Sanjay Nirupam, Shiv Sena’s one-time North Indian face, has politically served more time in Congress but still has to engage in incessant power tussles with his party leaders.
Mumbai: It’s been almost 14 years since former MP Sanjay Nirupam left the Shiv Sena for the Congress. Having risen through the ranks, Nirupam now serves as the Mumbai Congress president.
But despite having spent more years in the Congress than with the Shiv Sena, Nirupam has constantly struggled to shed the tag of an ‘outsider’ and has had to engage in incessant power tussles with his own party leaders.
The latest bone of contention is Nirupam’s wish to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Mumbai North-West constituency, traditionally set aside for veteran Gurudas Kamat, who passed away last year. Since Kamat’s death, there have been several aspirants for the Congress ticket with Nirupam being one of them.
A section of the party, however, strongly objected to Nirupam’s wish during discussions with the Congress’s selection panel last week, saying he should stick to the Mumbai North constituency from where he has been contesting since 2009.
The clamour against him is symptomatic of Nirupam’s struggles in the Congress.
Pratap Asbe, a political commentator, says Nirupam bears the brunt as he has worked his way up in the party.
“This is an old problem with the Congress,” Asbe said. “There are party leaders who look at themselves as ‘loyalists,’ taking pride that their family has been in the Congress since the time of the independence struggle or Indira Gandhi’s reign or Rajiv Gandhi’s reign. Those who have come to the Congress from other parties will always be outsiders to them,” he said.
“This kind of sentiment is seen more strongly against Nirupam because he has risen through ranks within the party and been given positions of responsibility,” added Asbe.
Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan, however, said the current row is just due to a large number of contenders. “I don’t think these are serious issues. It is just that there are a lot of aspirants within the party,” he said.
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The struggling Mumbai Congress chief
Nirupam was appointed Mumbai Congress chief in 2015, a decade after joining the party. The elevation came close on the heels of the Congress’ complete decimation in the city in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The former MP’s quest to revive the party in Mumbai has, however, been a lonely one.
Trying to get a beleaguered Congress back on track, Nirupam would constantly hold press conferences targeting the BJP-led Maharastra government and Shiv Sena-led Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and held several events and rallies to increase voter connect.
Party functionaries close to Nirupam point out that the party’s former MPs and legislators would almost never turn up for these events, sending a message that the party is still a divided house.
It didn’t help that in 2015, Nirupam courted major controversy within the party over an article in its Hindi mouthpiece, Congress Darshan, which contained some “objectionable” references to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, prompting some leaders to demand action against him.
A section of Congress leaders also feels that while Nirupam has been making efforts, he takes credit for whatever comes of it rather than crediting the Mumbai Congress.
“It’s not that we see him as an outsider, because Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings say we should work with anyone who is willing to work with us,” a senior leader and former Congress legislator said. “But nobody should try to impose his own authority on things.
“The Congress has a lot of senior leaders in Mumbai and they should be made to feel involved in the party’s activities,” the Congress leader said. “There is distress because that does not happen.”
Last year, a group of Congress leaders even met Mallikarjun Kharge, the party in-charge for Maharashtra, demanding Nirupam’s removal.
Similarly, former Mumbai Congress chief and former party MP Gurudas Kamat had a public spat with Nirupam on social media after the party suffered a drubbing in the 2017 Mumbai civic polls.
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Nirupam’s political journey
For over a decade, Nirupam, who hails from Bihar, was the North Indian face of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai and considered to be party founder Bal Thackeray’s blue-eyed boy.
Nirupam represented the party in the Rajya Sabha and edited the Dopahar Ka Saamana, the Shiv Sena’s Hindi mouthpiece. More than once, he has courted controversies by taking on the BJP, especially targeting senior leader Pramod Mahajan.
Nirupam finally quit the Shiv Sena and joined the Congress in 2005 following differences with the party leadership. Right from the start, Nirupam faced opposition from a section of Congress leaders.
The scribe-turned-politician has a blow hot, blow cold relationship with former MP Priya Dutt. He has, however, especially been at loggerheads with Congress leader Kripashankar Singh, with both vying to be the party’s face for Mumbai’s North Indian population.
In 2009, Nirupam and Singh sought the Congress nomination from the Mumbai North-West constituency. Nirupam ultimately gave way, contested and won from Mumbai North in 2009 but the row is set to be re-ignited again as both are once again aspirants for the Mumbai North-West ticket.
Nirupam, who also briefly contested in the television reality show Big Boss in 2008, lost the Mumbai North parliamentary seat in 2014 to Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Gopal Shetty.
The Congress had then lost all six parliamentary seats in Mumbai to the BJP-Shiv Sena combine due to a ‘Modi wave’ as well as intense infighting in the party’s city leadership.
There has never been a Congress President who reflected Bombay’s cosmopolitan ethos the way Murlibhai did. Everyone’s friend, did some genuine social work – textbooks, eye camps, later computers – mobilised financial resources for the party, had such good friends in the media, whenever the PM visited Bombay, all the newspapers would have his photograph on the front page, along with her, later him. Gurudas Kamath and Sanjay Nirupam brought the energy of the street, perhaps, but not Shri Murli Deora’s refinement and class. A new face is needed.