Did Rahul challenge Sonia's authority with stand on 'nonsense' ordinance?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have reconciled with his public humiliation by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi — “under” whom he was so willing to work after next elections — and is unlikely to take the extreme step of quitting from office. Despite his position being severely compromised, he is going ahead with his schedule in Washington DC and New York. Nobody in the Congress is willing to bet on the advice given to Manmohan Singh by his former media advisor, Sanjay Baru — that he quit and protect his dignity. The conciliatory letter from Rahul Gandhi to Singh, expressing the “greatest admiration” he has for him, after having completely demeaned his position, has served its purpose – it acts as a face save to the prime minister despite Rahul not having gone back an inch from his “complete nonsense”, worthy of “torn up” and “thrown away” ordinance position. This letter was supposedly sent by Rahul to Manmohan Singh, after Singh spoke to Sonia Gandhi and many in the political circles interpret the contents of the letter as not just targeting the Prime Minister or the Cabinet, but also the established order of the Congress party and the UPA — which is led by his mother Sonia Gandhi. [caption id=“attachment_1139819” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. PTI[/caption] The union Cabinet’s decision to go the ordinance route had prior clearance from Sonia Gandhi. UPA sources told Firstpost that the Congress Core Group headed by Sonia Gandhi decided to go for the ordinance after RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav had met her and pleaded to her about his continued worth in a secular alliance. Lalu was first to declare that next parliamentary elections would be on secular-communal lines and he had successfully convinced the Congress leadership that he was the one (not Nitish Kumar) who could act as bulwark against Narendra Modi’s onward march in Bihar. RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui had said in Patna that “the entire UPA government seems to be a pygmy before Rahul Gandhi.” The opening line of Rahul Gandhi’s letter to the PM acknowledges that his position is as much against the Core Group as it is against Cabinet. “I realise that what I feel about the Ordinance is not in harmony with the Cabinet decision and the Core Group’s view. I also know it would be exploited by our political opponents”, the letter said . The Core Group, which comprises of Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde, AK Antony and Ahmed Patel, usually meets every Friday to take stock of the situation and decide important issues. Rahul’s angry outburst against his own government underlined one thing — that he was trying to establish a new order in the Congress. He was making a point that it was not fine for the leadership in the government to only take his “soft” mother into confidence, but that they should be okayed by him too — in a way actually defying and challenging his mother. For last nine-and-half years, Sonia has been protective of Manmohan Singh at all public and party forums. Rahul did just the reverse — publicly expressing he had no confidence in the collective wisdom of a government headed by Manmohan Singh. In May this year, Rahul Gandhi had said at a meeting of Delhi Congress leaders, that he did not want to be “soft” like his mother. His idol was his grandmother, Indira Gandhi and he felt that he was “strong like her”. How Rahul’s outburst against the ordinance impacts Singh’s immediate fate is a matter of curiosity, not concern, for the broad mass of Congressmen and women. The issue for them is that if the party has to be in the reckoning the Nehru-Gandhi family must shine. Has Rahul then made a virtue out of necessity, of which President Pranab Mukherjee was the actual hero? Sources have told Firstpost that “after the BJP had lodged its protest, there was a clear and present danger of the President sending it (the ordinance) back to the Cabinet for reconsideration. The President who has long been the wise man of the Indian polity and his party, had taken legal advise and knew the ordinance was prone to being struck down by the Supreme Court. The very fact that he summoned three top ministers of the union Cabinet indicate that he was not in favour of signing it without due considerations. If he had sent it back it would created even worse situation for the Congress. Besides being a conflict situation between the Cabinet and the President, the BJP would have jumped asking PM’s head. The prospects for the Congress was damaging on both counts, moral and electoral.” Rahul Gandhi’s intervention may have salvaged the Congress from an imminent ignominious situation, as also avoiding a possible contradictory position of the Rashtrapati Bhawan and South Block. Rahul backers say that by his assertive intervention he has displayed that he could be a “decisive and sensitive” counter to Modi in the next election.