SHUBHAJIT ROY & D K SINGH

NEW DELHI, MAY 9: Barely weeks after his Rahul-as-PM-chant provoked the party to make a public statement that Sonia Gandhi and her son kept away from sycophancy, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh was at it once again.

At the launch of a book on him this evening, he got nostalgic to assert his loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family threatening to spark off yet another sparring match within the party. Singh said that the Nehru-Gandhi family knows who is the “asli wafadar” (real loyalist)” and those who “pretend to be a loyalist (jo dikhawa karte hain)”, adding that nowadays, the “evaluation of loyalty” is done in a very “limited manner.”

“But the Nehru-Gandhi family has a great ability to know who is the real loyalist and who pretends to be a loyalist. In today’s context, this keeps me motivated,” Arjun Singh said.

The Prime Minister was present right through but didn’t speak at the function where President Pratibha Patil praised Arjun as a “true public figure.”

Arjun Singh’s remarks immediately drew sharp reaction from Congress leader R K Dhawan, a close aide of Indira Gandhi. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said loyalty “has to be commanded, not demanded.” Saying he had been with the Nehru-Gandhi family since 1962 through all its vicissitudes, Dhawan said: “I fail to understand what the HRD minister is saying...It is difficult to decipher the hidden agenda, if any.”

In the book, Mohin Kahan Vishram (No Rest for Me) edited by Kanhaiyalal Nandan, Singh said that the decision-making process in the party had got “disintegrated” unlike in the past when there was “more scope” to be free and involved. “When people do not feel they had a role in the making of the decision, they also have no difficulty violating it,” he was quoted as having said.

In fact, Arjun took these remarks forward today when he said that neither Indira Gandhi nor Sanjay Gandhi had ever asked him to stop expressing his critical views on the Emergency. “When Emergency was declared in 1975, I was not impressed with it because I was concerned about the misuse of powers...But I was in favour of its importance...At that time, I was not in the Council of Ministers but I was never asked to stop expressing my views even when I met Indira or Sanjay, and took several delegations to them,” he said.

Throughout his speech — where senior Congress leaders were conspicuous by their absence — Arjun Singh did not mention Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s name although he started his speech by recalling his meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

“I went to meet Panditji at Anand Bhawan in Allahabad, and he introduced me to Indira Gandhi. That moment was important for me, but many others had a problem. From then onwards, a campaign began that I should not be allowed to go ahead,” the HRD Minister said.

Referring to the post-Emergency elections in 1980, he said, “Sanjay came to Madhya Pradesh for election campaigning. Panditji, Indiraji, Mother Teresa, tribals of MP, and then in Punjab on the Longowal accord...if I had not gained their trust, then how could I have spent 51 years.”

Earlier in the day, Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed countered Singh’s statement on decision-making: “We do not agree. The Congress president has been very fair in consulting everybody at all levels, even in the Congress Working Committee of which Arjun Singh is a member. As far as the Congress president is concerned, she consults not only party members but in her capacity as UPA Chairperson, also UPA members...Arjun Singh and others are members of the Congress Working Committee. They have every right to discuss in the CWC whatever they want.”

Those who attended the function included Union Minister Santosh Mohan Dev, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, Congress leader Girija Vyas, Congress MP Sajjan Kumar and Delhi Transport Minister Haroon Yusuf.

editor@expressindia.com