A few months before the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress is trying hard to put up a show of unity. But everybody who has witnessed the events of last month—when party MP Madan Lal Sharma accused Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad of shielding a senior party leader in the sex scandal case—knows the harmony is deceptive.

Sharma’s accusation at a workers’ rally in Akhnoor tehsil exposed the factionalism within the ruling party. Sharma had alleged that the name of Assembly Speaker Tara Chand had figured in the sex abuse scandal but he was saved by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Sharma’s strained relation with the Assembly Speaker is no secret. Party insiders say Sharma had not been happy with the high command over the treatment meted out to him over the last over two years, especially after Ghulam Nabi Azad took over as chief minister of the state. The increasing popularity of the Speaker—both within the organisation and among the masses, especially in Khour and Akhnoor constituencies—further fuelled his anger.

Tara Chand, party old-timers say, began as a block-level worker. The genial and approachable leader soon rose to the level of general secretary in the Pradesh Congress Committee. He contested his first assembly election from Khour, a seat that Sharma had to vacate after it was declared reserved constituency. Sharma shifted to neighbouring Akhnoor but lost the election that year. 1996 was a bad election for the Congress, when all its candidates, except Tara Chand, lost in Jammu district. Chand was elected leader of the Congress Legislature Party.

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