New Delhi, April 9 -- Nine days after Raj Kumar Hirani's Lage Raho Munnabhai released, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met in New Delhi on September 10, 2006, to plan the centenary commemoration of Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha in South Africa. Mohsina Kidwai invoked the movie-an unusual reference in a CWC meeting-and told her colleagues to learn from it on how to communicate Gandhi's message to the new generation. Born in 1932 to an aristocratic family in Uttar Pradesh, Kidwai was a staunch Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist, particularly of Indira Gandhi. The platform for her entry in politics, however, was laid way back in 1954 when 22-year-old Mohsina met Jawaharlal Nehru with her father-in-law Jameel Ur Rehman Kidwai, a Congress stalwart in UP. Mohsina had mentioned in her biography that Nehru asked Jameel, "When are you introducing her to politics?" She became the minister of state for food in the UP government in 1973. But her biggest impact came five years later, when she won the bypoll in Azamgarh in 1978-a year after the Congress was routed in the Lok Sabha polls. Kidwai's victory signalled a crucial turnaround for the beleaguered Congress in the post-Emergency era. It was also a reminder that the Congress under Indira Gandhi was down but not out. Two years later, the squabbling band of the Janata government collapsed, and Gandhi returned to the South Bloc as the PM. Her election's highlight was captured in a photo: Kidwai working a hand pump while Indira, who campaigned for Kidwai for five days, quenching her thirst. For party veterans, it also showed the deep bond between the two leaders. Kidwai focussed on the upliftment of Dalits and marginalised communities-a vote bank that later sided with regional outfits in the post-Mandal period and wiped out the Congress's strongholds in northern India. She was a minister in UP for Harijan and Social Welfare (1974-75). In her long political career, she held several ministerial posts in UP and later became a Union minister in Indira and Rajiv Gandhi's cabinets. The three-time Lok Sabha MP held labour, health and rural development portfolios. When the UPA came to power in 2004, Kidwai didn't find a place in the cabinet as a set of young leaders stepped ahead, signalling a generational shift in the Congress. She backed Shashi Tharoor in the 2022 Congress presidential election, possibly a silent protest against the organisation that she was a part of for decades. In her death, the Congress and the country lost another leader from the fading generation and an important member of the old school of Indian politics. Political analyst KV Prasad remembers her as a good orator, exuding old-world charm, grace and dignity. Prominent analyst Javed Ansari said, "She was the voice of sanity and reason. Whenever we met, I saw an old, Congress loyalist in her. She said, 'I had a long life. Before I close my eyes, my party should regain its position.'"...