Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Mohsina Kidwai was Congress’ voice of reason. Party should have heeded her advice

Mohsina Kidwai has won Lok Sabha elections three times—in 1978, 1980, and 1984.

Veteran Congress leader Mohsina Kidwai passed away today at the age of 94. A former Union minister, parliamentarian, and chief of the Uttar Pradesh Congress unit, Kidwai was a close associate of Indira Gandhi. Her last notable political act was proposing and seconding Shashi Tharoor’s nomination for the Congress president’s post against Mallikarjun Kharge in October 2022.

Mohsina Kidwai, who came from a conservative, aristocratic Muslim family of Awadh, held the distinction of winning Lok Sabha elections three times—in 1978, 1980, and 1984. Her parliamentary credentials were remarkable: she won from Azamgarh in eastern Uttar Pradesh—the bypoll that marked the great comeback of Indira Gandhi—and later from Meerut in the Western side of the state. Anyone remotely familiar with the socio-economic condition of Uttar Pradesh and the caste matrix would vouch that finding acceptability in these two diverse regions is a rather insurmountable task.

During her tenure as an MLC and MP, Kidwai was remembered for her simplicity in public life, probity and her ability to act judiciously as a public representative. In May 2016, during her term as a member of parliament, there was a sense of fulfilment.

But it also had an element of worry. Kidwai, the former Housing Minister—despite having served the country in key portfolios—including railways, civil aviation, surface transport, health—did not have a house of her own in the national capital, or anywhere else, apart from an ancestral, joint ownership property in Badagaon in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh. For those wary of the political class, this offers a measure of what probity in public life can mean: here was a leader who had spent a decade as Union minister and also served as a Cabinet minister in Uttar Pradesh, yet lived a Spartan life. Neither Mohsina Kidwai nor any of her close relatives ever considered this extraordinary.

On the political front, what distinguished Mohsina Kidwai from many others in the Congress was that she was never shy of speaking her mind or sharing candid thoughts, without crossing the Lakshman Rekha (or Rubicon) of party discipline. A lot has been written about Shah Bano Begum judgment and the Rajiv Gandhi........

© ThePrint