Rahul Gandhi a risk worth taking in UP polls: Aiyar

New Delhi: Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said that Rahul Gandhi has made Uttar Pradesh his 'special turf' and the party's heavy reliance on him in the Assembly polls there would prove to be a 'risk worth taking'. He said that it will not be the end of the road for Rahul Gandhi if the Congress does not perform well in the Assembly elections in the politically-crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.

Speaking exclusively to Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate, the Congress MP also downplayed the presence of Robert Vadra in the campaigning saying he is doing it as member of the family, but said he would welcome the Gandhi family's son-in-law as an MP if he wins elections.

Here is the full transcript of the interview:

Karan Thapar: Hello and Welcome to Devil's Advocate. With the Gandhi family throwing themselves comprehensively into election campaign, we ask what make difference to the Congress and how does Congress explain its dependence in the family. That's the key issue I should explore today with Congress MP and Gandhi family loyalist, Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Mr Aiyar, would you accept that without a Nehru-Gandhi family member at its helm, Congress would lose most of its appeal, perhaps even run the risk of falling apart?

Mani Shankar Aiyar: Absolutely, that's why the Nehru-Gandhi family is the bonding adhesive of the party. Some of the biggest asset and Shakespeare talked of the base Indian throwing away the pearl. We are not about to prove to be base Indians.

Karan Thapar:In fact if you look at the fact that even more startling. Of the 65 years since independence, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family has been president of Congress for 32 years, of the 51 years that the Congress has ruled this country, a member of their family has been Prime Minister for 37 years. Actually that family virtually controls Congress?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Absolutely and when it doesn't, then disasters strikes. We have seven years without a Nehru-Gandhi at the helm of the party between 1991 and 1998. And every thing that you said a minute ago actually happened, we got weak and we were withering away. And it was the only when Sonia Gandhi against all her instincts took over the presidentship of the party in March 1998 that the regeneration of the Congress party began.

Karan Thapar:So the Nehru-Gandhi family is a blessing for Congress?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Oh absolutely. Let me take you few decades ago, there was a period when Purushottam Das Tandon became the president of the Congress in 1950 and the Congress almost got communalised and it was only when Nehru finally struck back and took over the presidentship himself in October 1951, that we went back on the secular party.

Karan Thapar:In fact, if you look at the list of the members of Nehru-Gandhi family who have either controlled Congress or had extreme influence in Congress, it goes from Motilal Nehru or Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and now possibly Priyanka Gandhi. That's five generation of one family. I put it to you. This is the dynastical role in Congress?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No, because a dynasty by definition is one where the succession is assured by divine right. Here succession is secured by democratic right.

Karan Thapar: No succession is here secure by accident or luck of birth. It's because the Nehru-Gandhi they succeed each other, they don't succeed each other for any other reason

Mani Shankar Aiyar:I am sorry history doesn't prove that to be true because all of them have been under challenge. I gave you the example of Purushottam Das Tandon's successful revolt against Nehru. But go further, Indira Gandhi was actually expelled from the party and only won back on her own.

Karan Thapar:Take the example of the Rajiv Gandhi who came into power because he wanted as he himself said that he wanted to help his mummy. Consciously he was doing it for his genealogical reason not for any democratic reason?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:But he couldn't succeeded without democratic approval.

Karan Thapar:Let me put this to you, is this successor of five generation of one family which I insist on coding the dynasty not fundamentally a contradiction, at the end of the day, a democratic party?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No your definition of dynasty being wrong, therefore the conclusion you come to is wrong. There is no way in which the succession from one generation to another can be validated, except first democratically within the party and next democratically within the country.

Karan Thapar:When you keep talking about democratic validation but look at the fact that even seven years after he became Prime Minister, real power lies in the first instance with Sonia Gandhi and then with Rahul, not with Dr Manmohan Singh. And more importantly, today people openly admit that '10 Janpath' is more important than '7 Race Course' which means that the family has ultimate power without a proper accountability. How do you justify that?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:I am afraid your words are wrong. One, the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister not on his own esteem it is publicly known that he was nominated by Sonia Gandhi, whom all of us...

Karan Thapar:You are proving my point. She created the Prime Minister, she is more important then him.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:But we have never hidden this, is not as if he was nominated the Prime Minister when she for reasons till today known only to her, didn't take over the Prime Ministership that was her right. Now in any party in the world there is a relationship between the party and the government and the government's job is to carry out the mandate of the party and when you say '10 Janpath', you are ignoring '24 Akbar Road', for '10 Janpath' consults '24 Akbar Road', usually doesn't interfere until there is a difference between...

