Ahmed Patel, Treasurer of the Indian National Congress, MP, a close aide to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, died today at 71. He leaves behind a void that no one can fill. This may sound like a cliché. But there are few in the party today who are capable of being a bridge over troubled waters that Patel proved to be, time and again.
Ahmed Patel was just 30 when he became an MP in 1977. The Congress had been wiped out elsewhere but Gujarat had saved the day, sending a handful of MPs to the Lok Sabha. He was elected from his native Bharuch district, a region that still swears by him though it may not elect him anymore (the BJP has retained four out of five assembly seats in the parliamentary constituency for the last two decades).
When Indira Gandhi was assassinated and Rajiv came to power in 1984 with a 400 plus majority in the Lok Sabha, Patel, who had built a connect…