Column

Politics does make for strange bedfellows, especially at election time. And, sometimes, your chances of finding that those bedfellows have turned enemies are brighter. Last week brought two warring factions in the city Congress on the same page only to disperse and draw swords once the day was over.

Sanjay Nirupam and Priya Dutt made their displeasure over seat nominations public. Both independently griped about their common bete noire, city Congress chief Kripashankar Singh. Last year, the two had found themselves on the same side again when they batted for Anna Hazare, although briefly. They were the only two MPs from the city to meet India Against Corruption activists. Nirupam sported an Anna cap while Priya declared that she wanted a strong Lokpal. Both were equally quick to cast off their people-friendly faces on a rap from the party.

They may appear to be political siblings, but the two Congress MPs go back a long, unhappy way from the time Nirupam made some disparaging remarks about Sunil Dutt’s attendance in Parliament when the former was in the Shiv Sena and Dutt dragged him to court for defamation. After Dutt’s death, Priya resolved to carry on the fight against Nirupam but was prevailed upon by the Congress high command, which is actually Nirupam’s only real supporter in the party. The court, too, dismissed the case as Dutt was no more.

Since then, the two have shared frosty vibes. The Dutts resent Nirupam’s meddling in their affairs. When Sanjay Dutt joined the Samajwadi Party in a moment of madness, Nirupam announced that Sanjay had shamed his father who had, therefore, groomed Priya, and not him, as his successor. Occasionally, he warms up to Priya and calls her his “sister”. But the two rarely share more than a hello.

Priya had opposed Nirupam’s entry into the party in 2005, but the Congress saw uses for him. Their lack of kinship is actually the story of the Mumbai Congress.When Nirupam got into the party, there were many other wary eyes watching him, including those of Singh, Murli Deora and Gurudas Kamat. The Mumbai Congress has more than its fair share of insecure leaders, who see a rival in anyone who moves within sighting distance. For good measure, all the MPs from the city, except Eknath Gaikwad, are at war with Singh. Gaikwad is neither aggressive nor ambitious.

Singh and Nirupam have a long-standing rivalry, with each eyeing the North Indian vote in the city. In 2009, the party had to deal with an engineered revolt against the Delhi leadership’s decision to give Nirupam the Lok Sabha ticket in the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency. That would have been the cue for Singh’s biggest bete noire, Kamat, to join ranks with Nirupam.

In this civic election too, Kamat could have weighed in with Nirupam for three-time corporator George Abraham and queered Singh’s pitch. But political arithmetic never adds up.

Nirupam won against the formidable Ram Naik in a constituency he did not want, but try as he might, he remains an alien in the Congress. He has set his sights on Delhi, but Mumbai keeps pulling him down. He has to contend with sundry factions arraigned against him. Each, in fact, has the others to deal with.

No sooner had Priya and Nirupam voiced their discontent against Singh than both camps got back to pooh-poohing each other’s choice of candidates and their lack of performance, just in case anybody got the mistaken impression that they were united. It’s life as usual, till a Singh or an Anna pits them together again.