'Sonia is a magnanimous leader of the coalition'

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Is the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) guilty of taunting its ally, the Congress party? Or is the Press guilty of misrepresentation? That’s one of the issues discussed with the Minister of Civil Aviation and NCP’s Rajya Sabha MP, Praful Patel.

Karan Thapar: Mr Patel, increasingly there’s a widespread impression that your party, the NCP, is deliberately taunting Congress by its actions and behaviour. Why are you doing this?

Praful Patel: I don’t think that is correct, Karan. I think that impression is created by the media and maybe some people who do not wish to see Congress and NCP together.

Karan Thapar: All right. Let’s test it with the most recent development of all. Your colleague, D Tripathi, the General Secretary of the party, has said – and I quote: “The Congress party has shown neither generosity nor magnanimity towards its allies. Instead of attacking the Opposition, they are undermining their allies.” Those are strong words.

Praful Patel: Well, I guess, yes, Mr Tripathi spoke those words. But at the same time, I guess the context in which he spoke has to be seen. He was talking specifically about the issues of Meghalaya, because there we feel that Mr Sangma – who is our leader – should have been given more accommodation by the Congress party. When he resigned his MP-ship as member of the Trinamool Congress to contest again, we were part of the UPA. And if Mr Sangma’s contesting would not have been given a walkover, but support by the Congress party instead of putting up a candidate, things could have been different.

Karan Thapar: You feel let down by the way Congress treated P A Sangma?

Praful Patel: No, it’s not a question of P A Sangma; the NCP and the Congress are allies together in state governments like Maharashtra and Goa. We are allies in Delhi, we are also allies in various other states, like in Gujarat we fought the elections together. Why couldn’t we have taken it a little forward in the case of Meghalaya?

Karan Thapar: And you feel let down about that?

Praful Patel: Well, I think there are, of course, personality issues also involved and probably, I think, some people in the Congress may not have been very happy with the fact that Mr Sangma and all of us could have worked together with the Congress.

Karan Thapar: But you see, it is personality issues that underlay what Mr Tripathi said because when Mr Tripathi went on to say that the Government is democratic but the UPA is not, everyone knew he was speaking of Sonia Gandhi; after all, she is Chairperson of UPA.

Praful Patel: Well, I don’t think that is entirely correct because Mr Tripathi may have said it in a different context. Again I repeat, we have…

Karan Thapar: Whatever the context, the target was Sonia Gandhi.

Praful Patel: No, no. I would like to say, Karan, that Mr Pawar, myself, we deal with Mrs Gandhi on many issues, whether it is Government in Delhi, whether it is regarding the state government in Mumbai or Goa and I think – let us be fair – she has been very magnanimous, she has not shown any pettiness, no matter what impression may have been created by the statement.

Karan Thapar: Then why did D Tripathi attack her in this manner?

Praful Patel: I don’t think he meant Mrs Sonia Gandhi personally. He could have also meant some people who are in Delhi. Congress is a large structure in the high command, it doesn’t mean only means Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

Karan Thapar: The problem is that it’s not just Tripathi who has been saying things that look as if he’s picking on the Gandhi family. Your own leader Sharad Pawar – in March – when he publicly said that the UPA should fight the next General Election collectively with Manmohan Singh as the prime ministerial candidate, was widely thought actually to be undermining Rahul Gandhi’s hopes of becoming the leader of the next government. Or even possibly Sonia Gandhi. Even that was a deliberate, clever, double-edged weapon.