Snippets/ Mail Today, November 09, 2009

Politics and cricket canserve up a spicy dish

TO SAY don’t mix sports with politics is like asking the waiter to keep the masala out of the tikka . Last week, three cabinet ministers feuded over whether the two should mix or not. When Farooq Abdullah proposed, Sharad Pawar just disposed by allowing the BCCI to disqualify the Services cricket team from this year’s Ranji trophy championships for refusing to play its scheduled match against Jammu & Kashmir in Srinagar. Defence minister A. K. Antony could do nothing but sit back and suffer the ignominy of his men in uniform being humiliated and derided as weak. The damage caused to the reputation of our forces is immeasurable and could have been avoided.

Farooq, we all know is a leader of impeccable patriotic credentials, but in this instance he chose to play politics. The fault lies squarely with the BCCI. An office bearer tells me that the Services team did write to the secretary, BCCI about its inability to play in Srinagar citing security reasons and asked for alternative dates and a change of venue.

When the BCCI sat over it, the Services took it as approval. The Services Sports Control Board ( SSCB) could not have taken the decision to seek alternate venue without the concurrence of the ministry and I understand that inputs from various agencies including military intelligence had advised that the team not play in Srinagar. Pawar being a former defence minister should have known that the forces have their own reasons.

But instead of taking action against erring officials, the BCCI punished the team. Now questions are being raised about the failure of the J& K Cricket Association to construct a modern stadium with proper crowd control and security systems during the last decade. The JKCA has already received over Rs 25 crore from the BCCI and IPL as its share from TV rights. But nobody has a clue where the money has gone. If proper facilities were available at Srinagar or Jammu, this embarrassment could have been avoided. But in the BCCI, it is the vote of each state association that is precious. Security be damned.

MOST of us thought until now that caste labels are important only in politics. It now appears that it is equally important in government, particularly in post retirement sinecures for babus. There is much titter and some heartburn after some recent appointments saw retired babus belonging to the same caste monopolising the membership of a Central commission.

Last week’s appointment of M. L. Tayal, the former principal secretary to Haryana chief minister B. S. Hooda as a member of the Competition Commission ( the successor to the MRTPC) makes the panel virtually the exclusive preserve of the one caste( Vaishya). Most of its current members were chosen when Prem Chand Gupta, another caste mate, was minister for corporate affairs.

The commission is headed by Dhanendra Kumar,( again a Vaishya) who was earlier India’s executive director at the World Bank and has as members H. C. Gupta, former coal secretary and Ratneshwar Prasad, ex- chairman of CBDT and Anurag Goel, former secretary ministry of corporate affairs. All of them are from the same caste and belong to the Haryana or Uttar Pradesh cadres and take up five of the seven seats on the board, the odd ones out being Geeta Gauri and Prem Narayan Parashar.

Strange it is that even civil servants are raising questions on the selection of their colleagues even if they have been chosen by a powerful selection panel headed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.

Rosaiah has a game plan for Jagan

K. ROSAIAH is a soft spoken mild mannered man who swallowed much humiliation at the hands of supporters of the highly ambitious Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy. Not in the last 50 years has a regional leader held the Congress high command to ransom as Jagan did in the days following YSR’s death, openly defying New Delhi’s diktat and blatantly asking his supporter ministers to keep away from cabinet meetings. But as they say, even a worm will turn, and it appears that the 70- year- old has suddenly seized the initiative away from the young Reddy. With the mass hysteria that followed YSR’s death now ebbing, there are signs that Jagan may not be unassailable after all.

Last weekend, Rosaiah arrived in the Capital with half his cabinet in tow. The visit was ostensibly official, but that he chose to come on a weekend when government was on holiday was proof that everything about it had to do with intra- party politics.

