Snippets / Mail Today, May 17, 2010

Ministers’ scramble for the RS

WITH THE Election Commission announcing June 11 as the date for elections to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats, time is running out for some high profile ministers who may start to feel the employment pinch. Anand Sharma’s term in the Rajya Sabha has already ended and those of Ambika Soni and Jairam Ramesh are ending by July.

Accommodating three Union ministers is a huge task for the Congress. Last week, when a senior Union minister from Tamil Nadu met Sonia Gandhi, she gave a clear hint that only loyal workers will be sent to the Rajya Sabha." You can suggest, and I welcome it, but please do not insist that A, B or C should be accommodated or X, Y and Z should be kept out" was Sonia’s blunt reply to the minister.

It’s almost certain that Soni will get one of the two seats that are up for grabs in Punjab but ensuring seats for Jairam and Anand is going be to a tough task for the Congress leadership. The two are as different as chalk and cheese. Jairam talks and talks and talks, while Anand maintains a low profile while quietly going about his job. In the latter's case, the Congress is now said to be exploring options in Rajasthan since in Haryana, which was also looked at as an option, Congress MLAs don’t seem to be very eager. It is after a long time that state legislators are openly defying the authority of the high command to make known their preferences for the Rajya Sabha.

These are the first signs that the AICC is losing its grip over the state units. The Andhra Congress is dead set against renominating Jairam and one of the reasons is said to be that he showed disrespect by not turning up for the funeral of the late chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. All Reddy MLAs, it is being said, will skip the voting on June 11.

Chief minister K. Rosaiah, who is just about settling in office after months of initial turmoil may find himself running into turbulence again.

Who is afraid of the big bad press conference?

SO MANMOHAN Singh has finally decided to go public, even if it means getting damned. Next Monday, the Prime Minister will address what is only his second formal press conference is six years. Normally, the news would have followed his press conference, but the very fact that the announcement of the event itself was considered breaking news by TV channels says a lot about our democracy. We elect our politicians to work for us and they cannot claim to be private citizens and ask to be left alone, however unpopular a government may be.

And Manmohan is not an unpopular ruler like, say, George W. Bush. Yet, even as his ratings plummeted after Iraq, Bush did not avoid the press and kept his monthly date with the media. Contrast this with our prime ministers. All of them, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was among the most popular prime ministers, kept the press at arm’s length. Ironically, it was Indira Gandhi whose contempt for the press was legendary, who regularly met the press.

Like millions of Indians, the media too rejoiced when she was voted out in the 1977 elections and after her triumphant return in 1980, she was widely expected to shun the press. But she chose to settle scores not by avoiding the press, but by inviting and then humiliating them. I had a taste of this once when I once accompanied Suman Dubey, then India Today managing editor and Sumit Mitra, Special Correspondent to attend one of her news conferences. Mitra asked her: " Madam, how do you assess the performance of your ( Congress) general secretaries?" She assumed that the question was specifically about Rajiv Gandhi who had just completed a year as a party GenSec.

You could see the rage in her eyes as she ordered us out of the hall. Manmohan is too gentle a soul to act in a similar fashion. But considering the smoke shrouding several controversial decisions of his government, the Prime Minister should seize the opportunity and try to clear the air.

THERE was a time when the only portraits hung in ministerial chambers in Lutyens’ Delhi were those of the President and the Prime Minister. But times have changed and where once a minister served in the cabinet at the pleasure of the prime minister, in today's coalition set up, it is no more the PM's prerogative to pick his cabinet colleagues. They are imposed on the prime minister chosen by regional chieftains whose support is necessary to prop up the government. The changed power equations are reflected on the walls of ministerial rooms. The rooms of DMK ministers have photographs of poet saint Thiruvalluvar and Karunanidhi. In the office room of S. S. Palanimanickam, there is a huge photo of Murasoli Maran with the words Ennude Gurunathan ( My Guru) inscribed and I am told that on entering his office, the minister actually stands in front of the portrait with folded hands for two minutes before taking his seat. The whole of Bengal may be celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of the state's most famous son Rabindranath Tagore, but for the Trinamool Congress ministers, the presiding deity is Didi. G. K. Vasan has one huge picture of Sonia Gandhi and one of his late father, G. K. Moopanar. Jairam Ramesh’s theme is his portfolio, Environment, so there are lots of pictures of animals, mountains — and even a volcano.

Snippets / Mail Today, December 14, 2009

Kamal Nath keeps a low profile now

QUITE a few of the high- fliers in the UPA government are conspicuous by their absence from the front pages. I don’t know if it is by design or default. One of them is the road transport and highways minister, Kamal Nath. In his earlier avatar as commerce and industry minister, be it New York or London, Berlin or Tokyo, he had been there and done that.

