Race Course Road / The Sunday Standard/April 17, 2011

NDA in sleep mode, Modi in overdrive

Does the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) exist only in the drawing rooms of Lutyens’ Delhi? Has it been reduced to a talking shop which occasionally opens at its working chairman L K Advani’s residence? Or has the BJP chosen to ignore its allies? If elections to the five state Assemblies are any indicator, the NDA doesn’t operate like an active political alliance outside Delhi or Bihar. The BJP hasn’t commissioned any leader from its alliance partners like the Janata Dal (U), the Shiv Sena or the Akali Dal to campaign in any of the state elections, preferring to use its own chief ministers and middle-rung leaders. Predictably, it was Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who was in greatest demand. It was for the first time that Modi was extensively used as a campaigner. He had been prevented so far from visiting Bihar during state polls. Even BJP chief ministers were reluctant to invite him. This time, he faced hardly any opposition because Nitish wasn’t around to dictate terms. Modi’s rise in the BJP hierarchy has given heartburn to many.

All eyes on Cabinet Secretary

As Manmohan Singh’s Government lurches towards a topless summer with most senior bureaucratic positions falling vacant post-May, he has launched a massive hunt for credible, yet dependable names to fill the to-be-empty chairs. His moves, however, are hamstrung by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar retiring in June. Normally, it is the cabinet secretary’s office that initiates the process to appoint secretaries to the Government of India. Chandrasekhar is not in a mood to take the initiative as he would rather have his successor begin the process. A new cabinet secretary is appointed a month before the current incumbent retires. So, the name should be announced within next two weeks. If the PM chooses to make history of sorts, the civil service may see a woman taking charge of the cabinet secretariat for the first time ever, and after 29 male cabinet secretaries. Alka Sirohi, a UP-cadre IAS officer and secretary of the crucial Department of Personnel appears to be the dark horse. Although she is only No 5 in the merit list, Sirohi enjoys the reputation of being a firm, yet dignified officer. However, those close to 10 Janpath are once again floating the name of Pulok Chaterji — currently with the World Bank. But, it will be very difficult for Manmohan Singh to ignore the claims of seven other officers, including a woman. If he has to go purely by seniority then A N P Sinha, secretary, Panchayati Raj, should be automatically elevated. Since the cabinet secretary is expected to play an important fire-fighting role in crises, the PMO is also considering Anup Mukherjee, the senior-most officer of the 1974-batch, now chief secretary of Bihar. Mukherjee’s appointment would eliminate the hectic lobbying in the capital. The choice of the next cabinet secretary will set and define the tone and direction of the Government. It will not come as a surprise if the PM finally opts to retain Chandrasekhar, who by completing a four-year term, would’ve broken all records since Independence.

The jetsetting babu code of conduct

The Election Commission may be taking credit for strictly enforcing the Code of Conduct on Union ministers. But there’s a catch. It had prohibited ministers from travelling to their own states at government expense. The fallout was that over a dozen ministers such as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister A K Antony, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister M K Alagiri were stuck in their respective election-bound states. Since important files and Cabinet notes couldn’t be delayed, the private secretaries to some of the ministers had to make frequent trips to the relevant states for approvals. Since all notes and proposals meant for the Cabinet are stamped ‘Top Secret,’ only IAS babus were allowed to travel. Now it is for the Election Commission to determine whether the money spent by the private secretaries and private assistants to meet their bosses during the campaign amounts to a violation of the code of conduct. Or should these expenses be added to the amount spent by the party or by the candidates?

Kani takes poll route to fight back

Despite investigations against her, Kanimozhi, the feisty daughter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, is undeterred. Her direct line to 7 Race Course Road may have been disconnected after her connections with A Raja surfaced in public, but Kani’s will to fight back was reflected in her state Assembly election campaign. Not only did Kanimozhi cover over 40 constituencies, she made sure her meetings were well-publicised. The idea was to prove that though she may face a CBI investigation and possible prosecution, she isn’t an unwanted leader in her own party. She hired a young team of professionals who created a special Web network for her with the e-mail ID: Kanimozhi News. Every day, the inboxes of over 500 journalists and opinion-makers countrywide were flooded with her campaign speeches and photographs. Fielding Kanimozhi was part of Karunaidhi’s strategy to divide the state into various sectors between his children so that his two sons Union minister M K Alagiri and Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin don’t get embroiled in turf wars with the daughter. The sons were asked not only to campaign for the candidates recommended by them, but also to raise resources. Now, the three siblings are waiting for the results to pour in. Is the daughter more popular than the sons? May 13 will tell

Snippets / Mail Today, June 28, 2010

These babus neither tire nor retire

LIKE old soldiers, retired bureaucrats don’t pass on, but unlike them, former babus don’t fade away. Many are getting resurrected as MPs, ministers or in some cases political advisers, cosying up to the powers that be, at the Centre or the states. Quite a few of them are turning out to be the cause of friction in the parties which adopted them and none more so than Pyari Mohan Mahapatra, the former IAS officer and now Rajya Sabha MP of the Biju Janata Dal ( BJD), and N. K. Singh , the former finance secretary whom Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar sent to the Upper House as a JD( U) MP.

