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Last Updated Wednesday November 25 2020 04:34 AM IST

When fortune smiles at 75

Sachidananda Murthy
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Najma Heptullah-Sheila Dixit Combo image of BJP leader Najma Heptullah (L) and Congress leader Sheila Dixit

Last week brought contrasting fortunes to two women, who were contemporaries in Parliament during 1980s as members of the Congress party.

Both of them are relatives of veterans of the Congress party. Najma Heptullah, the niece of party icon Maulana Abul Kalam Azad had left the party of her uncle and joined BJP two decades ago. But she lost her ministership as the prime minister applied the rule of 75 years age limit for ministerial appointments. The minister for minority affairs had reached the informal age limit, along with her colleague Kalraj Mishra, minister for micro and small industries.

Since Uttar Pradesh is going for elections, Mishra, as the second most senior leader of the party in the state (after Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh), has been continued until a suitable post is found. But there were no such electoral compulsions for Heptullah, who has always been a Rajya Sabha member – first from Congress and later from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Narendra Modi wanted to send the message that he was still a stickler for the age rule, which had denied ministerial berths for leaders like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie in 2014.

While Najma contemplated her political future, her friend Sheila Dixit suddenly found an upswing in her fortunes, as she was chosen as the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh for next year's elections. Even Dixit herself knows that the current voter support for the Congress is below 10 percent, far behind the three big players in ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and the BJP, which has seen a rise in its electoral fortune in the Lok Sabha elections. Dixit, who miserably lost the control of Delhi after winning three consecutive elections – once as PCC president and twice as incumbent chief minister – had thought her career was at an end. But the desperate Congress went for the octogenarian leader as a last resort, even as she has tremendous odds to face.

But the Congress electoral strategist Prashant Kishor feels that Dixit can be marketed as the face of administrative success and Brahmanical politics. Dixit, who is originally from Punjab, was married to senior IAS officer Gopal Dixit, son of Congress treasurer and union minister Uma Shankar Dixit. She is called the daughter-in-law of Uttar Pradesh. She has owed her rise to the proximity to the Gandhi family. Rajiv had made her minister of state in prime minister's office. After Rajiv's assassination in 1991, Dixit was one of the main supporters of Sonia Gandhi, defying the then Congress president and prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. In 1998, Sonia took charge of Congress, and made Dixit the surprise candidate to lead the Congress in Delhi elections. But the current gamble is the ultimate for a party, which has not been in power in Uttar Pradesh for the last 26 years.

While Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party maintained silence, the BJP - worried about its upper caste voters - strongly reacted by putting her maiden name Kapoor to ridicule her choice. The national ruling party ignored her marrying into a Brahmin family or that she was a Lok Sabha member from Kannauj for two terms. The BJP's argument was that if the Congress, along with Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) could raise the outsider slogan against Modi and party president Amit Shah in Bihar last year, the BJP was right to question Congress bringing in outsiders. The BJP also alleged that it was an insurance policy to deflect criticism of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi if the Congress loses its bid in Uttar Pradesh. Apart from the first nervous reaction of BJP, Sheila Dixit has the biggest challenge of her political career ahead. 

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