Modelled on the Oscars, the Filmfare awards have an award every year for the Best Supporting Actor. He is not the hero, but the real hero of the film.
If Bollywood was making a film on the trust motion, who would the nominee for best supporting actor be? Congress insiders say there is only one man: Ahmad Patel. Patel was the Akbar of the Amar Akbar Anthony trio Rajiv Gandhi had as his parliamentary secretaries in 1984 when he took over as Prime Minister after Indira Gandhi’s assassination: Arun Singh and Oscar Fernandes being Amar and Anthony.
As the Congress had over 400 MPs in the Lok Sabha, the role of parliamentary secretaries was mostly to guide Gandhi through parliamentary procedure and less to do with floor management.
Gandhi had chosen wisely. By 1984, Patel had held significant party responsibility (he had headed the Gujarat Youth Congress in the crucial years between 1977 and 1982). From the early 1970s, when Gujarat burned because of the Navnirman Samiti movement leading to the formation of the Janata Party and the resounding defeat of the Congress in 1977, Patel stayed in the Congress and was actually elected to the Lok Sabha as one of the few Congress MPs. He went on to serve three terms in the Lok Sabha — he’s not a pushover when it comes to fighting a general election.
But despite being offered a ministership at least thrice —twice by Rajiv Gandhi — Patel opted to stay in the party and Parliament, never joining the government. He was one of Sonia Gandhi’s only links to the outside world in the years immediately following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, when he was made secretary of the Jawahar Bhavan Trust.
Rumours about corporate contributions for the construction of the building remained just that, rumours. When Sonia Gandhi came forward to assume responsibility of the Congress, he became the political advisor — a post which he occupies to date. A man who’s never been minister, only held party responsibility… what is Patel’s currency of power?
His complete and utter discretion, say those who know him. He never talks, no one ever gets him on TV, he never gives ‘exclusive’ interviews. Patel is the quintessential backroom player and he is very good at what he does. Patel was the captain of the Congress team during the trust motion — there were only two other people in the Congress who knew who was ‘persuading’ whom with what to vote for the Congress: Sonia Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee.
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Patel worked through the night for ten days, tying up loose ends, calling in every IOU the Congress ever owned. He coordinated with chief ministers to work on MPs from their state, spoke to MPs directly and, most importantly, used his political judgment to assess whether they were really going to vote in favour of the Congress.
Little wonder then that his name has cropped up in the alleged tapes that supposedly show him as one of the leaders who was in touch with the BJP MPs who claim they were paid to cross vote. The MPs had better be careful.
The Congress is getting ready, at the instance of a man who has never in his political career of 40-odd years had a corruption charge against him, to file defamation suits if Patel is not among those named in the tapes.
An angry young man? No, an amiable, polite and accommodating one. But definitely the hero of the trust motion.