NEW DELHI: Even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi is set to hand over the reins of the party to Rahul Gandhi on Saturday, comes a significant admission of error of judgment from Tariq Anwar, the man who along with Sharad Pawar and PA Sangma raised a revolt in the Congress Working Committee against Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, in 1999 leading to a split in the Grand Old Party.
"When I look back at the event of 1999 and at the course of national politics till now, I am convinced our (Pawar-Sangma-Tariq trio)
apprehensions about Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin have been proven wrong. The fact is Soniaji has won the hearts of the majority of Indians who have accepted her as one among us. In that sense, we (the trio) have been proven wrong in opposing Soniaji's leadership over her foreign origin," Anwar, who is an NCP general secretary and Lok Sabha MP told ET on Friday, in the first such statement from the trio. Sangma remained opposed to the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress till his death a year ago.
"It is a fact of history that within 100 days of forming NCP, Congress and our party had to come together to form a government in Maharashtra, an alliance that remained in power for 15 years. I must also say, Sonia Gandhi not only worked hard for Congress revival of opposition from 1998 to 2004, she ably led the Congress back to govern India for 10 years. Bringing Opposition parties together to defeat the Vajpayee government, ensuring completion of terms of two minority UPA governments and personal and political rapport with leaders of major non-BJP parties to keep the coalition alive were Sonia Gandhi's remarkable achievements," Anwar added.
At that eventful CWC meeting in 1999, the Pawar-Sangma-Anwar trio stunned the Congress establishment when they told Gandhi that BJP would make her foreign origin a major electoral issue and that Congress would find it the issue difficult to counter it. After the meeting ended abruptly, the trio sent a joint letter to Gandhi, urging her to get the CWC to pass a resolution stating that the Congress election manifesto would promise an amendment to the Constitution to allow only Indians born in the nation to become President, Vice-President and Prime Minister. The revolt prompted Sonia Gandhi to offer her resignation, but the CWC rallied behind her and expelled the trio from the Congress.
They founded the Nationalist Congress Party, with Pawar as president and Sangma and Anwar as general secretaries.
In his memoir, Pawar has said their remarks at the CWC meeting were in response to Sonia Gandhi's suo moto statement, asking CWC members for comments on whether BJP would make her foreign origin an electoral issue and whether the Congress would be able to counter it. Though Pawar and Gandhi worked together for 10 years during the UPA regime, he has not made any public revision of the trio's statement during the revolt against Gandhi.