Last year, Mahapatra, who is said to be Naveen Patnaik’s chief strategist, played a key role in pulling the BJD out of the NDA and, if the grapevine is to be believed, Singh is doing the same in Bihar. Reports suggest that Singh is the cause of the rift in the JD( U)- BJP tie up which is almost a decade- and- a- half old.

It is said that Singh, a networker par excellence who counts the Ambani brothers, Sunil Mittal, Praful Patel and the like among his close friends, is acting at the behest of a senior Congress minister who wants to bring the Congress and the JD( U) closer before the state assembly elections later this year.

If true, Mahapatra and Singh are merely following in the footsteps of their predecessors, some of whom have caused immense embarrassment to the parties that inducted them into politics.
Nitish Sengupta, a former revenue secretary, joined the Trinamool Congress in 1999 and successfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from Contai in West Bengal, but Mamata Banerjee had to show him the door after he tried to sabotage TC- BJP ties.

Among JD( U) and BJD cadres in Bihar and Orissa, there is immense resentment over the disruptive tendencies of these retirees and it will come as no surprise if both find their wings clipped in the not too distant future.

Get ready for Alagiri’s yankee- style makeover

HE WAS seen as someone who was in the cabinet only because his father, M. Karunanidhi’s clout in the UPA is second only to its chairperson Sonia Gandhi. He was mocked as an ignoramus who knew nothing about the important portfolios that he handled, fertilisers and chemicals, and for his inability to connect with anybody outside his Madurai constituency because he could understand no language other than his native Tamil.

His record of truancy in office and in cabinet meetings rivalled that of the temperamental Mamata Banerjee. But M. K. Alagiri, the eldest of the Tamil patriarch’s politically ambitious children is undergoing a sudden and rapid transformation that would make his critics blush if they had any shame.

He skipped the inauguration of the World Tamil Conference in Coimbatore last week, where he was to have inaugurated the book fair, and was the only DMK minister who attended the Empowered Group of Ministers meeting on Bhopal.

Papa Kalaignar has apparently told him that he must either take his duties as a minister seriously or stay away from politics altogether. The underlying message to Alagiri is that he will no more dabble in politics at the state level which is the domain of his younger brother, M. K. Stalin.

Last week, Alagiri sought and got permission from the Prime Minister’s Office for a fortnight’s leave to take his mother, Dayalu Ammal, to the US for medical treatment. Alagiri will be off in the first week of July and will return well before the Parliament’s monsoon session begins.
That will give him enough time to brush up on Rapid English Speaking lessons that he is said to be taking. When the session starts on July 26, we may be in a for a surprise: a dapper Alagiri, shedding his trademark mundu- shirt for a safari suit and replying to questions in Queen’s English.

THE second extension that K. M. Chandrashekhar got as cabinet secretary last month was said to be due to the need for continuity in view of the Commonwealth Games that Delhi is to host in October. But with tales of shady deals going on at the Organising Committee( OC), he is said to be having second thoughts on the extension. There is nothing that happens in the OC without someone being on the take and if a few upright ones decide to spill the beans, it would take nothing less than a joint parliamentary committee to unearth the magnitude of the plunder.

Recently, the CabSec himself had to intervene after the secretary in the ministry of sports accused the Delhi Police of forcibly taking away food packets meant for officials at the test events in archery, wrestling, boxing and tennis.

Special commissioner of the Delhi Police Neeraj Kumar was incensed. He refuted the charges saying the police had organised food for its force on duty at Rs 25 per packet and threw the ball right back at the OC by offering to pay the shortfall if the OC produced bills to show exactly how much it had paid the caterers.

This is just loose change. My hunch is that the gigantic scale of this ConWealth Games will emerge only after the event is over. A. Raja will then look like a saint.

Snippets / Mail Today, June 07, 2010

An unlikely saviour for Jharkhand

THERE are governors and governors. Some are like N. D. Tiwari, the former occupant of the Hyderabad Raj Bhavan. Like moths drawn to light, they are drawn to controversy and meet with an unceremonious end. In Tiwari’s case, he was caught by hidden cameras having a romp in the gubernatorial bed with two masseuses and was shown the exit door.

