of nearly 30 tables where journalists of all hues were sitting. It was unusual for the notoriously inaccessible leader to spend this much time with representatives of the media; they must have been pinching themselves in disbelief.
Journalists in Delhi, known for arriving very late or far too early for events, were all on time for this rare to-do. When senior leaders and ministers started to arrive, some journalists located their leader of choice and quickly walked down to greet them as they ambled in. There was no sign of the Congress chief.
But suddenly there was a commotion—everyone got up from their seats as Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi’s political adviser, walked into the room. It was, they must have assumed, an indicator that Mrs Gandhi would be just a few steps behind. But even after confirming otherwise, few wanted to miss the opportunity to say hello to Patel, who is even less publicly visible and accessible than his boss. He reciprocated the advances, but while doing so his eyes roved through the hall to look over the arrangements.
There was no indication of a victory on his face; in fact there was nothing but a sense of groundedness in his eyes. He is not suave, he is not articulate, he doesn’t have an imposing personality—there is little about him to suggest that he advises the most powerful politician in India. Like the Congress president, the adviser himself has consistently refused ministership; and, again like her, his authority is greater than most senior ministers.
As Sonia Gandhi walked in, wearing a customary dull brown sari so often identified with highbrow NGO activists, all eyes turned away from Patel—just as he would have wanted—and towards the Congress president. It was an especially rare occasion for journalists from small papers that Sonia Gandhi herself would greet each and every one of them.
| SHEKHAR YADAV / INDIA TODAY GROUP / GETTY IMAGES |
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Patel—here with Digvijay Singh, a general secretary of the All
India Congress Committee—listens well and works quietly,
making sure not to ruffle too many feathers.
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The scene bordered on comical. She’d spend a few minutes chatting at a table, and as she stood up to walk away, the journalists bragged to themselves and each other: “She recognised me”, and “Did you notice when I introduced myself, she gave a broad smile”, and “Oh yes, she asked that question to me” and “Can you believe it, she admitted that her party had not expected such a big victory”.
But as she made her way around the hall, where was her adviser, her right hand man? Did Ahmed Patel escort her as she was introduced to reporters? No. Was he sharing the same dining table with the Congress president? No. He blended in with the mix of ministers in attendance and hardly anyone noticed when he left the venue—was it before the Congress chief or after? In the presence of Sonia, few even cared to inquire as to his whereabouts. And Patel would have wanted just that—a good bit of anonymity.
Several Congress old-timers have said that Ahmed Patel doesn’t have any extraordinary political acumen. So what is it about this man that keeps him glued to the most powerful family in the country? It’s a question few can honestly answer—even those who interact with him on a daily basis. But the consensus in Delhi, and in his home state of Gujarat, is that it’s a combination of his low profile, an uncanny ability to keep his mouth shut, a cultivated reputation for not throwing around his weight and under-playing his favours to others: it’s not what he can do, but what he doesn’t do.
“He mostly listens and doesn’t say much beyond a few syllables, and sometimes a few sentences,” one union minister said. The minister declined to be identified for a reason that indicates the weight Patel carries at 10 Janpath: “If you quote me by name even once, all other anonymous quotes by other ministers will get attributed to me.”
Kadir Peerzada, a former Surat mayor who is considered close to Patel, described him as “a simple man and an excellent listener, an attribute that ensures others are comfortable talking to him.” “He abhors any kind of publicity,” Peerzada continued. “Along with some of his supporters in Gujarat and Delhi, I was trying to put together a book on Ahmed Bhai, but the moment he came to know about it he got the project shelved. He said he doesn’t want any praise.”
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HE GANDHI FAMILY MAY APPRECIATE him for what he doesn’t do, but it was Patel and his invisible hand that played the trick during the March 2011 reconstitution of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s crucial decision-making arm. Many old-timers were left seething with anger at the appointment of “outsiders”—politicians who had |
defected from other parties—to important posts in the CWC, and they refused to approve the new committee in protest. Mohan Prakash, who had continuously attacked the Congress in his former position as a spokesman for the Janata Dal, was put in charge of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir—although he will have little to do in Gujarat as long as Ahmed Patel is there. Gulchain Singh Charak, who now oversees Bihar, Punjab and Chandigarh, was pitchforked into the job from the obscurity of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council—his own party men had to actually Google his name to find out who he was. Sanjay Nirupam, another longtime Congress critic originally from the Shiv Sena, was given a few states, as was newly-appointed general secretary Madhusudan Mistry from Gujarat, who represents the faction led by Shankersinh Vaghela—a BJP defector who built the saffron party in the state in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ahmed Patel has no love lost for Vaghela, while Mistry used to be the latter’s close confidant but has since fallen out with him. “So he gets the reward,” a Congress leader chuckled.
Party insiders believe that Patel’s invisible hand doesn’t just move the pieces in Delhi, as shown by an episode from 2007 that either demonstrates Patel’s considerable influence or other ministers’ outsized belief in his power.
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Readers' Comments |
Total Comments
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S naqvi
3 August 2011
02:16 PM
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Looks like the writer has drawn inspiraion from an earlier article in Hardnews had laid bare the inside dealings at 10 janpath... here goes the link... http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2011/02/3836, http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2011/02/3849
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