New Kitchen, Fresh Broth

It's now official. Madhya Pradesh is the new capital of the Congress party, relegating Uttar Pradesh to the margins. Gone are the days when the satraps from Lucknow called the shots at the party headquarters—24, Akbar Road. With the party's stock dwindling in UP, the new stars are the leaders from MP. It is now they who determine party politics and policies.

The party's recently constituted Working Committee only proves this. The largest representation is from Madhya Pradesh—Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia and Kamal Nath. Apart from heading the famous coterie, Arjun Singh is in charge of drafting the party's political resolution; Scindia is deputy leader of the Lok Sabha and Nath has just been made general secretary. In addition, state CM, Digvijay Singh, is a visible face in New Delhi and Sonia Gandhi has asked him to fashion the strategy for the UP elections. Says Mohsina Kidwai, general secretary in charge of MP: "Of late UP has not fared well electorally, whereas Madhya Pradesh has had a strong Congress government. This makes a difference at the Centre."

Although Sonia has tried to draft leaders from UP in the committee, they don't really stand any chance when compared to those from Madhya Pradesh. So powerful is the MP lobby that even senior Congressmen like A.K. Antony and Ahmed Patel have been denied centrestage. Others out in the cold include Salman Khursheed, former upcc chief, and Magaret Alva, former party spokesperson. Both were hoping to be rehabilitated in the cwc, but Sonia preferred to accommodate MP leaders instead. Similarly, K. Vijayabhaskar Reddy, another satrap from Andhra Pradesh, is sulking.

Insiders say that since MP was already well-represented, there was no need to rope Nath into the cwc. However, party strategists say that Sonia brought him in to clip Scindia's wings—the two leaders are at daggers drawn. Says Nath: "I don't see why my entry should cause a problem. I am not a trespasser. I have 25 years of dedicated loyalty to the Congress since my Youth Congress days. I never even left the party." It's clear who he's hitting at. Scindia is not from the Youth Congress but was in the Jan Sangh before he joined the Congress. Denied a Congress ticket for his alleged role in the Jain Hawala case, Scindia even left the party in 1996 to contest on his own. He changed his constituency from Gwalior to Guna in the last polls, fearing defeat.

Scindia now has reasons to be worried. Before the cwc reshuffle, he was the uncrowned number two in the party. His followers made much of his personal rapport with Sonia. But unfortunately, the other contenders to the slot are also from his own state: Digvijay and Arjun Singh. In fact, it was the fight for the number two position that made them push for nominations for the cwc. In contrast, Scindia had made it very clear that not only was he in favour of elections but that he was also going to grab the largest number of votes, thus legitimising his claim as number two. "If ever there is an eventuality of the Congress forming the government within this Lok Sabha and if Sonia is forced to nominate someone other than herself, Scindia would then be the obvious choice," says a camp follower. Scindia is also portraying himself as the natural choice of the middle class, while Sonia isn't, being a foreigner. It was to deny him this opportunity that his rivals played the loyalty card and tried to persuade Sonia to nominate the entire cwc.Says a senior cwc member: "The fight now is not for the number two slot. It is to remove Scindia from there."

Ironically, the anti-Scindia camp is also wracked by squabbles. Just a year ago, Nath was fighting for the state chief ministership. His now-famous statement (after the 1998 assembly elections) that "no man should be chief minister for more than a period of six years" was clearly aimed at Digvijay Singh, who had just completed a five-year tenure. Subsequently, in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, both Digvijay and Nath conspired to ensure Arjun Singh's defeat from Hoshangabad. Sonia's eventual announcement that no Lok Sabha losers would be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha came only after this, forcing Singh to languish in the political wilderness. But the wily Thakur continued to call the shots. It was reportedly on his advice that Sonia brought the Vajpayee government down in 1999.

Unlike Arjun Singh, the Shukla brothers have not been as lucky. V.C. Shukla's hopes of becoming the Chhattisgarh CM were nipped in the bud by Digvijay, who decided to earn brownie points with Sonia by supporting her nominee, Ajit Jogi. In the fracas that followed, Shukla's supporters literally dragged Digvijay Singh to the ground. "This was probably the first time the CM had his ear to the ground," said a Shukla aide in glee. Going by the turn of events, it doesn't, however, seem long before these leaders resort to akhada (wrestling-ring) politics at the centre at well.