Opinion | Why is trouble brewing in the Mumbai Congress

Congress

Sujata Anandan

Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam will always be a parvenu in the Congress. For a man who said nasty things about Sonia Gandhi while he was a Bal Thackeray favourite in the Shiv Sena, he has found remarkable forgiveness from the Nehru-Gandhis with even Congress President Rahul Gandhi willing to overlook a fault or two and give him more than a second chance.

For example, in December 2015, as the editor of the Congress in-house magazine Congress Darshan, Nirupam (a former journalist) ‘overlooked’ an unflattering comparison of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel written by a staffer he had hired. Soon after the article appeared the reporter went missing. Nirupam was convinced that the mole was planted by his party colleagues who wanted to oust him from the post of the Mumbai Congress President. Despite this severe embarrassment, Rahul Gandhi, then the party vice-president, accepted the blunder as an honest mistake and gave Nirupam the benefit of doubt.

Nirupam then fought an uphill battle at the Brihanmumbai municipal elections in February 2017, not just against the Shiv Sena and the BJP, but also against his own party leaders — the aristocratic Congressmen who considered themselves loyalists and more suited to the job entrusted to Nirupam.

The Congress lost the municipal elections and it was not the first time for the party. The state Congress has met a similar fate under the formidable leaderships of former presidents Murli Deora, Gurudas Kamat and Kripashankar Singh. Yet Nirupam was pounced upon by those who had never ceased to look upon him as an outsider.

Nirupam offered to resign but Rahul Gandhi let him continue in the post. Nirupam, on his part, has tried to keep the party flag flying high in Mumbai, where he is the only party leader to hit the streets on various issues. He has relentlessly kept up the pressure on the ruling alliance. The only other Congressmen doing that with conviction at the national level was Rahul Gandhi.

Nirupam is, however, now facing his moment of reckoning with Milind Deora threatening to upset his plans if he does not mend his ways. Milind Deora is the son of late Murli Deora, the longest-serving Mumbai Congress President, and is considered close to Rahul Gandhi. Although Nirupam insists that he attempts to take along everyone with him, his abrasive style and militant spirit, picked up when he cut his political milk teeth while with Thackeray, rub Mumbai’s Congress leaders the wrong way.

With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, things have heated up.

With former MP Gurudas Kamat no more and Priya Dutt opting out of the contest citing family commitments, two of the six seats in Mumbai are now open for the Congress. Nirupam's bitter rival Kripashankar Singh is eyeing Dutt’s former seat (Mumbai North Central, now held by the BJP’s Poonam Mahajan) amid rumours that Raj Babbar, the Uttar Pradesh Congress President, wants to contest from that seat. Nirupam could be eyeing that seat or Kamat’s Mumbai North West seat. This is also because Nirupam’s old seat (Mumbai North), with a considerable Gujarati population, is considered a BJP stronghold and he is on the lookout for a more demographically suitable constituency. Both Mumbai North Central and Mumbai North West constituencies, with a fair amount of Muslims and north Indians, fits the bill.

Within the Congress there is no dispute over Milind Deora’s former seat of Mumbai South, now held by the Shiv Sena. Yet, why is he threatening to not contest the polls this time and derail the Congress juggernaut? This is more surprising because Milind himself has acknowledged that this year there could be tailwinds that could help the Congress. Most observers believe that Deora is voicing the concerns of a lot of Congressmen who do not have Rahul Gandhi’s ear, and, this dissent is a warning to Nirupam to shape up or ship out. That warning could be coming from Rahul Gandhi who has been snowed under by complaints against Nirupam and in the past has brokered peace between party leaders in Mumbai.

It is unlikely that the Congress President will effect a change of guard in a huge and important city like Mumbai weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. That said, these developments show that all is not well with the Congress in Mumbai and that Sanjay Nirupam might not get a third chance from Rahul Gandhi.

Sujata Anandan is a senior journalist and author. Views are personal.

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