Rahul Gandhi refrains from commenting on Anna

NEW DELHI: AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, one of the four Congress leaders deputed by party President Sonia Gandhi to manage organisational affairs in her absence, once again refrained from commenting on Anna Hazare's agitation.

He has been maintaining a low profile ever since the Anna blitzkrieg hit the country and its political class. On August 20, when he made an appearance at the Congress' headquarters at Akbar Road for merger of veteran Telugu film actor Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party, Rahul Gandhi had ducked queries on Anna's agitation and the government's handling of the crisis.

He, unlike many other younger colleagues, refused to intervene during the Congress parliamentary party meeting held on Thursday morning. When the media asked him about whether he was concerned about Anna's fast, he restricted himself to saying, "of course, I am concerned.''

With Congress president Sonia Gandhi is recuperating abroad from a surgery, Congress had been in disarray. Party leaders swung between extreme positions on how to handle Anna's fast and the mobilisation of people that took place across the country. While the government first cracked down hard on the Gandhian and his team-mates, arresting them even before they could embark on their agitational course and bundling them off to Tihar central jail, it later took a hands-off approach.

Congress leaders admit Sonia Gandhi's absence from the scene had left the party bereft of a leader with deft decision-making skills. Those in charge were found wanting in their tactfulness and trouble-shooting skills and ill-equipped to handle a crisis of such a scale.

Party MPs, while speaking to newspersons on condition of anonymity, lamented that it took the government over a week to awaken from its slumber and realise the gravity of the situation. Rumblings within the party grew over the inexplicable delay in formulating government's response to the popular upsurge.

It was only on Tuesday that the prime minister wrote a letter to Hazare, urging him to call off his fast and begin talks with the government, in an attempt to find a way out of the logjam. Congress had simultaneously announced that it would hold a parliamentary party meeting on Thursday to educate its MPs about the steps taken by the Centre to de-escalate tension, and also to solicit their views on the crisis.