Congress President Sitaram Kesari has taken various defensive and offensive steps in preparation for the attacks that are likely to follow after the defeat which most party leaders expect in the Punjab assembly elections later this week.
These are the first general elections the party is facing after Kesari became president and his detractors are likely to target him if there is a debacle. AICC General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kesaris right-hand man, is also likely to face flak. Azad is in charge of Punjab for the party.
Former Punjab Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar and former Youth Congress President MS Bitta have already positioned themselves for an attack by distancing themselves from the campaign.
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Neither contested the elections and Brars wife has hired a PR agency for a high-profile sentimental blitz about Brars heart attack after the partys disciplinary action against him for withdrawing from the contest. Even President SD Sharma is reported to have expressed his sympathy, with flowers. Kesari took the offensive on Monday with an interview to The Hindustan Times, in which he intertwined the implicit threat to Sonia Gandhi from the Bofors papers with the investigations against him. He challenged the government to arrest him, saying: If they want to send me to Tihar Jail, I will go. The talk of both sets of investigations in the same breath was sure to bring him the further support of Sonia and large sections of the party, which has got used to fending off political attacks over the Bofors deal for almost a decade now.
On the defensive side of his strategy, Kesari has already tried to mend fences with Rajesh Pilot, his only antagonist in the Congress Working Committee. He had a long meeting with Pilot recently, soon after Pilot wrote to the Prime Minister asking for the prompt investigation of an old murder in which Kesaris involvement has been rumoured.
Senior CWC member K Karunakaran has meanwhile been trying to build bridges between Kesari and the Prime Minister. Their relations have soured further in recent days. Neither attended the others Iftar party over the past few days.
Senior party leaders say Kesaris plan to replace the Gowda government with one led by him has run aground, at least for the moment. The statements of Tamil Maanila Congress leader GK Moopanar, whose party is the key to any new equation, have been a severe setback for Kesaris plans.
Office-bearers of the Congress Party in Parliament and of the party have been in touch with TMC leaders since then, to try and persuade them that a Congress-led coalition would be a better bet.
They have apparently not met with much success so far. Moopanar himself has stayed away from the capital.