GUJARAT IN FOCUS: CONGRESS PLOTS A RETURN

Coincidence is a word best used when levers and pulleys—that levitate, grav-itate, and manipulate—remain unseen. So, words and events need to be strung together to make cogent sense. Let’s try.

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Ahmedabad in Gujarat hosted the 84th session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) April 8 and 9, for the first time after 64 years, For long, the party had avoided taking the bull by the horns. It decided to strike in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s heartland. Those who are aware of the regulated retaliation and flexible response that follow any foray into their homeland did not have to wait for long. Call it corny coincidence, hustled happenstance, or a persisting pattern, Forty-eight hours later (April 12), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) announced that it had served notices to take possession of immovable assets worth 661 crores in Delhi, Mumbai, and Lucknow—as part of a money laundering probe—belonging to Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL), which owns the National Herald group of publications.

Shepherded out of Gujarat—Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s home state—and kept out of power for thirty years, the Congress had scarce options. It either had to take the bull by the horns or waste itself into obsolescence. “It does not behove one to leave a live dragon out of your calculations if you live near one,” said Dr Manish Doshi, justifying the Congress’s move to beard the wolf in its own lair.