Beni Prasad Verma's claim of an anti-Sonia, Rahul plot: Is it true?

Lucknow: A new twist has been added to the prolonged love-hate relationship that former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma enjoys with Congress leaders in Uttar Pradesh.

His allusion that a “section within the Congress” is plotting to weaken Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul in the party has forced Sonia loyalists as well as his detractors to agree with him.

For a beleaguered Verma, the allegation that this section of “plotters” are in touch with other parties, has come as his way of rebutting persistent rumours that he could be cosying up to the Samajwadi Party.

Verma, who lost the Lok Sabha election from Gonda, has in the past targeted Congress leaders such as PL Punia, UPCC president Nirmal Khatri and many unnamed former Union ministers, blaming them for damaging the party “from within.” However, in his latest reaction, he did not name the so-called plotters despite repeated queries from the media in Lucknow.

Verma had been the target of a section of Congress leaders in UP and elsewhere for his flamboyant statements, such as sustained attacks on Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, even calling him a “leader of dacoits” or terming price rise a “boon” for farmers. But after the Lok Sabha election, his attacks on SP and Mulayam became a little milder, giving rise to speculation that he could be preparing to join the party.

He has repeated the allegation that these “plotters” were the same who were involved in “selling Congress tickets for the 2012 Assembly elections.” He, however, said he was confident that only Rahul Gandhi could revamp the party and lead it to glory.

Verma’s statement comes in the wake of Congress leaders TH Mustafa from Kerala and Rajasthan MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma blaming Rahul Gandhi for the party’s debacle, which ended up in both getting suspended. Just a day ago, another Congress veteran, Ghufran Azam from Madhya Pradesh, also blamed Rahul Gandhi for the party’s poor show.

“Whatever Verma is saying could be true, but the problem is that he himself does not enjoy the confidence of a vast section of Congress workers in Uttar Pradesh. Therefore much of what he says is taken with a pinch of salt,” said a former UPCC office-bearer, who added that this did not mean Beni’s conspiracy theory could be dismissed lightly.

But UPCC spokesman Devendra Pratap Singh was more forthcoming. “Whatever Beni Prasad Verma has said is true and there has emerged a section of leaders in the party which is struggling to undermine the leadership,” he said.

But, he said in the same breath that Verma was not a “true Congressman” and belonged to the category of leaders who keep moving from one party to another. This reaction indicates the unease among a section of UP Congress vis-a-vis Beni Prasad Verma.

Singh said that a majority of Congress workers would accept no one but Sonia and Rahul as their leaders. “They will always remain the guardians and patrons of the party,” he said.

He also voiced the concerns of a section of the UPCC which feels that the ground-level workers have been neglected for too long in terms of posts in the party as well as receiving tickets to contest elections. “The dominance of those coming from political families, erstwhile royal families and lawyers in the former UPA government has been responsible to a large extent for the party’s loss," he said.

In this connection, Singh did not hesitate in saying that “the likes of Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Salman Khurshid, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, P. Chidambaram and Ashwini Kumar have been responsible for creating an anti-people image of the party before the elections.”

In the same vein, he named two other former Union ministers from UP who belonged to erstwhile royal families as being “disconnected” from the people. But couldn’t all this be what Beni Prasad Varma has indicated? Would it vindicate Beni’s stand?

“Whatever Beni has said is correct and the party must probe his allegations and action must be taken against those who are trying to dislodge Sonia and Rahul,” Singh said.

Beni has enjoyed the confidence of the Congress leadership so far for having caused a wedge in the OBC community, dividing the Yadavs and Kurmis, which initially helped the Congress till 2009.

However, in this year’s Lok Sabha election, the Kurmis apparently supported the Bharatiya Janata Party, diluting much of Verma’s political significance. Since then, he has been giving conflicting signals, at times saying that the continuance of the Akhilesh Yadav government was “important” to wage the political battle against the BJP, and at others, attacking Mulayam Singh Yadav as trying to damage the Congress.

Verma’s statement is interpreted in a different way by Athar Husain, director of a socio-political think tank, the Centre for Objective Research and Development (CORD).

“With this statement, he has tried to indicate that it is the traditional, long-standing Congressmen who are damaging the party from within, and thus people like him (Beni) who came from other parties to Congress in their quest to safeguard secularism, cannot be blamed for the party’s poor state.”

In this manner, Husain feels, Verma is keeping his options open. “He and perhaps many others in the Congress realize that the party’s revival in the state is almost impossible for the next five or even ten years.” His move, according to him, could come just after the by-elections in the state.

Syed Abbas Rizvi, who has been closely involved in the campaign of PL Punia who unsuccessfully contested as the Congress candidate from Barabanki, also maintained that Verma may still join the Samajwadi Party when Mulayam Singh Yadav gives him the green signal.

“Verma’s latest statement is meant to maintain the illusion that he is a Gandhi loyalist,” Rizvi said categorically.