In 1999, Congress president Sonia Gandhi warmly received her late husband's most vocal critic into the party. S Jaipal Reddy returned to the Congress after 24 years of uncompromising anti-Congressism, scandalising his well-wishers who could not believe that having fought so bitterly against dynasty, he would join the party under Sonia.

“The Janta experiment has failed. Only the Congress can curb the BJP. I have no choice,” he maintained. Jaipal insisted he was listening to the demands of his conscience. “I can put my head on the chopping block, not my conscience,” he often said. Thirteen years on, he has once again heeded his inner voice – and this time, it has driven a wedge between him and the party he serves.

Jaipal's summary removal from the oil ministry did not surprise anyone, least of all the minister himself. Officials in the ministry had been joking with him about his imminent departure for over a year – ever since he took on Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) over the Krishna Godavari basin gasfield. “Sir, is this the last file you will sign?” a joint secretary cheekily asked him, after word got out that RIL chief Mukesh Ambani was furious with Jaipal for refusing to oblige him.

Accustomed to VIP treatment by the government in general and the Petroleum ministry in particular under Murli Deora, Ambani was shocked that he not only could not dictate oil policy but even had to wait for appointments with the minister and senior bureaucrats. Once, after a disappointing meeting with Jaipal, he drove straight to the house of a senior cabinet minister and complained bitterly to him.

While Jaipal may have anticipated his removal from the oil ministry, he could not have imagined being demoted to the relatively low voltage Science & Technology portfolio in last week's Cabinet reshuffle. For over a decade, he had placed implicit faith in Sonia's sense of fair play. Overwhelmed by her graciousness, given his bitter public wrangles with Rajiv, he responded with loyalty and became an impartial sounding board.

Jaipal is one of the few ministers who enjoys a reputation for uncompromising integrity and perhaps the only one who can lay claim to intellectual, as well as financial, honesty. AK Antony – the only other leader from the South who is as well known and respected – while celebrated for his touch-me-not integrity, has never taken a stand against endemic corruption. Likewise, prime minister Manmohan Singh, is seen (at least in the international media) as the most honest PM presiding over the most corrupt government in history.

That Jaipal would not fit into the Congress culture of the new millenium was a given. He refused to be coopted into the internal politics of the party, remaning chief spokesperson for five years without taking sides.

Jaipal was first attracted to the party in the 1960s, when he was president of the Osmania University student's union, a postion of great power. Courted by all the politicians in the state, he would race around the campus in a specially modified jeep. “Then, I represented dynamism, now I represent idealism,” he likes to say.

Post-liberalisation, the Congress had changed drastically. Ironically, all through the 1990s, Jaipal never placed much emphasis on corruption or crony capitalism. A fodder-tainted Laloo Prasad Yadav was acceptable, so long as his secular credentials remained intact. Containing the BJP remained his major concern. (Once, when the then PM PV Narasimha Rao – who he regarded as an uncle - called him to ask if he could expect support from the United Front government, he said it could, as long support was not formally sought.) He voted against Atal Behari Vajpayee in 1998 and 1999 and this secular conviction eventually delivered him to Sonia's doorstep.

Jaipal is a die-hard socialist – despite being the son of a rich landlord and money lender - and in that respect, is on the same page as Sonia. He is not against economic reforms but has frequently said “I believe in sticking scrupulously to a rule-based regime”. In dealing with RIL, he went strictly by the book, repeatedly throwing it in Mukesh Ambani's face.

In a Union Cabinet dominated by members of the traditional baniya community – eight out of 33 – he is clearly de trop. Some might claim that with well-settled sons and sons-in-law, he can afford the luxury of honesty, but the truth is that Jaipal has a fundamental dislike of the bazaar mentality.

During his second stint in the Congress, Jaipal refused to be drawn into coterie politics. In 44 years in politics, no one has been able to accuse him of sycophancy. But he remained unswervingly loyal to Sonia despite his history with her family. In 1980, he had contested against Indira Gandhi in Medak, saving his deposit in the face of the Indira wave, while Rajmata Vijayraje Scindia lost hers.

Another reason why Jaipal does not fit into the mould of the conventional Congress neta is his academic bent, notwithstanding his claim that he was too involved in politics to be a diligent student. For most partymen, he's simply too erudite. Having obtained a degree in journalism in 1965 (to round off his MA in English Literature), he confounds correspondents with Walter Lipman and everybody else with an astonishing range of philosphers, economists and playwrights. Whether or not he quoted Bendetto Croce, his faovurite Italian philosopher - “All history is contemporary history” - to his chief, is not known!

In his maiden speech in Parliament in December, 1984,. he quoted George Orwell. Most MPs thought he was referring to George Fernandes! In 1998, he would win the Best Parliamentarian award in acknowledgement of his performance in the Lok Sabha.

Jaipal is one of the few politicians prominent politicians who has come up from the ranks. He became an MLA in 1969, after a stint as state, Youth Congress chief but quit the party during Emergency. He became a key player in the various avatars of the Janata party, all the way up to the disintegration of the United Front.

Given his uncompromising adherence to principle, Jaipal's success as a politicians has been astonishing. He manages to balance absolute discretion with accessibility and transparency. Not the most assiduous pleading will induce him to reveal a syllable of his conversations with his party colleagues, but he is open about his views. He keeps a cool head for the most part and only lets himself lose his temper when among intimates. Even then, his language his impeccable. “You..you bourgeosie!” is about the worst insult Jaipal can visit on anyone - in the English language.

He is a die-hard liberal. “I'm a Russellian, a grand version of Khuswant Singh in my outlook”, he's been heard to say. It was Jaipal who virtually single-handedly refused to allow the passage of POTA, despite pressure from PV Narasimha Rao.

A self-professed student of Freud, Jaipal believes human behaviour is governed first by psychology, then by ideology and only then by self-interest. That sums up his current situation. His well-wishers within and outside the Congress have been outraged at the treatment meted out to him and felt he should have declined the Science & Technology portfolio. But Jaipal remained sanguine. As always, he had the last word: “I take a postion on issues, not on portfolios”.