New Delhi: Among the paradoxes governing his life is his “felicity with words”, writes Mani Shankar Aiyar in the second volume of his autobiography, A Maverick in Politics.
On the one hand, it acted as a career propellant; on the other, it “undermined me”, observes Aiyar in the chapter ‘Musings and Reflections on a Long Life’. His “opinionated convictions”, which he has “never been able” to keep to himself, also played a role in his “ending as an outlier”, he adds.
Aiyar’s other candid admission in the book, launched in 2024 by the Juggernaut publishing house, relates to his “genetic arrogance that escapes me when my disapproval turns to sneers”.
Over the last two days, the veteran Congressman has, yet again, made a public display of these personality traits, embarrassing his party to the delight of its political rivals.
Aiyar lit the spark Sunday by heaping praise on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the Left Front, months ahead of the Kerala assembly elections.
“It’s ironic that the only state in India in which progress has been made in Gandhiji’s direction is the one ruled by the Marxist-Leninist party of India… So, in the presence of the Chief Minister, who I’m sure will be the next Chief Minister, I renew my plea that, in order to reinforce Kerala as the best Panchayati Raj state in the country, the state law should be amended on the basis of the experience we have… I’m afraid there is no champion for Panchayati Raj left in the country. So, therefore, I have to fall at your feet, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and say, please, sir, pick up the baton that the Congress has dropped,” Aiyar said.
He made the remarks while addressing a seminar—’ Vision 2031: Development and Democracy’—in Thiruvananthapuram.
If these remarks checked Aiyar’s “verbal felicity” and “opinionated convictions” boxes, his response to the Congress’s pushback ticked the other box—disapproval turning into sneers.
On Monday, Aiyar dismissed Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, who wrote on X that the former Congress MP has had no connection whatsoever with the Congress for the past few years and speaks and writes purely in his personal capacity, calling him a “puppet” and a “clown”.
Aiyar also described the all-powerful Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, a close Rahul Gandhi aide, as “rowdy”.
More importantly, he announced that while “I am a Gandhian, I am a Nehruvian, I am a Rajivian, but I am not a Rahulian”, in a resounding disapproval of Rahul Gandhi.
“As a Congressman, I want the UDF to come to power; as a Gandhian, I am telling the truth that after the brilliant achievements, the Left is bound to come to power… Who is going to vote for a party whose leaders are all at each other’s throats? Do you think the people of Kerala don’t know what’s happening in the Congress leadership? At least in Pinarayi’s government, there is discipline,” he told ANI in Thiruvananthapuram.
Asked why he remains in the party which has all but disowned him, Aiyar said, “There is a biography of Dr Ambedkar—A Part Apart.”
Published in 2023, A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar, is authored by Ashok Gopal.
A question that Aiyar’s family members have also asked him is why he is not content resting on his laurels, even as the Congress has made it evident that he is no longer wanted or valued in the organisation.
In his book, Aiyar records his response—politics, to him, is an addiction.
Aiyar writes that he is also acutely aware that no one who had left the Nehru–Gandhi mainstream of the Congress party had survived, except temporarily.
“Others pointed out that the Congress had long drifted from its ideological moorings. That, I retorted, was reason enough to pull the Congress back to basics from within rather than bark from outside. To that, the obvious counter was that there was no platform within the party that provided a forum for debate.”
“Moreover, on TV and through my columns, I had been relentlessly urging Opposition unity to take on the BJP, and it would be ridiculous to add to Opposition disunity by increasing the number of groupuscules contesting the already overcrowded political space.”
“Whatever the deficiencies of the Congress and the Gandhi family—and they were legion—the Congress could only survive with the Gandhis, for the Gandhis were written into the party’s DNA, and the survival of the Congress was the only hope of saving the country from the sinkhole of the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva,” he writes.
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The suspension
Aiyar was suspended from the Congress on 7 December 2017, following an uproar over his calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “neech kisam ka aadmi”. It was revoked a year later.
In his memoir, Aiyar reckons that his “neech kisam ka aadmi” remark on Modi proved to be the epitaph of his long political career, which began under Rajiv Gandhi and was marked by ups and downs.
His fallout with the Gandhi family, however, dates back to 15 April 2010, Aiyar records.
Around that time, Digvijaya Singh had publicly criticised then home minister P. Chidambaram over his approach towards tackling Maoism, calling him “arrogant and unwilling to listen to advice”.
Aiyar also spoke to the media on the issue, making remarks that appeared to endorse Singh’s view on Chidambaram.
On 15 April, as Aiyar prepared to take the oath as a newly nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, he received a call from then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who “gave me a furious tongue-lashing”.
Nevertheless, Sonia was receptive to the idea of him contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Tamil Nadu’s Mayiladuthurai constituency, which he represented three times in the past, claims Aiyar. But Rahul shot down the proposal, he adds.
“I had been warned by Sonia Gandhi’s closest aide that in the event of Rahul thinking differently, his mother would defer to him. That is what had happened. I was now a ‘Maverick Out of Politics’!” Aiyar writes.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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