Congress leader Margaret Alva launchs her book Courage and Commitment
Bengaluru: She may have served the Congress for 41 years, but there were barely a handful of Congressmen invited for the launch of Margaret Alva's searing book, Courage and Commitment in the city that was her former stomping ground, and where she came of age as a political force under her "mentor," former Congress Karnataka chief minister Devaraj Urs. The leader whom she stayed loyal to, leading to her dramatic expulsion from the party in 1980.
But that didn’t stop Alva, the woman whom her idol Indira Gandhi was grooming to one day head the Ministry of External Affairs, from running an eight year old letter in the book where she lays out exactly what ails her party.
She defended it, by saying it was not meant to boost sales of the book as one Congress spokesperson had charged, nor was there any criticism of Sonia Gandhi in it, although her insider's account of what happens behind closed doors in the Congress party is certain to leave many Congressmen, past and present, red-faced. Now, was that why former MEA S. M. Krishna was missing from the event even though he had top billing!
The relevant portion on Karnataka reiterates her charge that Congress tickets were sold to the highest bidder in the 2008 elections where a Congressman she names, used money power to ensure that her son was defeated! And one Congress leader who had been given 25 tickets, lost every single seat he was in charge of!
Margaret Alva, so well known for speaking her mind that Indira Gandhi, would grant her an audience within 2 hours of her request for a meeting didn’t disappoint!
One of the nicer vignettes in the book, apart from her self-admitted crush on Rajiv Gandhi? Justice Hidayatullah telling her he pitied her husband who had to deal with her at home. Margaret Alva’s riposte “I’ve my husband’s permission to make as much of a noise as I want in parliament as long as I keep the peace at home.”
Don’t want to confront Sonia: Alva
Margaret Alva's book Courage and Commitment ends with a criticism of the system of using intermediaries to conduct the business of the party that became the order of the day when Sonia Gandhi took over the party leadership.
Admitting on Tuesday that she did run the eight-year-old letter without talking to the party president about it but it was not aimed at damaging the 'family', she said at the book launch where a virtual who's who of Bengaluru had gathered: “I met Sonia Gandhi and handed over my book to her, with a beautiful foreword, written just for her. There is no reason for me at the end of my career to seek a confrontation with Sonia."
Either way, the trigger for the controversy was that one of the Congress' longest serving AICC members said she felt "like a misfit" in the Congress, and lashed out at the 'tickets for sale' scandal.
Plucked out from relative obscurity, her perfectly delivered speech in English at Glass House Bengaluru at the age of 32, saw Indira Gandhi nominating her to the Rajya Sabha where she would serve for another 24 years, "though I never wanted to go Delhi", she said.
Alva spoke of her close ties with Indira, the Chikkamagaluru by-polls, which Indira won, courtesy Devaraj Urs with 77,000 votes, and the fallout of that victory – Urs expulsion. “After he lost the polls in Karnataka only five people stood with Urs. One of them was me,” said Alva, who was expelled from the party but rehabilitated by Indira, years later.
