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Maharashtra Congress chief goes 'public' with party secrets
MUMBAI/NAGPUR: A day before Sonia Gandhi's much publicized 'Sadbhavana' rally at Sewagram in Wardha district to galvanize the party, Congress suffered a huge embarrassment after MPCC president Manikrao Thakre was caught on microphone telling a colleague how he had to mobilize funds worth crores for the success of the event.

Thakre was confiding in former minister Satish Chaturvedi, without realizing that the candid conversation on Tuesday, punctuated by gripes against chief minister Ashok Chavan, was being recorded by a live microphone.

Besides revealing that the party has mobilized Rs 10 lakh from each of the 11 cabinet members, Thakre, who passed stringent remarks against Chavan, disclosed that the CM paid Rs 2 crore for hiring 2,000 state transport corporation buses.

Snatches of the conversation indicated embarrassing facts — that each minister in the Chavan cabinet was asked to cough up Rs 10 lakh for the Sewagram event and Chavan himself committed Rs 2 crore for hiring 2,000 buses to ferry crowds for the rally. More shockingly, that money had to be passed on 'up there' in New Delhi (apparently to party bosses) by the satraps in Mumbai.

To make matters worse, the sensational conversation was played on a private channel, leaving the party red-faced, more so because of Mahatma Gandhi's association with Sewagram.

By evening, however, the party recovered its wits to announce that Sonia will keep her date with Wardha, while suspicions were swirling that the recording was not inadvertent but that Thakre may have been set up. A probe was on and it would factor in the fact that in the factional dymamics, Chaturvedi has often not been on the same side as Thakre.

The rally has been in planned as part of the 'Gram to Sewagram jhenda (flag) march', a big initiative by the party to connect with the grassroots.

Later, both Chavan and Thakre made an attempt to cover up the entire episode, saying the issue had been blown out of proportion. Chavan said it was a long practice to mobilise funds from party workers for organising such rallies. "We have been hiring state transport buses, we make the payment in advance, not like the BJP, which is still in huge arrears. Let me make it clear, I never paid Rs 2 crore either to the party or Thakre for payment to the state transport corporation," Chavan said.

On Thakre's caustic remarks against him, Chavan said it was possible his statement was twisted. "I saw the clippings on the television channel, it has been twisted," Chavan said. Thakre said it was a fact that party workers had contributed wholeheartedly for the success of the rally. "We never asked cabinet members to pay Rs 10 lakh each. Prima facie, it appears that party workers had given them money and later, they were to deposit the same with the party," he said. Presumably, just after they finished briefing mediapersons about the rally preparations, the two leaders seated on the small dais were involved in a chat which was, deliberately or otherwise, recorded by a TV channel.

The fact that the channels sat for more than two days on what they said was explosive material has raised doubts of a different kind. A Congress minister said the delay was a political move orchestrated by Chavan's detractors. The minister said it will have no impact on the party.

(Prafulla Marpakwar & Ramu Bhagwat, TNN, Oct 15, 2010, 03.11am IST)

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