She has been mocked for losing the “important” information and broadcasting ministry. A national daily has tried to explain Ambika Soni’s departure from the government to her decision of letting Aamir Khan use the Doordarshan platform in Satyameva Jayate and then float around Anna Hazare. But the soon-to-be 70 Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab may have the last laugh: The job of political secretary to Congress president.

No, Ahmed Patel isn’t going away anywhere. It’s just that both Soni and Patel will have the same title, a bit of an odd situation, given that the title is associated with the one point-person the world knows for the Congress president.

Left to herself, Soni would have preferred to be the only political secretary, a designation she has had before. But that’s political reality for you: Patel, Sonia’s Rock of Gibraltar will stay where he is.

Soni imminent induction is an assertion of Rahul Gandhi. It is well known that the Gandhi scion is a little more comfortable with Soni than he is with Patel. But Sonia won’t let Patel go. Hence the grand compromise wherein Soni, an inductee into the Congress by Indira Gandhi, her own father being a minor associate of Pandit Nehru as an ICS officer in the Punjab, would share the title.
At one stage Soni was sounded for a different title, but having been the political secretary before, her claim for an encore couldn’t be turned down.

Though age and year of joining hardly matter in a “party Sensex” it is a fact that Soni is six and a half years older to Patel and she joined the party around its split way back in 1969. The contrasting fortunes of Patel and Soni can be seen from the fact that Soni has never been through the Lok Sabha (Patel made the grade way back in 1977), Patel hasn’t (chosen perhaps) to be a minister.
The two political secretaries have their task cut out. Patel will serve the traditional role of chief strategist, while Soni will be the crucial liaison between Sonia and Rahul.

Despite the hullabaloo, the development may end up being important only from the perspective of political trivia. The million-dollar question remains unanswered. Will the Congress, even with two political secretaries to its president, generate enough fire power in the 18 months left before the general elections?

And, to that, the quintessential problem: will Baba grow up to be his own man. Perhaps, there lies the political significance of the former I&B minister!

(tweets @therohitbansal)