After being elected president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in 1999, Najma Heptulla rang up the then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi from Berlin to convey the news but had to hold the phone line for an hour as staff told her that “Madam is busy”.
The former deputy chairperson of Rajya Sabha, who had left the Congress after reported differences with Ms Gandhi and joined the BJP in 2004, mentions this incident in her just-released autobiography “In Pursuit of Democracy: Beyond Party Lines”.
Ms Heptulla says the IPU presidency was a “historic first and a great honour, marking the pinnacle of my journey from the Indian parliament to the world parliamentary stage”.
First, she telephoned Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from Berlin and he received her call instantly.
“When he heard the news, he was delighted, first because the honour had come to India, and second, it had come to an Indian Muslim woman. He said, ‘You come back and we will celebrate.’ I could also connect to the vice-presidential office instantly,” she writes.
However, when she “rang up Sonia Gandhi, Congress Party President and my leader, one of her staff first said, ‘Madam is busy.’ When I pointed out that I was calling from Berlin, an international call, he just said, ‘Please hold the line.’ I waited for one full hour. Sonia never came on the line to speak to me”.
Ms Heptulla says she was truly disappointed.
“After that call, I did not tell her anything. Before forwarding my name for the post of IPU President, I had taken her permission, and at the time, she had given her blessings,” the former governor of Manipur writes.
“If every country, culture, and family has its special moments – events so important, and somehow so personal, that they transcend the normal flow of daily life – this was one such moment for me – a moment in time of such importance that it drilled a sense of rejection in my psyche forever.
“It was, however, a rejection that proved prescient. It prophesied a time of transition, a downward spiral and crisis in the Congress that left its old-time and experienced members, who had given their all to the party, beleaguered and demoralized. A new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the party,” she says.
Ms Heptulla, who was made the Union minister for minority affairs in the Narendra Modi government of 2014, says after she became the IPU president, the Vajpayee government upgraded the ranking of her office from minister of state to cabinet minister.
“Atalji allocated 1 crore in the Budget for the IPU president to travel to countries not paid for by the IPU Council. It was Vasundhara Raje who invited me and other MPs to celebrate my election as IPU President at the Parliament Annex, where we generally host all our Parliament receptions,” the book, published by Rupa, says.
“The following year, when I invited Sonia Gandhi to attend the Millennium Conference of Presiding Officers in New York, she opted out at the last minute,” Ms Heptulla writes.
In addition to her political career, Ms Heptulla authored several books and is a prominent advocate for democracy, social justice, and women’s rights.
She says that in 1998, when Sonia Gandhi donned the party mantle, “far too many layers of people sprung up between the rank and file, and the leader”.
“That was the problem with 10 Janpath. Direct communication was cut off because of junior functionaries. They were not party workers, just clerks and other staff working there. And they blocked all access to the leader, affecting organizational health and ethics, compromising both harmony and productivity of the party members,” Ms Heptulla writes.
“As Congress followers, we no longer had an active role in providing feedback to our leader – so critical for a party to perform well. There was little interaction based on the quality of our exchanges, little understanding of who were part of our leader’s in-groups or out-groups or even how to support our leader’s vision. The decline started then,” she adds.
According to Ms Heptulla, at that time, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi were not in politics but busy with their own lives.
“Our leader’s behaviour was counter to the best practices and principles of collaboration that had evolved in the Congress over many decades,” she says about Sonia Gandhi’s leadership.
Ms Heptulla says that Sonia Gandhi’s idea of communication was a “sharp and serious departure from the earlier Congress culture”. “Indira Gandhi used to keep an open house. She was accessible to the rank-and-file members,” she writes.
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