Congress lost Ahmed Patel when it needed him most. Always underrated and low-key, he was fiercely loyal to the party and its top leaders, especially Sonia Gandhi, whom he served as a political secretary even before the formation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime in 2004.
Patel was to Sonia Gandhi what RK Dhawan was to her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi. Always a man of few words, he kept out of the gaze of the media, upholding their edicts without standing up to be seen. The power he drew from his proximity to the party chairman was used discreetly on his behalf. Sometimes he was an emissary, sometimes a plenipotentiary.
Having the leader’s ear and confidence gave Patel the aura and seriousness to interact with party colleagues and alliance partners. He was both a confidante for Gandhi, a key person, and a problem solver. Had it not been for its secret ploy, the Manmohan Singh regime would not have survived the Opposition’s vote of no confidence after the left-wing parties withdrew their support for the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008. That, perhaps, It was the only time when Patel seemed to take credit for a job well done, he briefly lowered his guard to show this writer a congratulatory SMS he received from Gandhi.
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Patel, a member of the Lok Sabha for three terms and a member of the Rajya Sabha on five occasions, never held a ministerial position, neither under Rajiv Gandhi, whom he served as parliamentary secretary in the early 1980s, nor under the regime of the UPA. He was an archetypal person of the party, an apparatchik whose membership in the core group of Congress earned him a seat at the head table with the prime minister, Gandhi, and a select group of senior ministers: AK Antony, Arjun Singh, and Pranab Mukherjee.
It is not surprising then that he was the repository of all information in Congress. As one who knew the minds of leaders, he spoke, when necessary, in monosyllables, using innuendo to leave clues. He advised Gandhi but never transgressed his mandate. As a man of reference for the media in Congress, his word was as good as that of the high command. The position brought him as many friends in the parties as rivals within Congress.
There was no shortage of high-level colleagues who deeply envied him; who conspired and carried out whispering campaigns against him, incessantly attributing to him their personal merits and the party’s organizational problems. It was often the spanking boy who followed his advice to weather the personal storms that abounded. His success lies in the fact that even his worst detractors came to him for help to find themselves in a place.
The only time Patel seemed to go wrong was when he hinted at the ouster of then-telecom minister A Raja from the cabinet at the height of the 2G scam that hit UPA-2. But there, too, he hadn’t misunderstood the leadership’s inclination to leave leader Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The prime minister had made a decision. His prerogative was denied by “coalition compulsions” which saw the patriarch of DMK, M. Karunanidhi, insisting on the continuation of Raja.
Indeed, the crisis affected the UPA-2 in the early stages of the congressional-led coalition’s return to power in 2009. At the center of it was Sharm El Sheikh. Patel had to convey to the prime minister the party’s strong disapproval of its joint statement (taking its name from the Egyptian resort) with the then prime minister of Pakistan, Yusuf Raza Gilani.
Top congressional officials were surprised by the agreement that separated the action against terrorism from the bilateral compound dialogue process. Not only that, the first reference to Balochistan (where Pakistan accuses India of fomenting trouble) in an India-Pak statement gave the Bharatiya Janata Party the ammunition to do everything possible for the government.
On the way to Egypt, Singh visited France to attend his national day performance. Congress had no idea of the participation of an Indian contingent in the Bastille Day parade. Of all the available accounts, Patel was at his best deferential during his call to the prime minister, with whom he maintained cordial relations. The polite message I had for him was: there is a party that runs the government and is responsible for all its actions.
“Where do we find another like him?” P Chidambaram lamented in a tweet of condolence. The tribute was as appropriate as it was forceful about Patel’s indispensable party to the party.
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