According to party insiders, Rao threw in the towel because those organising Kesri's takeover timed their move to dovetail with the legal action against him. While he stood in the dock and senior leaders like Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi supported the other side, the tide could have turned sharply against Rao, leaving him high and dry.
Having resigned voluntarily, Rao has been able to project Kesri as being his choice as much as Sonia's or the dissidents' in the CWC and retained some leverage in the party. Kesri is said to have promised to let him continue as CPP leader.
Rao would have preferred Pranab Mukherjee but realised that there were few takers beyond his circle. So he tried to persuade AK Antony to take over as Congress president. He spent 45 minutes with Antony when they met towards the end of the Parliament session and his most trusted lieutenant, Devendra Dwivedi, telephoned Antony on Friday to persuade him again. It was on Saturday night, after he had announced Rao's resignation, that Dwivedi told some of Kesri's backers that Rao was firmly behind Kesri.
Antony was also Sonia Gandhi's first choice, and remains so, but he was reluctant to take on the job unless he was the unanimous choice - and could become president, not just provisional president. Nor was he willing or able to undertake the kind of lobbying that was going on in Kesri's favour through months of cautious planning and persuasion.
Many Congress leaders, including K Karunakaran, tried over the past three months to persuade Sonia to back Kesri but she told them that she wanted to stay out of their factional struggles. When they prevailed upon her simply to come and call for the reunification of her late husband's party, she finally indicated towards the end of July, during one of a series of meetings with Kesri, that she might attend.
It was only then that Kesri is said to have decided to take the plunge. Until then, the former Rao loyalist had been cautious, although he was not unresponsive to the pressure from a host of Congress leaders, particularly Ghulam Nabi Azad, Tariq Anwar and Ashok Gehlot. The die was finally cast at a meeting between Sonia and Kesri on Thursday, two days before Rao announced his resignation.
To begin with, Kesri himself was pushed by leaders like Gehlot and Anwar, who have been close to him, to desert Rao. Their pleas that the Congress needed to be saved through a change at the top began after the May Lok Sabha elections. They were helped by some journalists and others close to Kesri.
Meanwhile, the six members of the CWC who were openly opposed to Rao got together in a series of meetings at Karunakaran's residence. At one of these in early August, Azad got the others to agree that, in order to maintain their unity, none of them should be an immediate candidate to replace Rao. As that meeting was closing, he added that they should also decide unanimously on a single name. The others suggested that they meet again for that.
Azad had already taken Pawar to meet Kesri at the AIIMS hospital, where Kesri had got himself admitted just before a crucial CWC meeting in June. The six openly opposed Rao at that meeting, demanding an AICC meeting to discuss the election results. Kesri and Azad had been closely associated in the kitchen cabinets of both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi.
When the six met again to decide on a name, Kesri's name came up, along with Antony's. Pawar, Azad and Ahmed Patel seemed willing for either, Balram Jakhar only for Antony and Karunakaran, always opposed to Antony, only for Kesri. Pilot was opposed to both options. Pilot said Kesri was too close to Rao and Jakhar added contemptuously that he was too ht.asp"-->
