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| Janardan Dwivedi |
New Delhi, Aug. 28: Nobody has blamed the “old age” of its leaders for the Congress’s election rout but a party veteran, who himself is pushing 70, has come up with a cure.
Senior general secretary Janardan Dwivedi, seen as the repository of political wisdom in the Congress, today said “65 or 70 should be the age for people to go out of active politics”.
“I am not saying that they should retire, but the posts which require a lot of running around… should be held by people younger. There are other responsibilities which elder leaders can take up but they should keep away from active posts,” the 69-year-old added.
Dwivedi knows he could be treading on a political landmine: President Pranab Mukherjee is 78, Vice-President Hamid Ansari is 77 and Congress president Sonia Gandhi turns 68 this December.
So, quick came an exception clause. “This should not apply to posts like party president, Prime Minister, President or Vice-President,” he said.
However, there are others too who would feel deeply offended.
Amarinder Singh, the man who delivered the most spectacular upset of the 2014 general election by defeating BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley, is 72.
Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, is also 72.
Former ministers Veerappa Moily and Kamal Nath, who were in the running for the Lok Sabha post that Kharge eventually got, are 74 and 68, respectively.
Current Congress chief ministers Virbhadra Singh, Tarun Gogoi and Oommen Chandy are 80, 78 and 71, respectively.
Dwivedi, a general secretary who is also in charge of the Congress organisation, wants them to take it easy.
Hang up their boots? Not exactly, Dwivedi clarified. He didn’t mean retirement, he said, maybe some jobs that need more brainwork than legwork.
Ironically, the Congress leadership recently pleaded with Sharad Pawar, ally NCP’s 74-year-old boss, to lead the coalition in the Maharashtra Assembly election, which would doubtless require a lot of running around.
The 70-plus list is long. Sonia’s go-to-person in the party, A.K. Antony, who heads all the committees in times of distress, is 74.
Motilal Vora, who handles the most demanding job in the party as treasurer, is 86.
Ambika Soni, who abandoned the comforts of the AICC to fight the election in Punjab, is 72.
Sheila Dikshit, whose return from Kerala as governor has struck fear into all the young leaders of Delhi, is 76.
Manmohan Singh and Sushil Kumar Shinde, who till a few months ago looked after the two most taxing jobs as Prime Minister and Union home minister, are 82 and 73, respectively.
Some of the key party strategists — P. Chidambaram, 69, Digvijaya Singh, 67, Ahmed Patel, 65, Ghulam Nabi Azad, 65, and, not to mention, Dwivedi himself — will have to put their feet up if the veteran’s suggestion is heeded.
Many leaders expressed surprise at Dwivedi’s statement and wondered what had triggered it.
“If Dwivedi wanted to humour Rahul Gandhi, who is not favourably inclined towards him, he should understand Rahul chose Madhusudan Mistry, 69, to run around the country for identifying strong candidates for the Lok Sabha election,” a senior leader said. “It is about merit and trust, not age. If Rahul too intends to impose the age criteria, he will damage the party.”
Dwivedi came up with his idea while discussing the developments in the BJP where veterans L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have been dropped from the party’s highest decision-making body, the parliamentary board.
The cut-off age introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was 75 but Dwivedi whittled it down by 10 years more.
When former minister Jairam Ramesh had made a similar suggestion a few months ago, senior leaders smelt a conspiracy.
The same lot now smells intrigue.
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