The meeting held in the background of the collapse of the Vajpayee Government and also the failed efforts of the Congress party to form an alternative government, was to discuss future alliances. Sharad Pawar was to visit Chennai next day to sew up the alliance with AIADMK Chief Jayalalithaa, who had in fact started it all by switching allegiance from the BJP-led NDA to Congress, resulting in the fall of the Vajpayee Government by one vote.

Arjun Singh who had briefed the media, after the three and half hour long marathon meeting had managed to cover up the brewing revolt successfully. The focus of his briefing was how Sonia Gandhi told the CWC that she was not �intimidated by the Sangh Parivar�s campaign over her Italian origin�.

What he did not say and no one asked was whether the �intimidation� was only from the Sangh Parivar or within too! However what happened in the meeting was much more dramatic than what Arjun Singh had let out.

The issue of foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi and what was then thought to be her attempt to become the Prime Minister, was an issue that not only bothered the Sangh Parivar as it was made out to be by Arjun Singh. There were several leaders in the Congress who were equally if not more uncomfortable with that thought. No one more than P.A.Sangma. The diminutive former Speaker, who incidentally had become the favourite of Sonia Gandhi, as he was anointed to head some very important committees of the AICC, was making no bones about his discomfiture with a very close circle of friends in the weeks prior to the meeting. He had in fact, nearly a month before the actual revolt on May 15, prepared a letter opposing a foreign origin person to become Prime Minister. He had even taken the issue to his native Tura and discussed with some of his close supporters in the constituency about the consequences of him raising the issue. He was prepared for the consequences.

When he went to attend the meeting of the CWC on the evening of May 15, he was fully prepared to take up the issue. What he did not anticipate was the support he got in the meeting. Contrary to the popular perception, there was no prior planning between Sangma, Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar to raise the issue in unison at the meeting.

This was evident when that night Sangma was pleasantly surprised, and said it in so many words. �Can you believe it? Even Sharad Pawar and Tariq Ansari, supported me�, he blurted out, when contacted that night to check what actually happened in the meeting. From then on it was one long night of journalistic subterfuge to get the scoop. The letter which went out to 10, Janpath nearly around midnight was a mild modification of what Sangma had prepared weeks back, with the signature of Pawar and Anwar added apart from his own. Their attempts to get signature of others who had shown some inclination to support them, like Rajesh Pilot, Jitendra Prasada, who both came to Sangma�s house to discuss the future course that night, proved futile. Both developed cold feet. However Praful Patel, who saw his future only with �Pawar Saheb�, was supportive.

The revolt however was well and truly on. It was after some major drama, with Sonia resigning from the Congress President�s post, and serial dharnas on the Akbar Road, that she withdrew, but not before the three were expelled from the party, for anti-party activities, leading to the formation of the Nationalist Congress party.

Ten years now almost to the day, Sangma visited 10, Janpath and offered his apologies to Sonia Gandhi and both have decided to let bygones be bygones. A lot of water has flown down the Yamuna in these ten years, as both charted their own course in politics, with Sangma taking a longer time to overcome the bitterness in the relationship, than Pawar. The almost maternal attitude of Sonia towards his daughter, Agatha, a school kid, when he revolted against the Congress President, when she took oath last month, seemed to have melted him to take the extra-ordinary step of apologizing.

But what was there to apologise? As far as he was concerned, Sangma really believed in the principle that a person of foreign origin should not hold the post of Prime Minister, President or Vice President. In fact it was this insistence by the trio of Sangma, Pawar and Anwar, in that historic CWC meeting, which had paved the way for their expulsion. And going by the subsequent events, they seem to have succeeded in their endeavour.

In fact, the moment Sonia Gandhi rejected the offer of Prime Ministership on that fateful summer day of 2004, the trio�s campaign had come to an end. So is there a reason for the existence of Nationalist Congress Party? Maybe there would have been, but for the subsequent developments. One of the issues which the NCP talked about when it was formed on May 25, 1999, was �the institutionalized and democratic working� of the party. This meant the issue of dynastic politics, which they apparently abhorred in the Congress party.

In these last ten years of its existence, both the leaders, Sangma and Pawar have successfully brought in their own dynasties into politics. So is there an issue that they can claim which justifies the existence of their party?