Karan Thapar: Mani Shankar Aiyar '10 Janpath' tells '24 Akbar Road' what to do.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: You are quite wrong, you are utterly utterly wrong. I have been present on numerous occasions where there have been debates between the denizens of '24 Akbar Road' among themselves and she has had to approve.

Karan Thapar: I prove my point to you. People at '24 Akbar Road' refer to '10 Janpath' as the high command and that term is not just reminiscent of Nazi Germany, it suggests a Fuhrer-like authority.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: Yeah but the high command is a Congress expression borrowed perhaps by the Nazis and Mrs Gandhi is no Hitler. So don't try to pretend that the Congress is the Nazi party.

Karan Thapar:No, Mrs Gandhi may not be a Hitler. But Congress treats her as she if was the repository...

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No she is the point at which the argument ends. Now when you look at Narasimha Rao's time, whenever he took a decision, it would be beginning of the dissent, when Mrs Gandhi takes a decision it is the point in which Congress comes together.

Karan Thapar:Let me put it like this. Mrs Gandhi not only appointed Dr Manmohan Singh, she appoints every single Congress chief minister in the country. She probably appoints the heads of the Congress Party in the states. Once again nothing happens, not even a leaf stirs in 24 Akbar Road without Mrs Gandhi giving it authority information to do so?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Only if the leaves are fighting the winds. If there is consensus... there is no reason, why she would interfere. It's when factions of the Congress Party are unable to arrive at a consensus among themselves, then somebody has to take a decision and thank God we have some body who takes a decision that sticks.

Karan Thapar:Let me give you another example, a moment ago you said that in every democratic polity there is a distinguish between the party and the government, no doubt.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: No I said a relationship between the party and the government.

Karan Thapar:But the relationship is one of subservience of the party head to the Prime Minister, take Britain as an example.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:You have made this argument in the past?

Karan Thapar: And I am making it to you again

Mani Shankar Aiyar: I conceded to you that in many many countries, the executive is in many ways the leadership of the party, this is often be the case in India. At the present moment, the leadership of the party is not the same as the leadership of the government and it has no relationship.

Karan Thapar:Not just as the present movement. Whenever a Nehru-Gandhi at the helm of the Congress, the leadership of the party is in the hands of Nehru-Gandhi.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Absolutely and the leadership of the government is also in their hands.

Karan Thapar:And the opposite is also true when a Nehru-Gandhi's Prime Minister the leadership of the party is also is unimportant if not with them?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:This is why I am saying that most of the time, the leadership of the party and the leadership of the government has been the same. And when it hasn't been...

Karan Thapar:The Nehrus predominate?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Of course, because they are effectively the leaders of the party.

Karan Thapar:Precisely they are the party, they personify the party?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:But why are they that? Because the party wants them to be. My party cannot have the leadership which suits you, its suits me. I want them to be leaders of the party.

Karan Thapar:You want them to be leaders of the party. People say are Congressman so subservient, so sheep-like, so sycophantic that they cannot find anyone else in the party leadership other then Nehru-Gandhi family.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: We are either sheep or sycophantic, otherwise why would these huge arguments take place in 10 Janpath.

Karan Thapar:People actually say, you are slaves that's the term people use.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: That's rubbish, it is total rubbish. I have authored several reports which have caused so much controversy within the party, that the party leadership has sat in Mrs Gandhi’s presence. And some of these quarrels have extended with respect to the others to me, a long time later.

Karan Thapar:You are saying you are not sheep, not submissive, not slave-like. How do you count for the fact that the people like Nehru's valet, Indira Gandhi's cook and Sonia Gandhi's bodyguard have been nominated as Congress candidates. What's the difference between that and horse becoming a senator?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Because they are one of eight thousands. There are thousands of people who have not been the valet, who have not been in the security guards, who become like me have become nominated members in one way or another in the Congress Party.

Karan Thapar:You only became a nominated member though you were defeated in preceding Lok Sabha elections because Sonia Gandhi decided against all presidential convention to make you one. You prove the example, you don't disprove it.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: I was nominated to a ticket in 1991 and I have proved in my constituency with majorities of two lakhs, that the choice they make and that is a nomination, which was correct.

Karan Thapar:What about the nomination, I am talking about when just month after you lost the Lok Sabha election in 2009, you been brought back to the Rajya Sabha to nominated category entirely because Sonia Gandhi wanted you.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Absolutely.

Karan Thapar: It broke all convention but the fact that your favour secure the nomination. That's prove my point...