But the man seems to have gone AWOL after moving to Transport Bhavan. Though he was far from pleased with the transfer to transport ministry, he got down to work in right earnest and set ambitious targets for the ministry, which included the construction of an additional 21 km of highways each day. He used his clout to push the Prime Minister’s Office ( PMO) to restructure tender procedures and liberalise norms for funding these projects. He also aggressively pushed the state governments to remove bottlenecks in land acquisition — which has been the bane of the Golden Quadrilateral as well as the National Expressway projects — even as he travelled to world capitals to raise much needed funds for some of his mega schemes. But things just don’t seem to be moving at the pace that he would have wanted.

The sloth that is bureaucracy is not being able to keep up with the pace and style of the new minister. Though new projects covering over 2,000 km have been identified, not many bidders have shown interest due to low returns and long gestation periods. One reason could be that Kamal Nath has not been able to push the National Highways Authority of India because he is still clearing the debris and dirt left behind by his predecessor T. R. Balu.

Kamal’s priority is to put back on track the unfinished projects and then move on to new ones. We will wait and watch whether this long- distance runner will break the record of one of his predecessors, B. C. Khanduri, the retired Major General who was the roads minister during the Vajpayee government.

When official insiders are seen as outsiders

DESPITE the winter chill in Copenhagen, there is much heat being generated in the Indian camp in the Danish capital. Adding to that is the confusion which has more to do with a clash of egos of the many civil servants who were chosen as interlocutors. In keeping with the UPA government’s style of functioning, all of them were seen working as autonomous power centres.
But there was a clear division between those who were formally in the government and those outside that charmed list.

While Jairam Ramesh, the glib environment minister was indulging in letter writings and policy formulations, the prime minister’s special envoy in climate change, the former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, was taking direct orders from the PMO without keeping Ramesh in the loop. But both Ramesh and Saran realised soon that non official interlocutors like Chandrashekhar Dasgupta and Pradipto Ghosh, former environment secretary were no easy pushovers. The two first refused to go Copenhagen in protest against the government adopting a “ flexible” stand on the issue of equitable per capita emissions.

They later agreed to join the delegation after the minister “ cleared the air”. Yet in Copenhagen, they were not fully involved in the behind closed door discussions which Ramesh, Saran, environment secretary Vijay Sharma and Ajai Mathur, head of the bureau of energy efficiency, were conducting. Dasgupta and Ghosh, known for their impeccable credentials and long and credible track record on the issue of climate change, would not budge from the known and stated stand on the emission cuts. They not only refused to join the bandwagon but also have demanded debate and transparency.

And both of them are senior to the other civil servants who make up the Indian team.
Ultimately, it turned out to be a clash between those who were in the government and those who were outside.

THERE is much about Rahul Gandhi that is to be admired. For a couple of years now, we have seen his youthful zest, tenacity and doggedness as he pursues his dream of taking the Congress back to its commanding heights. But if there is one thing that makes me take my hats off, it is his determination to stamp out the culture of sycophancy which has engulfed the Congress since the days of Sanjay Gandhi. Even Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, powerful and charismatic as they were, loved to be surrounded by cronies.

Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the Uttar Pradesh Congress chief showed crony symptoms last week when she gushed to the media in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh about Rahul Gandhi’s commitment.
" It was so dark. The pilot was not ready to land but Rahul Gandhi forced him to land the helicopter. You should really admire his commitment". Just a day earlier, Beni Prasad Verma, the Samajwadi Party turncoat who is now a Congress MP did his bit of cronyism by calling Atal Bihari Vajpayee unprintable names during a row over the Liberhan Report in Parliament.
On both counts, Rahul set the record straight. He told Rita Joshi that she was neither a pilot nor a weather expert to talk about difficult landings. He brusquely reminded his much senior colleague Verma about parliamentary traditions and etiquette. If sycophants become a vanishing breed in the Congress, praise be to Rahul.

Snippets / Mail Today, March 09, 2009

EARLY morning in Chennai today, with by the typical fanfare that is associated with nearly everything that she does, the AIADMK leader Jayalalitha will sit on fast in support of the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Strangely, the man whom she even today hates as much as she once hated the LTTE, Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi has welcomed the move. Another sworn enemy, the Pattali Makkal Katchi( PMK) leader Dr S Ramadoss has gone a step ahead and said, though a muchbelated decision, he will personally go to the site of her protest site and offer a glass of " soothukudi" juice ( mausami) to break the fast. So is the DMK- led alliance in the state crumbling? Will the PMK follow in the footsteps of Vaiko's DMK and hitch itself to the AIADMK bandwagon? If it happens, it will be as much a a shock to Karunanidhi as the news of the Biju Janata Dal deserting the NDA is to LK Advani.

