Balwantrao Chavan's 'home-coming' case will be treated with sympathy: Vasantrao Dada Patil

At the high-rise Riviera Apartment in Bombay's Nariman Point, the door of a flat was firmly closed last fortnight on all callers, particularly those from the press. The occupant of the flat, Yeshwantrao Balwantrao Chavan, 68, fresh from a hazardous bid for "home-coming", had at last found comfort in his own home, away from embarrassing stares.The month-long Chavan cliff-hanger was put on ice early last fortnight when the Congress(I) Parliamentary Board (CPB-I), resorting to a fine bureaucratic subterfuge, referred the Congress(U) stalwart's plea for admission into its fold to the Congress(I) Working Committee (CWC-I). "Chavan's case will be treated with sympathy," said Vasantrao Dada Patil, a general secretary of the All India Congress(I) Committee (AICC-I), "but a decision must wait till the next meeting of the Working Committee, which may not take place before August."The decision of the CPB(I), obviously prompted by die-hard anti-Chavan elements in the party, had a magical effect on the tide of exodus from the Congress(U) to the Congress(I), halting it almost overnight. Hundreds of workers crowd ed the central hall of the Congress(U)'s Tilak Bhavan office in Bombay, affirming their pledge to build up the party from scratch. Though 29 Congress (U) members of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and Council, out of a total strength of 53, had deserted the party in the course of the past month, many of them were tormented with second thoughts. Two MLAs Kamal Kishore Kadam and Nakale Guruji, who had earlier resigned, announced that they were re-joining the party.Uneasy: In Karnataka, however, nine Congress(U) MLAs promptly defected from the party, thus pulling it down from the vantage position of the largest opposition party, and denying its leader and Congress(U) president, Devraj Urs, privileges that go to the leader of the Opposition.Nevertheless, Chavan's faux pas came to the transiting Congress(U) men as a rude reminder of the shape of things to come. Their uneasiness was heightened by the determined refusal of the three young leaders of the party - Sharad Pawar, A.K. Anthony and Priyaranjan Dasmunshi - to toe the Chavan line.Pawar; - as Chavan's chosen man, obviously held the key. Though he had earlier kept his options open on the merger issue, his supporters insist that he was merely trying to buy time in order to shore up the antimerger faction (see India Today, June 16-30). After Chavan's belittled status had been made unequivocally clear, Pawar rallied his supporters and publicly proclaimed that under no circumstances would he cross the floor.In an interview with India Today, said Pawar: "I don't believe that there is no future for my party. I don't share Chavan's view that the people of India have recognised Mrs Gandhi's party as the real party of Gandhi and Nehru. Just because she got a majority does not mean that I will leave my party and jump across."Base Shaken: Pawar's determined stance was echoed in Kerala, where Anthony lashed out at the "traitors", and in West Bengal, where Dasmunshi reiterated his decision not to join the Congress(I). Crestfallen by the turn of events, Chavan called his loyalists over to confide: "My fate is in her (Mrs Gandhi's) hands."However, the exodus did shake up the Congress(U) organisation in its main base, Maharashtra. In certain pockets, the defection was total. In Pune, for example, 2,000 Congress(U) workers, led by city Mayor Suresh Taur, left the party on a single day to apply for admission to the Congress(I). Five of the 26 District Congress(U) Committees in the state defected wholesale. All the six Congress(U) MLAs of Chavan's home district, Satara, resigned from the party.Until Chavan's candidature was thrown out into limbo, he vigorously toured the districts, whipping up the tempo of defection. His words to the followers were: "Me sukhrup ahe, tumhi pudhe vha" (I am all right, you go ahead).The fact that he was not "sukhrup" became evident only at a convention at Nagpur of the Congress(I) "loyalists", or people who thought themselves holier than others because they had been with the party before Mrs Gandhi's 1980 election victory.The "loyalists", led by Maharashtra Revenue Minister Shalinitai Patil, the slim, acerbic and powerful wife of Vasant Dada Patil, roundly condemned Chavan as an opportunist. Shalinitai described him as "political filth". She was vigorously supported by the Karnataka Chief Minister Gundu Rao, on tour in Bombay, who insisted at a public meeting that he would tell the high command not to admit Chavan.Attacks: To rub a sore further, CM. Stephen, the Union communications minister, took up cudgels against Chavan, describing him as an opportunist who could not survive out of power. He fired his salvoes on the day on which the commemorative stamp of the late Sanjay Gandhi was released, rounding off his attack with the remark that it was only the absence of Sanjay which had been encouraging men like Chavan to return to the Congress(I).There was a clear pattern in the attacks, and the Congress(I) persona who launched them. Gundu Rao, Shalinitai Patil, Stephen - all these leaders were dogged by fears concerning their home states. While Rao and Stephen thought that opening the floodgates of immigration would result in admission into the party of Urs and Anthony, their respective anathema, Patil had a private grouse against Chavan. The latter installed Pawar as the chief minister of Maharashtra in 1978, thus dislodging Patil from the seat. Even though Patil himself has taken a moderate view of Chavan's bid to enter the Congress(I), says his wife: "My husband is full of forgiveness."Evidently, Urs relished more than anyone else the discomfiture of Chavan, his adversary in the party ever since he became the president. In an overzealous display of righteous indignation, he recommended the expulsion of Chavan even after the latter had sent in his resignation. Talking about the way Chavan had been humiliated by the Congress(I) leadership, he said that "Chavan had deserved it", sarcastically adding that "you don't make an application if you have to come back home."Miscalculation: However, it is also clear that none of the veteran leaders of the Congress(U) has the moral right to cast the first stone at the renegade. Repeated denials from Urs do not wash away the fact that he had himself been knocking at the door of the Congress(I) three months ago. The other Congress(U) stalwart, Jagjivan Ram, made a similar overture even more recently.The only difference between them and Chavan is that Chavan's appeals drew a shade more encouraging response than the rest. He made his first approach through the Shankaracharya of Satara, who first told Mrs Gandhi about "Chavan's desire". Later on, Chavan met Rajiv Gandhi - though he emphatically denies it - and was given to understand that his admission would not pose a problem.What upset the calculation of Chavan, if not that of the Congress(I) high command, was the ferocity and stridency of the opposition within the party. They see in the infusion of new blood a danger to themselves.Those who are now posting a "no-admittance" sign atop the Congress(I) gate are concerned not only about Chavan's attempt but also about the applicants to follow suit. However Mrs Gandhi has presently swept the problem under the carpet by telling her partymen that she wanted a full intra-party debate on the issue. Till Mrs Gandhi arrives at a final decision, the charade is likely to go on.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 16, 2013 12:55 IST--- ENDS ---

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Balwantrao Chavan's 'home-coming' case will be treated with sympathy: Vasantrao Dada Patil

The month-long Chavan cliff-hanger was put on ice early last fortnight when the Congress (I) Parliamentary Board (CPB-I), resorting to a fine bureaucratic subterfuge, referred the Congress(U) stalwart's plea for admission into its fold to the Congress(I) Working Committee (CWC-I).

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