Ahmed Patel: The troubleshooter's departure leaves the Congress poorer

 It may sound like a cliche but Ahmed Patel leaves a void in the party that no one can fill

Ahmed Patel, Treasurer of the Indian National Congress, MP, a close aide to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, died today at 71. He leaves behind a void that no one can fill. This may sound like a cliché. But there are few in the party today who are capable of being a bridge over troubled waters that Patel proved to be, time and again.

Ahmed Patel was just 30 when he became an MP in 1977. The Congress had been wiped out elsewhere but Gujarat had saved the day, sending a handful of MPs to the Lok Sabha. He was elected from his native Bharuch district, a region that still swears by him though it may not elect him anymore (the BJP has retained four out of five assembly seats in the parliamentary constituency for the last two decades).

When Indira Gandhi was assassinated and Rajiv came to power in 1984 with a 400 plus majority in the Lok Sabha, Patel, who had built a connect with Rajiv when the former PM was nothing more than a party general secretary, was promoted rapidly as party apparatchik. By 1986, Gandhi had formalised his plan to replace older Congress leaders with his boys. Patel was sent back to Gujarat as the president of the party unit in the state. Then Rajiv was assassinated and most of his supporters shifted allegiance to PV Narasimha Rao. Patel, however, had lost the Lok Sabha election as well as the party position in Gujarat....