Column

Omar Abdullah’s English mother, Mollie, is famously quoted as having once said about her son, “He will join politics over my dead body.” Yet, when the chips were down last week and father and son vied with each other to be the next chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Mollie emerged as Omar’s staunchest supporter in the family battle. For the first time in many years, she flew to Srinagar (she prefers to stay away from the troubled valley) when the results came in, just to argue her son’s case with her husband.

According to reports circulating in National Conference circles, the discussions raged through the night as Mollie put her foot down and told the 72-year-old Farooq that it was time to make way for their son. The elder Abdullah was shown a series of SMSes from Rahul Gandhi to Omar in which the Congress heir apparent is believed to have expressed his preference for the younger Abdullah.

Farooq, always flamboyant and with a penchant for high drama, is said to have got emotional and even tearful at one point. But with his wife showing steely determination to collect on IOUs accumulated through many years in a stormy marriage, and his daughter Sara, who is married to Congress MP Sachin Pilot, also speaking up in favour of her brother, Farooq realised that the game was up.

But even in capitulation, the showman was on top. Farooq’s U-turn was marked by the histrionics for which he is famous. As cameras clicked eagerly, he hugged his son warmly and garlanded him, the bitterness of the night fading into a memory for the family album.

Omar Abdullah’s ascendance in J&K lit a fire of anticipation in the Congress. The grand old party of Indian politics can see faint signs of a generational shift in power, but its heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi, continues to fight shy of a full-blown takeover.

Omar made no secret of the fact that he expects to deal with the younger Gandhi in the years to come, but he seems to have let the cat out of the bag prematurely. Rahul’s handlers quickly stopped him from taking the succession logic too far. Notice how swiftly Omar refrained from using the R-word after the first few statements.

Although there are indications that the Gandhi dynasty scion will be the third face of the triumvirate on party posters in the upcoming general election, Congress managers are still in the process of crafting Rahul’s launching pad and don’t want it unveiled just yet.

But it’s clear which way the winds are blowing. Omar and Rahul have more than a love of motorbikes in common. Both also have a mother’s blessings to smoothen their path to the top as family dynasties take root in Indian politics.

Interestingly, Omar’s chief challenger in J&K will be the descendant of another political dynasty in the making, former J&K chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s daughter Mehbooba Mufti. She is all set to resign her Lok Sabha seat and shift full time to state politics as leader of the opposition in the assembly.

TAILPIECE
It will be a first in Indian electoral politics if it happens. Kerala is buzzing with reports that three former diplomats are readying to take on one another in a battle for the Thiruvanthapuram Lok Sabha seat. The lineup in the offing is: former ambassador to Vienna and the United Nations TP Sreenivasan from the BJP, former ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey MK Bhadrakumar from the CPI(M), and former undersecretary for public affairs in the UN Shashi Tharoor from the Congress. It promises to be a unique battle as the three retired diplomats trade their bandhgalas for homespun mundus if the parties are willing. The talking point of the campaign? The Indo-US nuclear deal, naturally!