Mani Shankar Aiyar:You are quite wrong. I could have easily been brought in as an elected candidate in which case I would have been the candidate for ministership. It was to be sure that I didn't become a minister then I was made a nominated member.

Karan Thapar:Let me come back to the example I quote it as a valet, the commando and the cook and you. Are you saying that the people who have any connection with the Gandhi family, no matter how remote, are automatically elected? I said, does this prove that the Gandhis hold such control that they do whatever they want and Congress cannot complain?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:I can give you numerous instances, so numerous that the programme would be taken up, of the people who are close to the Gandhis, who want something and don't get it.

Karan Thapar:Because they have fallen out of favour at some point of time. That's why.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No, because they considered appropriate for it.

Karan Thapar:When you fall out of favour, you drop like a brick by the Gandhis, that’s also true.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Well if you falls seriously out of favour. You may fall like I do some times, temporarily out of favour.

Karan Thapar:Let me put like this. There is no other national party in the country that is so critically dependent on one family. Is this Congress...

Mani Shankar Aiyar:There is no other national party on which the country depends as much as on the Congress.

Karan Thapar:Is this Congress' strength or its ultimate weakness?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:It is the biggest strength of the Congress, It's that we have a party where discipline can be enforced because the leadership is acceptable to everybody.

Karan Thapar:How can it be a strength, when in a democratic party, no other Congressman or woman can ever aspire to be the President or the Prime Minister, if there is a Nehru-Gandhi in function and in politics?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Wonderful, at least we have found a solution. We can aspire to every other post. You don't only have to get to the top of the Everest, you need Sherpas as well.

Karan Thapar:So this is president-for-life, which is not a very democratic thing. This is determined by birth which is not democratic.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No but only if it is, as I went and I have been trying to go to great lengths to explain to you, it only happens if there is an endorsement from the party and there is an endorsement from the party.

Karan Thapar:I don't know if there is an endorsement from the party or whether it is simply fait accompli presented to the party.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:From time to time people have broken away from the Congress Party for the reason such as the one you are mentioning. And where they have gone they are into a complete obscurity. So what are you talking about? People who aspire to be the nation's leader but didn't have the capacity to do it.

Karan Thapar:So you are saying to me, even if the almost permanent presence of the Nehru-Gandhi at the helm of Congress, suggests a certain lack of democratic credentials, it benefits the party and you don't care about the critics.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:It benefits the party, it benefits the country. It is democratic because it has the mandate of the party has to be renewed as often as often as the mandate of the country.

Karan Thapar:Lets take a break at that point. I want to come back and talk to you about the present situation of the Gandhi family at the top of the Congress and infact now the emergence of Robert Vadra, perhaps the latest entrance of the family, except by marriage. Does that suggest dependence or does it suggest strategy. We will back in a moment's time see you after break.

Karan Thapar:Welcome back to the Devil's Advocate in an a interview about the Gandhi dynasty and Congress Party depends on the family. With Mani Shankar Aiyar a Congress MP and an old time Gandhi family loyalist.

Mani Shankar Aiyar let's come to the present, at the moment in the election campaign that’s happening in the country, it is not just Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi but amazingly Robert Vadra, the son-in-law who's entered to campaigning for the Congress. How do you account for that?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Ask him don't ask me. He feels that he can make a contribution, so he has gone in. And I know there was this little kind of contretemps when he replied to a question saying that if the people want me, I would also come into politics. But it was immediately refuted by Priyanka. I am willing to wait.

Karan Thapar:It wasn't actually refuted by Priyanka, she simply suggested that a twisted question had been asked and which in a sense trapped him giving into giving the answer. That's not a refutation.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: You are the expert in asking twisted questions.

Karan Thapar:But come back to my key point, is Robert Vadra campaigning for Congress with Congress' support and endorsement? Do you now believe that you are dependence on a family has gone so far, that you need a son-in-law who is only involved by marriage to campaign for you?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Frankly I don't know. All I can say is in any democratic country, if my wife goes campaigning for me in Mailadutrai, she doesn't have to take the permission from the Congress. If my friends coming to campaign for me, they don’t have to take the permission of the Congress. Every candidate picks whom he wants to come in. And if Robert is there along with Priyanka , fine.

Karan Thapar: Is Congress proud of Robert Vadra campaigning the party or are you embarrassed that he is doing it?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:I am certainly not embarrassed. I don't know about the Congress, you will have to ask the Congress. But I certainly am not embarrassed that Robert Vadra, like Sunita Aiyar, wishes to campaign. They can campaign.