Among those he called on were Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram. To each of them, he conveyed the same message: that he had sewed up an arrangement with filmstar Chiranjeevi’s Prajarajyam Party. With 151 of the 294 seats in the assembly, the Congress is just past the half way mark in the house, and though Jagan continues to claim that a majority of the MLAs are with him, it now appears that his numbers are vastly exaggerated. The fact that more half the cabinet accompanied him to New Delhi — many of them had earlier refused to attend cabinet meetings chaired by Rosaiah — is an indication that the ground is slipping from under Jagan’s feet. Congress circles reckon now that Jagan’s support among YSR’s hardcore followers is not expected to get into double digits which can easily be offset with the support of the 18 MLA’s of the Prajarajyam Party.
Sonset in the South?

Power & Politics / Mail Today, November 03, 2009

EVERY year, millions of poor Indians migrate from the villages to the big cities in search of a better future but we are now witnessing a strange reverse migration. It’s not the poor and the underprivileged, disillusioned by life in the big bad city returning to their roots. It is the political class that is suddenly realising that home is where your heart — and fortunes — lies. There was a time when politicians chorused “ Dilli Chalo”; now they sing “ Vapas Chalo”. Having lost out on his bid to succeed his father the late YS Rajashekhara Reddy as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, you would expect YS Jaganmohan Reddy, the 36 year old first time MP, to take his job as the elected representative of the people of Cuddapah constituency seriously. Not quite. Jagan is giving serious thought to returning to state politics.

He now wants nomination from the Pulivendula assembly seat his father represented either for himself or his mother Vijayalakshmi. The issue is likely to be discussed later this week when the two meet Sonia Gandhi. Two weeks ago, Jagan had met Sonia, after which he asked his belligerent followers who would settle for nothing less than his installation as chief minister, to lie low. Jagan has more than once publicly stated that his actions will never be without the blessings of Soniaji.

With the majority of the Congress MLAs and ministers still keeping up the clamour for his elevation, Jagan flew off last week to Bangalore. While the ostensible reason was that he wanted to spend time with his children who study in a private school there, the real reason was that he wanted a break from Andhra politics — to ponder over his future.

Jagan is a quick learner He is now convinced that his political future lies not in New Delhi but in Hyderabad. At the moment, with Andhraites still grieving YSR’s death, Jagan has got the benefit of a sympathy wave. But time is a great healer and a year down the line, memories of his father would have begun to fade and the overwhelming support that he currently has will begin to wane. At their last meeting, Sonia reportedly told him to wait for his chance. Jagan is keeping a low profile but many ministers who were in his father's cabinet are keeping up the pressure by threatening to resign every now and then. K Rosiah, the incumbent CM who succeeded YSR is over 70 and may not want to carry on for another term. People close to Jagan have reportedly told him that his continued stay in Delhi as an MP would leave the space open for alternative power centres to emerge in the Congress back home.

Jagan is not the only GenNext Jagan Reddy politician who feels that the future lies at home. Many young leaders across the political divide are beginning to realise that New Delhi’s power structure will not allow them to reach anywhere near the top of the political ladder.

The government has tried to give him a false sense of importance by allotting him a huge bungalow in Lutyens Delhi that’s normally reserved for senior ministers, but Jagan and others like him know they have no place in the establishment and no role to play. An established succession order is already in place. Rahul Gandhi has his friends, comprising technocrats and dynastic successors like him. They are all talented, but having no stakes in the states, their ambitions are limited to becoming a full- fledged Union minister one fine day. The recent assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana saw the largest collection of political sons and daughters becoming MLAs.

From President Pratibha Patil to Union ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushil Shinde, they have all made their children MLAs. Though part of Rahul’s A- team, Deepinder Hooda would rather take over from his father as Haryana chief minister rather than take up an assignment at the Centre. After nearly ten years as union minister, Kumari Shelja showed her heart was still in state politics by making a strong bid for chief ministership. Lalu has had enough of Delhi and now rarely steps out of Bihar. Mulayam keeps his options open and so has farmed his family across Parliament and the UP assembly. MK Azhagiri wants to go back to Chennai not because he doesn’t know Hindi or English as it is made out to be, but because he realises his limitations. For the sons and daughters of regional satraps, Delhi offers little chance for growth. Sooner or later, they realise that the political pinnacle is the exclusive preserve of a Closed User Group.