The Congress is a circus, mocks Mani Shankar Aiyar

Nominated Rajya Sabha member Mani Shankar Aiyar is not known for mincing words when he has an audience waiting to lap it all up.

At the launch of a book 24 Akbar Road by journalist Rasheed Kidwai, described as a history of the Congress party, Aiyar was at his candid best.

He simply rubbished the idea that power in the Congress party resided at its headquarters 24 Akbar Road. Aiyar said that the real power is at 10 Janpath the residence of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi. “The really powerful Congress workers go there or to 23 Willingdon Crescent (the residence of her political secretary Ahmed Patel) and only the hopeless go to 24 Akbar Road,” said Aiyar as he fielded questions from journalists.

“But the workers keep going there to meet the office-bearers, half of whom are in the process of climbing up, and half in the process of slipping down. They do so in the hope that someday they will get something, and this circus keeps going,” he quipped.

However on a more serious note, Aiyar expressed his strong disagreement with the late prime minister PV Narasimha Rao as well as the current prime minister Manmohan Singh.