Sonia may sacrifice Soni, 3 others

Mukherjee panel may blame ?gang of four' for debacle

A day after supposed mass resignations by members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) after the party's Assembly poll defeat, Sonia Gandhi loyalists called the move a "Sanjay Gandhi type" storm-trooper operation mounted without her consent, to deflect responsibility for electoral losses that is likely to be fixed on four leaders: Ahmad Patel, Kamal Nath, Ambika Soni and Mukul Wasnik.

It is clear the Congress has decided on the scalps that will be displayed to the party to prevent any further erosion of support for Gandhi.

Some of the individuals offered their resignations in recognition of their role in the party's debacle last week.

How this became a command performance with suggestions being made that all office-bearers resign, is a matter of mystery, say Gandhi loyalists.

The four general secretaries""Patel, Wasnik, Nath and Soni""are likely to be named in the Pranab Mukherjee-led introspection committee report to be submitted to the party president on Wednesday.

A comprehensive revamp of the Congress organisation was likely in the first week of January when Sonia Gandhi returned from her Christmas vacation, leaders said.

Top party sources close to 10, Janpath say the resignation drama over the last weekend was a pre-emptive exercise, carried out in the belief that it would overshadow the findings of the Mukherjee committee.

The report is damningly explicit in the mistakes and mismanagement by the party that led to the defeat of the Congress.

It reportedly includes accounts of how seats were "auctioned" in Madhya Pradesh and how in Rajasthan, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot found the ground being cut from under his feet by the central party, when he suggested the constituencies of 50 legislators be changed to neutralise the incumbency factor working against them.

The report's finding is that the suggestion was turned down at the level of general secretary. Ambika Sonia was general secretary in charge of Rajasthan.

In Delhi, the long delay between the party's victory and the announcement of the name of the chief minister is attributed to the rivalry between the Sajjan Kumar-Jagdish Tytler group and the legislators loyal to Sheila Dikshit.

The Tytler group was given subtle encouragement to egg on Prem Singh, primary challenger to Dikshit. This too is reported to have been engineered by Soni through suggestions to Patel.

Those who have suffered at the hands of the foursome "" that controlled the AICC and many in the CWC"" are crowing at the debacle and now say in Gujarat the Congress did not lose to Hindutva but to party mismanagement.

In Himachal Pradesh, the party could win because of the direct contact between leader Vidya Stokes and Gandhi.

The verdict is that though the foursome was given power and the right to exercise it, this was done incompetently. For this they must go.

The harshest criticism has been reserved for Soni, one of the most powerful general secretaries in the party. She is now even being dubbed a "Sharad Pawar mole" (on account of her past associations with Pawar).

The Chhattisgarh defeat is being pinned on her because she was in charge of Chhattisgarh till four months ago.

Such is a ferocity of the campaign that Gandhi's own role and culpability in the defeat has become irrelevant. Instead, the blame is now being put on the "Gang of Four" that tried to upstage Gandhi.

The old guard in the party""not particular favourites of Gandhi""would like to derive some mileage from the exercise and claims it was to put down a rebellion against Gandhi.