Within Congress, Blame Game Over Rahul Gandhi Meeting PM Narendra Modi

New Delhi: No one in the Congress party is currently owning responsibility for the timing of Rahul Gandhi's meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, which has threatened to dismantle the rare unity that opposition parties had forged all through the winter session of parliament. Mr Gandhi met PM Modi on the last day of the session and minutes before 15 opposition parties led by the Congress were to march together to meet the President and complain about what they call the unrelenting hardship caused to the people by the Prime Minister's sudden ban on 500 and 1000 rupee notes, aimed at eliminating black or undeclared money. Upset, the Left and other main opposition parties promptly announced that they would not be joining the march.

An appointment had apparently been sought with the Prime Minister about two weeks ago on behalf of the Congress, to hand over a list of demands Rahul Gandhi had collected from farmers. The government, hemmed in by the phalanx of opposition parties moving in concert in their attack over the notes ban, scored a neat goal in offering the meeting yesterday.

Within the Congress, there are several red faces and allegations are flying, as the differences between what is seen as Rahul Gandhi's young team versus the old guard trusted by his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi again surface.

Lawmaker and former union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia emphatically denied reports that he had sought the appointment with the PM. But he said there was no way for Mr Gandhi to have avoided attending the meeting once it was fixed. Mr Gandhi, the young Congress leader argued, had promised farmers in Uttar Pradesh, where crucial assembly elections will held soon, that he would personally reach their demands to the PM.

Senior party leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, who lead the Congress strategy in parliament, too denied they wanted Rahul Gandhi's presence in such a meeting.

Sources said the other opposition parties had requested the Congress to postpone Mr Gandhi's meeting with the Prime Minister to any other day or ensure that Mr Gandhi, who has been the face of the opposition's notes ban attack on the government, skip the meeting. None of which happened.

"The Congress decided to go to the Prime Minister unilaterally, that is not the way," said Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party.

"Are we not concerned about the plight of farmers?" asked a leader of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party which too skipped the meeting with the President as did the Samajwadi Party, both major players in Uttar Pradesh.

In the Congress, there are angry murmurs about "sabotage". Only two days ago, Rahul Gandhi, flanked by 14 opposition parties, claimed he had information that would "expose" what he called the "personal corruption" of PM Modi, if he was allowed to speak in parliament.

On the last day of the session, however, instead of an explosive revelation, came the meeting with the PM. In the Lok Sahba, the Congress allowed the House to function long enough to pass the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill.