Cong sets Natwar’s endgame in motion

NEW DELHI: The Congress leadership on Tuesday set in motion the process of taking action against Mr Natwar Singh by referring the case of his ‘negative conduct’ to the AICC disciplinary committee headed by A K Antony. The committee will meet in a day or two and is expected to serve a show-cause notice to the former external affairs minister as a prelude to his likely suspension from the party.

Mr Singh is yet to comment on these moves, but there are indications that he is in the process of preparing a statement to be read out in Parliament or at a press conference. The Congress leadership, as much as the Opposition, is keenly watching Mr Singh’s reaction — whose ministerial berth and CWC membership have alredy been consumed by the Volcker conflagration — as that would give an indication of what the political discourse and power-play will be in the coming days.

As was indicated in the road-map prepared on Monday by senior leaders, the AICC on Tuesday delinked the reasons for initiating action against Mr Singh from the issue of his privilege motion against the prime minister over the leak of the Pathak Authority report.

The leadership instead cited Mr Singh’s “public utterances”, his action, as stated in the Pathak panel, of “writing three letters” to the Iraqi authorities recommending two relatives for oil contracts and “his other acts of omissions” for proceeding against him.

Mr Singh may also face charges of failing to follow the party whip in the Rajya Sabha recently and of ‘hobnobbing with the rivals of the Congress”. But it is obvious that his attack on the prime minister has only added to the Congress’ ire. However, the leadership chose to skip the issue of his privilege notice since the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha is still in the process of examining it.

“The Congress party has taken a serious note of Mr Singh’s utterances, and and an extremely serious view of the letters he had written (to the Iraqi authorities). We have also decided to take a holistic view over many other acts of omissions by him. The proper process in dealing with such cases is underway and an appropriate decision will be taken soon,” party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said at a press conference.

Even though some party leaders have been trying to persuade Mr Singh to ‘buy’ peace with the leadership and avoid a messy divorce by pulling out his motion in the Rajaya Sabha, his act of vowing to prevent the prime minister from speaking in the House as a retaliation for Congress MPs blocking him, turned out be the last straw.

More importantly, the leadership, sources say, is keen to be seen acting against the former 10 Janpath loyalist in order to drive home the larger political point that his and his relatives collaboration in the Iraqi oil deal “was entirely an act of his own by keeping the Congress and Ms Sonia Gandhi in the dark”.

This is one message the Congress is trying to ram home repeatedly, as it is fully aware that the real target of the Opposition and parties like the SP, AIADMK and TDP is the Congress party and Ms Gandhi herself.