I first met Rasheed Kidwai, much senior to me in political reporting during a particularly hot afternoon in Lucknow. It was May 2007 and Mayawati had defied most predictions and got a huge majority in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the first person to do so in nearly 20 years.
Reporters from Delhi had been rushed to Lucknow in anticipation of a hung assembly, some jod tod ki rajneeti and some good stories. Mayawati?s decisive victory put paid to that. What we got instead was one press conference at the BSP Kendra, where Mayawati garlanded her own statue and the worst dust storm Lucknow had seen in 12 years. With nothing to do, Kidwai?s treasure trove of anecdotes, some amusing, some frankly defamatory of the political class, provided several hours of time pass.
Kidwai?s second book, 24 Akbar Road, is much like that afternoon, without the punch, of course, of defamatory stories. It is a potted history of the Congress, largely post-1978, when the party shifted its headquarters to the eponymous address.
Nowhere near Ram Guha?s towering opus India After Gandhi, in its broad sweep and sheer research, it is however, a playful romp through the back warrens of the party office.
Although a fun book, it is a bit of a lost opportunity as well. The premise and Kidwai?s long experience covering the Congress could have resulted in a better researched book, but it hasn?t. Some parts of it have already appeared in Kidwai?s previous book, a biography of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and while the subject matters are such that some overlap is to be expected, some fresh infusion of research could have ameliorated this lack of new content.
Some Congress leaders like Buta Singh have been given a huge amount of importance in the Congress story, almost disproportionately so. The ?wilderness? period for the Congress, between 1996-98, has not been dealt with as well as it should have been. That period is still very hazy for most Indians, the Gowda-Gujral premiership, when 16 MPs could make you prime minister, was also a period of great churn in the Congress. While ?Chacha Kesri?, the name by which former Congress president Sitaram Kesri was referred to, has substantial chunk of the book devoted to him, the period was also one of extraordinary situations for the Congress, the conspiracies, the establishment of the ?Tiwari Congress? and Congress? ultimate failure to evolve a reliable succession plan at variance with dynastic succession is never brought out.
What the book does, however, provide a fast read on the Congress in a chatpata (spicy) style. Long forgotten limericks lampooning former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal and his dubious abilities as a lawyer, or even the flavour of Kesri holding court and cracking lewd jokes with hangers on, his excessive attachment to his dog Ruchi, who incidentally died alongside him, make for an amusing read.
Read the book for an afternoon of fun, but not as a referral on the grand old party of India.