A meeting waiting to happen

WHATEVER he sets out to do, P Chidambaram is a hands- on kind of man. As home minister, he is known to chair meetings like a CEO, dictating targets, setting deadlines and keeping a hawk’s eye on the implementation of the orders. And when it come to the Law and Order situation in the NDA- ruled states, he displays a missionary zeal which is not seen in his dealing with, say the Left- ruled West Bengal and the Congress- NCP alliance in Maharashtra. Since the unfortunate events at a Mangalore pub and in Bangalore in January, Karnataka has been very much on his radar. On three occasions he scheduled meetings in Bangalore with the local authorities and all three were put off.

The reason: the absence of the BJP chief minister of Karnataka. PC believes BS Yedyurappa should be present at thee meetings while the chief minister thinks that with elections announced, he has his plate full. So he deputed his home minister VS Acharya.

The Union Home Minister’s advisors are known to have cited protocol and rank to bring Yedyurappa to the talks- table. But Yedyurappa seized the same argument to state that he has already met the prime minister in this regard and he wasn’t compelled to sort out matters with PC. Perhaps Yeddy has more important items on his agenda. While PC only has to manage his own election from Shivaganga in Tamil Nadu, Yedyurappa will have to deliver Karnataka for

the BJP.

TO SAY that Rahul Gandhi is the second most powerful person in the Congress is to state the obvious. Yet this most important of persons has so far stayed away from the intricacies associated with coalition politics, leaving the job to others who are more accomplished in the wheeling- dealings that go with it. So there was intense speculation about young Rahul taking the plunge into hitherto- unchartered territory when last week he visited Vasantdada Patil Sugar Institute at Manjari near Pune where he was received by sugar baron Sharad Pawar who also happens to be the Union Agriculuture minister. Tongues wagged that Sonia had dispatched her son to woo the Nationalist Congress Party chief who of late was seen to be hobnobbing with the Shiv Sena and strike a 50: 50 deal for the 48 seats at stake from the state to the Lok sabha. It was nothing of the sort. No politics was discussed and the visit was merely the latest in Rahul’s “ Discover India” tours that has taken him to the interiors in several states.

About a month ago, Rahul had sent a request to the Institute directors expressing a desire to visit one of the sugar cooperatives. Taken by surprise, they got in touch with Pawar, who is also the Institute chairman. All arrangement were made to receive the VVIP visitor, which included a 90- minute long power point presentation from the institute directors that detailed the success story of the sugar cooperative movement.

The party’s crown prince who was accompanied by the minister of state for communications Jyotiraditya Scindia was surprised to be received by Pawar himself. Local Congress leaders had hoped to use the visit to score brownie points over their inner party rivals but Rahul made it clear that he would not want to meet with anyone from his party during the trip. Among those sulking was Suresh Kalmadi, the self- styled Pune icon. Was young Rahul showing his displeasure at the tardy progress in the preparations for Commonwealth Games, whose Organising Committee Kalmadi heads?

Ramesh arrives unannounced

WITH power in its hands, the Congress has never had a problem encroaching on property that rightfully did not belong to it. Lutyens’ Delhi in littered with bungalows that belong to the government but have been in the occupation of the party for years. But now there is a curious intra- party encroachment battle brewing in the Congress which has left several top leaders seething with rage.

For years, the Congress publicity department has been functioning out of 15 Gurdwara Rakabganj Road, which became an adda of sorts for the bigwigs. Among those who often dropped in in the evening by to discuss strategy over hot, heavenly coffee and greasy pakoras were the AICC general secretary and its publicity department chief Digvijay Singh, Sonia- aide Ahmed Patel, junior external affairs minister Anand Sharma, Science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, BK Hariprasad, Janardan Dwiwedi, with Rahul Gandhi occasional dropping by. Like the bizarre stories of land- grabbing on tony South Delhi addresses that one occasionally reads about in the papers, there is a new occupant at No 15. He arrived virtually unannounced and plonked his belongings.

Jairam Ramesh, you may recall, was Union minister of state for commerce, industry and power until about a fortnight ago when he suddenly realized that his services were be needed by the party in this crucial election. Sonia Gandhi then appointing him as co- coordinator “ for Lok Sabha elections- related affairs”, aware ofall his connections including those in the corporate. The others came to know about the new occupant only when they grouped together at the adda a few days later. The suave, Harvard- educated Ramesh has all the qualities that endear him to both Sonia and Rahul, including an accent that is music to the ears of the First family. It’s not for nothing they call him the Arun Jeitley of the Congress. Right accent and right connections, including corporate ones.