Ahmed Patel (1949-2020): Power Behind the Power

AHMED PATEL’S RESIDENCE at 23 Mother Teresa Crescent Road in New Delhi was the most important address after 10 Janpath, the home of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, for the 10 long years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government led by Congress at the Centre. Here, Patel—who died on November 25th at the age of 71—political advisor to Sonia Gandhi and the go-to man for everything organisational and political in the party, burnt the midnight oil pushing policy, managing allies and his own party leaders. ‘AP’ to most, he was the problem-solver-in-chief, and his home became a place ministers and corporate honchos could haul their problems to, confidentially. Patel was the solutions potentate, the ace strategist who made the word ‘backroom’ a compliment, the lubricant ensuring a seamless flow of governance.

The late Sitaram Kesri, once the guardian of Congress’ coffers like Patel later, but eyed with suspicion by Sonia Gandhi, used to narrate how he had learnt the ways of political ‘mayanagari’ Delhi. The young Kesri would come from Danapur in Bihar, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Parliament was in session. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru would visit the Congress office in the Parliament complex every day. There were hordes of Congressmen jostling to meet him. Kesri would join the throngs. After a mere glimpse of the Prime Minister, Kesri would hotfoot it next door to the Press Trust of India office and persuade a young reporter to put out a few lines about his ‘meeting’ with Nehru. Hard work in Congress was as important as being seen and known.

Little has changed since. How tall a leader one is in the party is still measured by access to the powerful, being known on a first-name basis by them, and then flaunting it. For a party whose leadership came to life only at election time, that was the way things have always worked.

Patel, however, was moulded from a different clay. He contested the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat and won it in 1977 when the anti-Congress mood was at its peak. Much later, his repeat victories from Bharuch would catch Rajiv Gandhi’s eye. Patel was a lone ranger in a party known for its groupism and stood out as a troubleshooter who shunned the limelight while working overtime to quieten the rumbles in the party. He always dressed soberly and his house in the capital reflected his unassuming modesty. In Parliament’s Central Hall, surrounded by journalists, Patel shunned the greed for TV soundbites and almost always chose not to be quoted on record despite his growing stature in the party.

Sonia Gandhi reposed unflinching trust in Patel since she took official charge of the party in 1998. Patel remained her political secretary for 19 years till 2017. But he clearly didn’t earn her complete confidence by being affable and obliging. He was known to be ruthless in dealing with the family’s political rivals.

Many BJP leaders believe Patel played a key role in UPA’s plans to ‘fix’ Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in legal cases. Every important bureaucrat and head of law enforcement agency owed his position to Patel. If he called in a favour, that was an edict. And officers keen on plum posts and sinecures did his bidding without question, or so the story goes. Most of them, except a reluctant Ranjit Sinha. Sinha was appointed director of the Central Bureau of Investigation superseding others in November 2012. BJP opposed the appointment. Sinha sensed a change in the political wind and refused to play ball with Patel, thwarting his ploy to get Amit Shah arrested before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The plan, ostensibly, was to pick up Shah and thus target Modi, who had by then become politically invincible and would soon become BJP’s prime ministerial nominee.

Patel’s first big break came in 1985 when he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He made himself indispensable by serving as a crucial link between the Prime Minister’s Office and the party. For Patel, it was a crucial career springboard. The MP who had represented Bharuch thrice was catapulted to the key post of Pradesh Congress Committee President in 1985-1986. Congress, however, collapsed in Patel’s home state after 1990, notwithstanding his taking charge of it. Criticism mounted. In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi appointed this family loyalist secretary of the Jawahar Bhawan Trust, tasked with overseeing the swanky new office on Raisina Road. He accomplished his assignment in a year.

Between 1992 and 2001, Patel was also the party treasurer. This was when he is believed to have come into his own by tapping the cross-corporate, cross-industry network he had cultivated over the years. When Sonia Gandhi took over as Congress president, he became the closest political aide and confidant to the longest serving party chief. These were crucial years when he proved his worth in political weight and as chief party strategist. In 2004, when UPA came to power, he refused Cabinet posts to work behind the scenes as a core power centre for the party chief.

It wasn’t all a winning streak for Ahmed Patel though. His Lok Sabha victories came to an abrupt halt in 1989 when he lost his Bharuch seat. Then began his long innings in Rajya Sabha. He was re-elected four times from 1993. But it was in August 2017 that he fought his hardest battle to secure his seat. BJP proved unforgiving in its attempts to thwart him. The party had already nominated Amit Shah and Smriti Irani to the two other vacant seats. For the first time, Congress’ most formidable strategist managed to clinch the Rajya Sabha seat only by the skin of his teeth. It was Patel’s toughest combat. It was a sign, a forewarning.

In tandem with the ascent of Rahul Gandhi to Congress president the same year, Patel was shown the door when the scion of the family, with a posse of youngsters from management and social work finishing schools to advise him, gave him the cold shoulder. Without demur, he left the treasurer’s post. Unlike Sonia Gandhi, who relied on Patel’s counsel for every decision, the younger Gandhi surrounded himself with a group that convinced him that his family lineage made his ascent to the post of prime minister a no-brainer, even though the mood of the nation was clearly against his party. Barring a few, most sincerely believed Rahul Gandhi did not have it in him to occupy the top post. He not only ignored Patel’s advice and gentle remonstrance but resented his role in the functioning of Congress.

Patel took the mildest of hints seriously when it came to Congress’ first family. He withdrew quietly from active strategising and political counselling while the young Gandhi blundered on. Until, in August 2018, Sonia Gandhi, perhaps realising there were few in the party she could trust, ensured his return as treasurer to guard the party’s coffers prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Destiny, meanwhile, had more plans for him before sunset. In July 2019, Rahul Gandhi quit as party President. Sonia Gandhi took over as interim president. Once again, with Congress lurching from crisis to crisis, it was her trusted top aide who became her troubleshooter. In Rajasthan, when the Ashok Gehlot government was on a slippery slope, it was Patel who got a revolting Sachin Pilot to retreat. More recently, when 23 Congressmen came out against the drift in the party and the vacuum in its leadership, it was Patel who intervened and got the Congress Working Committee to avow its loyalty to the leadership. With his death, Sonia Gandhi has lost the golden bridge linking her family to the party. And it can get very lonely up there in a castle of melting wax.

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