The loyalist delivers on his promises

LUNCH WITH BS: Gurudas Kamath

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Mumbai Congress chief and grassroots level leader Gurudas Kamath tells Nistula Hebbar how he helped revive the party's fortune in the city.

To find a hidden gourmand in Gurudas Kamath, the quietly effective Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) chief and Mumbai north-east MP, was surprising.

Kamath's image is that of a down-to-earth man on the street, who still lives in unfashionable Chembur, and the one most Mumbai slum dwellers turned to when the government's bulldozers arrived.

Hardly the kind, one would say who would be lamenting the loss of his address book, where "I have stored the number this lady from Old Delhi who makes the best biryani and kebabs."

Kamath certainly does not do anything by half measures, his choice of career, and the fact that he has worked his way up the Congress hierarchy without the requisite dynastic bloodline, reflects his appetite for life, and his strong opinions on every matter be it the power situation in Maharashtra or his almost professional interest in food.

In fact, his choice of restaurant reflected the conjunction of these two interests "" The House of Ming, the Taj's Chinese restaurant is a favourite with a majority of Kamath's tribe, regardless of ideological persuasion, and still has some of the best Chinese food served in the city.

As we settle down into our table overlooking the pool, waiters serve Kamath's favourite prawn appetiser. Kamath, a frequent visitor to the place, says that this is one place where sea food appears fresh.

"As a Konkani, I love sea food; in Delhi, it's not always safe to eat sea food everywhere," he says. I confess, rather shamefacedly that I am a partaker of ghaas phoos, that is, a pure vegetarian and not likely to know much about edible marine life, dead or alive.

From that point on, it did not seem as though I had invited Kamath for lunch but rather the other way around. Displaying a chatty, man on the street style, Kamath familiarly asked for the restaurant manager.

"Where's Gopal?" he asked. When he was informed that the man in question was on leave, Kamath quickly ordered a couple of vegetarian items, including a spicy eggplant dish and the crispy spinach, which I was informed by the waiters was introduced by Kamath himself into the Ming menu.

"Actually, I had the spinach in a Chinese restaurant in Mumbai, and when I asked for it here, they did not have it on the menu, which is when I described the dish.

When I came back three months later, they served me crispy spinach, just the way I liked it," he says with evident satisfaction.

Since the topic of Mumbai had been introduced I asked Kamath about how he revived the fortunes of the party in the city which had turned decisively anti-Congress in the aftermath of the Mumbai bomb blasts and riots.

"I admit that many people were shaken, including me, by the events," he says.

"But it also made me realise that we were not alone in the disgust that we felt for what happened. Mumbai is an inclusive city, it provides a home and employment to millions who pour into it, it is not in the character of city to reject anybody," he says.

"This provided us a bedrock from where to go forward as a political party as well," he says. Kamath took over as Mumbai Congress chief from the legendary Murli Deora who had held on to the post for 22 years.

It was a realisation within the party that Kamath's down-to-earth approach was what was required that led to his appointment. He worked long hours to consolidate the Congress' support base, holding meetings deep in Dharavi to bring home the message of what Shiv Sena rule had meant for the city.

Sure enough in the 2004 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls Mumbai saw a complete sweep by the Congress, something not imaginable in 1994.

He made headlines recently when he took on the Maharashtra government led by his own party, over the slum demolition issue. "As Mumbai Congress chief, I felt doubly responsible for the fact that we had broken the promise made in our manifesto, the people would not have forgiven us had this continued," he says.

He lobbied with Congress president Sonia Gandhi who finally got Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to put a stop to the demolitions and announce a relief package.

Kamath's start in politics came right at the grassroots level when he won a college election in Poddar College, and became head of the Mumbai Youth Congress.

He then studied law and joined then Congress' Mumbai boss Rajni Patel's firm Patel and Vakil as a young lawyer. The turning point came when he met Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, and was picked to fight Lok Sabha elections from Mumbai North East Parliamentary constituency.

"I still remember the day I met Rajiv Gandhi, he was wearing jeans, a blue shirt and a denim jacket, I was waiting outside the room where a group of people had gone to talk about my prospects. Rajiv Gandhi came out and asked me to come in, saw some clippings I had and later decided to field me from Mumbai North East," he says.

As the dessert of ice cream with fresh lychees arrived, I asked Kamath how he reconciled his fierce Gandhi loyalist image with the fact that he had friends across the political spectrum, including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar, recent entrant into the Congress Sanjay Nirupam and former prime ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and I K Gujral.

"My loyalty to the Gandhi family stems from the fact that they have always played fair with me, my friendship with others has never interfered with that," he says.

In fact, when Pawar formed the NCP on an anti-Sonia plank, Kamath was the first to denounce him, despite the fact that they had been friends since the 1970s.

"Actually, I went to the United States as part of a delegation to the UN, along with Vajpayee, Gujral and Farooq Abdullah. In fact, the assembly results for Delhi and Madhya Pradesh were being announced while we were there, it was a surreal experience to watch election results with Vajpayee, the leader of the party you bitterly oppose, fortunately the Congress won, otherwise it could have been worse," he says with a laugh.

"In fact, when we came back to India, Farooq became the chief minister of Kashmir, then Vajpyee headed the 13-day government, followed by Gujral. When I went to felicitate Gujral, he said that ours was a lucky group, since everyone had got a good post," he said.

"Gujral told me 'wait and watch Gurudas, tumhari bhi kismet khulegi'," he adds with a laugh.

When I ask him, what would he consider as "kismet ka khulna", Kamath reverted to the silent presence he is generally known to be. For my pains, I was informed that the ongoing mango season was the big event on his calendar.

Maybe I should have continued talking about food, maybe I could then have got a quotable quote, or at least the number of the "biryani lady".