Old Hand

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi used to say that if the Congress were to lose 25 of 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, the only seat to come its way would be that of his confidant Ahmed Patel.

The belief rang true on the night of August 8 when, amid high drama, Patel retained his Rajya Sabha seat by the skin of his teeth. He was aided by disqualification of two votes that had gone against him.

A textile merchant’s son, Patel had risen up the ranks and was elected to the Lok Sabha three times from Bharuch in Gujarat. But, as hindutva became a political wave, Patel lost Bharuch in 1989 and 1991, and retreated from the heat and dust of the hustings. He, however, thrived in the power corridors of Delhi, became the most powerful person in the Congress after party president Sonia Gandhi, and returned to Parliament by winning a Rajya Sabha seat in 1996.

Yet, in the election this August, this influential backroom strategist had to mop up votes of his own party MLAs. It was a measure of hard times faced by the Congress.

It was while contesting a Lok Sabha seat in 1977 that Patel caught Sanjay Gandhi’s eye. Patel had then insisted that Indira Gandhi, who had become unpopular because of the Emergency, should address a rally in his constituency. He later became close to Rajiv, partly because of his roots in Bharuch, the ancestral hometown of Rajiv’s father, Feroze Gandhi. Rajiv made Patel party general secretary as well as his parliamentary secretary. Patel also won Sonia’s unwavering trust, and he was among those who exhorted her to enter politics.

A big secret of Patel’s success is his obsession with anonymity. Soft-spoken and always trying to blend in, Patel’s personality belies the power he wields. His Lutyens Delhi bungalow—23, Mother Teresa Crescent—does not bear his nameplate.

Kadir Pirzada, his longtime friend and former mayor of Surat, said a Congress leader once wanted to bring out a book on Patel. Patel said no. “He said he did not want any publicity,” said Pirzada. “Patel asked him to write a book on Gujarat instead.”

Patel is a workaholic who goes to bed at 2am and wakes up at 6am. Mornings are spent reading newspapers, especially Hindi papers, but when time permits, he listens to old Hindi film songs. He is a religious man who prefers simple home-cooked food; khichdi or dal and rotis.

Patel is reputed to have built alliances that helped the Congress rule India for ten years. It was his idea to reach out to the Samajwadi Party for its support regarding the no-trust vote on the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008.

Sanjaya Baru, Manmohan Singh’s media adviser, says in his book The Accidental Prime Minister that Patel was the carrier of Sonia’s word to the prime minister’s office. Baru says Patel once came to the PMO just when the prime minister was about to send a letter to the president listing the names of ministers to be sworn in. Patel had a fresh list of nominees. When told there was no time to draft a new letter, Patel took the letter that was ready and blanked out some names with a whitener. The new names were added and the letter was dispatched.

Baru also writes about Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi calling on Manmohan Singh on his birthday. After the meeting was over, Patel handed Baru a note to be released to the press. The note claimed that Rahul had urged the prime minister to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to all rural districts of the country.

Besides being a political strategist, Patel has been a key fundraiser for the party and has very strong links with the corporate world. When he was party treasurer, the Congress never faced a financial crisis, even when it was out of power.

Though he is known as a leader without mass support, his friends say he is not at all disconnected from ground reality. “He rose from the grassroots, from the panchayat level. He has earned every post,” said Gujarat Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia.

It is said Patel promoted loyalists and sidelined leaders with mass support so that Sonia’s supremacy went unchallenged. But he has himself been sidelined over the past three years, be it in the selection of candidates or on making changes in the organisation. In the Rahul era of the party, Patel is not as influential as he used to be.

The reticent man recently made a rare speech in the Rajya Sabha, when he was accused of involvement in the AgustaWestland chopper scam. He has of late been fairly active on social media, tweeting about the Modi government’s failures and Priyanka Vadra’s role in stitching together the Congress party’s alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Patel entered politics at 26, and has now expressed regret that he could not spend enough time with his family. His wife, Memoona, son, Faisal, and daughter, Mumtaz, have stayed away from the limelight. Patel was extremely disturbed when his daughter-in-law Zainab, a cousin of National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, died because of a heart complication a year ago.

Patel clearly has not outlived his utility for the Congress. He was the unsung hero behind the mahagathbandhan in Bihar. He also organised the party’s protests against the demonetisation.

If BJP president Amit Shah went all out to ensure his defeat in the Rajya Sabha elections, it was as much for the extreme personal rivalry between them as for the symbolic value his defeat would have in the run-up to the Gujarat assembly election, due in December. Shah holds Patel responsible for his exile from Gujarat in connection with the fake encounter cases against him.

“A defeat for Patel would have had huge implications for the assembly elections as well as the Lok Sabha polls in 2019. It is important for the BJP to win not one seat fewer than when Modi was chief minister,” said political analyst Devendra Patel.

Ahmed Patel and his party can now heave a sigh of relief. However, it is an uphill task for the Congress to build on the hard-won victory and get its house in order, in Gujarat and elsewhere.