Karan Thapar:Would you welcome Robert Vadra as a Congress MP?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Only if he wins the elections.

Karan Thapar:If he losses then it would be an embarrassment

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No, only to the extent to which any Congressman losing is an embarrassment, including my own losing is an embarrassment.

Karan Thapar:Except for the fact that if the son-in-law of a dynasty, that for five generations is involved in running a party, starts entering it. Doesn't it look that this has become an exercise in giving jobs to family members at the cost of democracy?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:It's only if you accept that the word dynasty. Indira Gandhi is...

Karan Thapar:The whole country accept the word dynasty except you. So lets keep that aside

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No, no that is why I accepted this interview. Simply because people like you keeps spreading that this is a dynasty. It's not a dynasty; a dynasty is succession by divine right. This is the family that succeeds by securing a democratic right.

Karan Thapar: Hang on a moment, this is succession by genetics. Are you saying that this is genealogical absurdity?

Mani Shankar Aiyar:No it is not.

Karan Thapar:No then it is a dynasty.

Mani Shankar Aiyar:Each one of them has proved themselves. Each one of them has been challenged and each one of them has proved himself or herself. And they have to face unbelievable odds and still succeeded.

Karan Thapar:Let me put this to you like this people ask critical question about Robert Vadra now campaigning for Congress. They say is this a low point of the dynasty and the Congress party or is it dynastic refurbishment and replenishment. Which is it?

Mani Shankar Aiyar: I think it's neither. It's just incidental. He is just a member of the family, like the members of my family. My daughters go to my constituency to campaign. Is that a low point or a high point – It's just an incidental point.

Karan Thapar: The second important thing that has come to light in the last few days is that now the focus of attention in the campaigning is in the terms of Rahul, Priyanka and increasingly Robert Vadra, not Sonia Gandhi. She seems to have receded into the background. Are we seeing a generational shift in the dynasty?

Mani Shankar Aiyar: As far as the politics of the Congress party is concerned, Mrs Gandhi is campaigning everywhere, she has also campaigned.

Karan Thapar: But she is taking a much lower profile than she has ever taken before.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: No, the profiles are given, not taken. And your media got obsessed with Robert Vadra, I can't help it and she can't help it.

Karan Thapar: Parties project the leaders of their leaders in particular ways to attract attention. At the moment, they are projecting Priyanka, Rahul and perhaps Robert, not Sonia. Hence my question, is a generational shift happening?

Mani Shankar Aiyar: As far as I know, and I am not involved with the management of the elections, but as far as I know, Sonia Gandhi is continuing to campaign in the manner in which she always done, which is always three, often only two, campaign appearances. And she is doing that.

Karan Thapar: You know I can remember national elections where Sonia Gandhi, perhaps toured the country, 20-30,000 miles and Congress said so with pride.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: But this is not the General Elections.

Karan Thapar: But this is an equally critical election for the Congress.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: But she is campaigning virtually everyday. She is campaigning virtually everyday.

Karan Thapar: You don't think the mantle is being passed on to son and daughter.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: In Uttar Pradesh, Rahul has made it his special particular turf and therefore he is very very visible there. And he has made some occasional forays elsewhere. Priyanka has always been limiting herself to the family constituencies.

Karan Thapar: Let's briefly bring up Uttar Pradesh. You say Rahul has made it his turf. This heavy reliance on Rahul in Uttar Pradesh is a high risk strategy because if Congress doesn't do as well as it wants, or as well as it previous track records suggest it should, this could undermine the image of the Gandhi children. It could perhaps cripple their confidence. It's a risk you are taking.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: Of course. But you will never win if you don't risk something. I personally shared your apprehensions some years ago. Over time I am finding and especially during the course of this election that the Rahul factor seems to be positively benefiting all.

Karan Thapar: So it's a risk worth taking.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: It has proved that it is worth taking.

Karan Thapar: What it has proved will be seen after the final results.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: It will be finally proved.

Karan Thapar: But are you also prepared to accept that if the Congress doesn't do well, then the Rahul image will be affected.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: Yeah, but it's not the end of the road.

Karan Thapar: It's not the end of the road for a Gandhi ever, is it? That's the point.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: No no, but this time, if he does well, it will be the opening of the gate and remember that's what makes the milestone.

Karan Thapar: Alright, opening of the gate, but you also said, never the end of the road for the Gandhis.

Mani Shankar Aiyar: Never, never.

Karan Thapar: Mani Shankar Aiyar, a pleasure talking to you.

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