Sibal quits Congress, seeks SP support to fight Rajya Sabha independently

The former union minister had been vocal about the way Congress was being mismanaged, as part of the Group of 23 leaders who had sought a 'more active' party leadership

It was a moment of mutual relief. Former union minister in the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Kapil Sibal announced on Wednesday that he had resigned from the Congress on May 16, the day the party was winding up its Udaipur consultation. He added that he would be an independent Rajya Sabha candidate from Uttar Pradesh for elections due next month, with the support of the Samajwadi Party. Sibal had been vocal about the way the Congress was being mismanaged, as part of the Group of 23 leaders who had sought a ‘more active’ party leadership.

“People come and go,” was the laconic response of Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal to the development. Things began going sour even when the Congress was in power and Rahul Gandhi strode into a press conference in 2013 and tore up the government ordinance that sought to override a Supreme Court order that convicted lawmakers cannot continue in office.

As Law Minister at the time, it was Sibal who piloted the ordinance. Gandhi said the ordinance should be “torn up and thrown out” and that the government’s decision to approve the ordinance was wrong. The position of the government at the time was that the responsibility of deciding who should be allowed to contest elections and hold political office lay with Parliament and the Supreme Court was overreaching itself in issuing such orders. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had supported the government on its stand. But at one stroke, Rahul Gandhi’s dramatic intervention, and then spokesman Lalit Maken’s bald defence - “Shri Rahul Gandhi’s position is the government’s position” – only served to undermine the authority of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister and his council of ministers.

Above all it was public humiliation of the country’s law minister who has been a senior advocate in the Supreme Court for more than 30 years. It is safe to say that Sibal never forgot or forgave Gandhi for that.

More recently, the Congress launched a whisper campaign against him, citing the ‘exorbitant’ fees he charged while fighting the case for the party in Manipur in 2020 when ahead of a Rajya Sabha election, the Speaker of Manipur assembly disqualified several Congress MLAs, leading to the BJP winning the seat easily. Sibal was the lawyer from the Congress and the party said he billed them for hefty fees.

Between then and now, Sibal has represented many politicians: Jayalalithaa, in the Coal Import case; K Karunakaran, Bhajan Lal, the Akali Dal (in the last instance in Sukhbir Badal’s controversial hotel purchase case) and Lalu Prasad. He fought the case of  SP politician Azam Khan, helping him secure bail.

It was thanks to Lalu Prasad that Sibal became a Rajya Sabha MP in the 1990s, when Prasad directed party MLAs in the Bihar assembly to transfer their surplus votes to Sibal, a Congress candidate, in return for fighting his case in the fodder scam. Additional Solicitor General of India between December 1989-1990, Sibal defended Supreme Court judge V Ramaswamy during his impeachment in Parliament. His performance caught the eye of then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao who offered him the South Delhi seat in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. Sibal lost by a margin of over 1 lakh votes. The offer from Lalu Prasad for the Rajya Sabha came in 1998. By then, he had decided he enjoyed politics and decided to contest the Lok Sabha election from Chandni Chowk, Delhi in 2004 which he won.

Today, he said he would not comment on a party with which he had been associated for 30 odd years.  "I'll not say anything about Congress. I've resigned, so it's not appropriate for me to say anything about the Congress. It's not easy to leave a relationship of 30-31 years." He filed the nomination papers with the help of the SP and all factions of the party – the one led by Akhilesh Yadav as well as Shivpal Yadav – pledging support to him.

"In the past, only a few came to House by getting elected independently, especially in the Rajya Sabha. I've got a big opportunity and it has been given to me by Akhilesh Yadav, Shivpal Yadav, Azam Khan. I will raise the issues of the country in the House," Sibal added.

It remains to be seen if he will win. Out of the 57 seats that will see elections, UP will send 11 members to the upper house. As per the numbers, the BJP is sure to win at least 7 seats and SP three comfortably. However, for the 11th seat, there could be a contest as the BJP with 273 members in Assembly, is short of 15 votes to win an additional seat and SP, with 125 MLAs, will need 20 more votes to win the fourth seat. The Congress with just two seats has no influence. However, Sibal is counting on other smaller parties for support.