Ahmed Patel’s imprint on the Congress and the road ahead for the party

During the decade-long United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule from 2004 to 2014, Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who passed away on November 25, was mostly the source of the frequent enough headlines on news television that read, ‘Sonia Gandhi unhappy with Manmohan government’.

Patel was the inveterate insider. He was the Congress first family’s window to the world, at least until the scion, Rahul Gandhi, decided to step out of the shadows on a balmy afternoon at New Delhi’s Press Club of India in late September 2013. Rahul Gandhi trashed an ordinance, aimed to save convicted legislators from disqualification, literally tearing a copy of it into two for good effect in front of a gaggle of journalists, and describing it as “complete nonsense”.

By then the Congress-led UPA had faced enough heat over sundry alleged scams. With months left for the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, it was Rahul Gandhi’s way of announcing to the world that the party will no longer be run in the Machiavellian way that it has under his mother’s political secretary, which was Patel.

Manmohan Singh might have been the Prime Minister, but Patel was considered the second most powerful person in the Congress then, that is after Congress President Sonia Gandhi. But as subsequent events proved, Rahul Gandhi’s rebellion came too late. The die of public opinion had been cast.

In his own intermittent ways, Rahul Gandhi continued with his rebellion after the loss of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, trying to marginalise Patel and his men in the Congress system.

Eventually, Rahul Gandhi had to bring Patel back, but even at the time cornering Patel proved to be a tall task. It wasn’t merely because neither Rahul Gandhi, nor any members of his young team, lacked the political gumption of Patel. What they also lacked was Patel’s years of experience earned as he worked his way up from the taluka level politics in Gujarat’s Bharuch, his humility and accessibility.

Until the scourge of COVID-19, Patel continued to attend office and meet people whenever he could. Neither Rahul Gandhi, nor any members of his team, do that even now, or as patiently.

The only political strategist to rival Patel in the first decade of this century was Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Arun Jaitley. Both had endearing personalities, but different styles. If Jaitley was a raconteur of political gossip par excellence, Patel was a good listener.

Patel was also unrivalled, at least not until the advent of fellow Gujaratis atop Raisina Hill in 2014, in his understanding of the intersection of big money and politics.

This knack of Patel’s was a strength when handling political management in states that are economically developed, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

His latest hurrah being to convince Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi, and her children — Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — to align with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra to form a coalition government to keep the BJP out.

But this same strength of Patel’s counted for little in states where factors other than money still play a significant role in shaping politics, like the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and even West Bengal.

In Rajasthan, the Congress, and Patel as its key strategist, had to turn to a more rooted Ashok Gehlot to resurrect its fortunes, and in Madhya Pradesh it sought help of Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh.

Patel also found it difficult to build a rapport with lateral entrants into the party, particularly mass leaders like Karnataka’s former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The socialist leader of Karnataka was not always as deferential as they desired either towards Patel, or his masters — the Nehru-Gandhi family. More recently, Patel ensured an uneasy truce between an old loyalist like former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda of Haryana and Rahul Gandhi.

Patel has also been described as a crisis manager and a backroom boy. As Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Patel was more influential than most ministers of the Union cabinet. He could promise and deliver on IOUs. He was also the treasurer of the party.

Most obituaries, not just from Congress leaders, but also journalists, cannot help but note his phone calls to them past midnight. There were also party meetings either at his residence at 23, Mother Teresa Crescent, or the Congress’ strategy room at the Talkatora Road, that started around midnight and stretched until the early hours of the day — making him one of the more hard working leaders in the party.

As Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief Sitaram Yechury has noted, “with his warm and pleasing manners Patel could reach out across the entire political spectrum”. Patel was a key cog in the wheel of the coalition politics that the Congress was compelled to come to terms with during 2004 to 2014, and also subsequently.

As some in his party believe, Patel’s role should have ended with the Congress’ decimation in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but neither Rahul Gandhi, nor any in his team, could fill Patel’s shoes.

Rahul Gandhi tried to get rid of him, but had to get him back as the treasurer of the party in August 2018 to collect funds for the assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the winter of that year, and the subsequent Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

Sources said most friends of the Congress would not answer their phones when the man anointed Patel’s successor as the party treasurer by Rahul Gandhi phoned them. But things worked out swimmingly when Patel did.

Let’s see if Patel’s passing away could turn out to be another nail in the coffin of a fast dissipating party, or whether Rahul Gandhi, and his team, can rise from the ashes.

Archis Mohan is a senior journalist. Views are personal.