Then there are others like MOH Farook. Of the 30 governors across the country, the Jharkhand governor is the least controversial although he presides over a state which has had a surfeit of political controversies in recent times. Two of his predecessors, Prabhat Kumar and Syed Sibtey Razi were summarily sacked after they got embroiled in the state’s murky politics. Farook took over as governor just after Shibu Soren became chief minister last December and politics in the state has slipped from the gutter to the sewer level since then. Farook must count his blessings for having lasted so long without a smear to his name.

It was bad enough working with a maverick like Shibu Soren. But now that the state is under president’s rule, Farook is the de facto chief and considering the mess that Soren and his team have left behind, he has got his hands full. As a three term chief minister of Pondicherry— the first as early as 1967— he won’t be found wanting in experience. He is determined to use his time as administrator to order a clean up. His first move is to hold Panchayat elections, which have never been held since the state’s formation ten years ago, this September. He has also made the Ranchi Raj Bhavan open house on Mondays for people to bring their grievances directly to him while Wednesdays are reserved for meetings with state secretaries.

Last week, he did the rounds of Delhi, meeting Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and home minister P. Chidambaram and armed with their thumbs up, is getting down to business. For the sake of that blighted state, more power to his elbows.

Election jackpot for automobile companies

IN THE old days, India’s only jeep manufacturer and the handful of light motor vehicle makers used to dread elections. That is when political parties flexed their muscles and virtually hijacked hundreds of brand new vehicles from their yards for use in the campaign. These were of course returned to the companies after the polls, but in a condition that no buyer would want to risk buying it.

Times have changed and with all political parties now flush with funds, vehicle manufacturers actually look forward to elections these days. Sales are brisk and with supply unable to keep up with demand, they are even charging premiums for early delivery.

Assembly elections are due in Bihar later this year and a windfall awaits the handful of SUV manufacturers in the country. More than a hundred candidates — independents and those from mainline parties — have ordered bullet proof SUVs that cost anything between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 40 lakh each from the manufacturers.

Many more have purchased the vehicles and handed them over to enterprising tin- shed entrepreneurs who flourish in parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh to customise the vehicles according to individual needs. Admitted, several districts in Bihar are Maoist affected and candidates need all the protection that they can afford. But the irony here is that most of the candidates are buying the fortified vehicles not out of fear of threats from extremists but from their own political opponents.

Until now, only the chief minister, some members of his cabinet and senior secretaries were accorded bullet proof convoys, but at the rate at which orders are going out for these vehicles, I reckon that up to 300 candidates will be going around campaigning in bullet proof vehicles with security cover being given by their own private armies. It’s a sad comment on the level of politics being practised in the world’s largest democracy.

IN OVER three decades that I have covered politics and government, I have found K. M. Chandrashekhar to be the most proactive cabinet secretary. I have in the past written about and lauded the many initiatives that he had taken to make the bureaucracy more responsive and in tune with the changing times. Last week, his term was extended by another year and you will be wrong if you think it was done for the good job he has been doing. In one stroke, the government has effectively put an end to all hopes that at least three senior secretaries— Ashok Chawla of finance, urban development secretary M. Ramachandran and P. J. Thomas of telecom — had of becoming the chief of the country’s civil services. For long, rumours had been swirling that the government would go to any extent to appoint Pulok Chatterjee, a 1974 batch officer currently with the World Bank in Washington, as the CabSec. Chatterjee, for the uninitiated, is a 10 Janpath loyalist who worked in the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and in the early years of the UPA was in the Prime Minister’s Office, serving as a link between the PMO and 10 Janpath. His elevation now would have involved the supersession of half a dozen officers of the 1973 batch.

By giving Chandrashekhar another extension, the government has got around this little inconvenience.

Snippets / Mail Today, May 10, 2010

Curious ‘ illness’ of absent MPs

MORE ON Parliament. There is much that is going wrong and MPs absenteeism is only one of them. There are some who get elected and haven’t seen the inside of the House, others don’t attend sessions for weeks together. Technically, any member who remains absent for 60 days or more without permission forfeits his seat, but it is seldom that the Parliamentary Committee on Absence resorts to the harsh step. A cursory glance at the report submitted to the Lok Sabha speaker by the Committee on Absence makes for interesting reading. While applying for leave, MPs have to detail the number of days for which leave is being sought and the reasons. Shibu Soren who never attended a sitting said he was ill while seeking leave from November 19, 2009 to December 12, 2009 and again from Feb 22, 2010 to March 23, 2010.

But he continued with his duties as the Jharkand chief minister in Ranchi and turned up in the Lok Sabha to bail out the government on the finance bill cut motion. As with most things about Soren, this too was bizarre as he was an ally of the BJP in Jharkand. He was granted leave for a total of 56 days. K Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti applied for leave from Nov 19,2009 to Dec 21, 2009 and then again from Feb 22, 2010 to March 16,2010, a total of 56 days.

His application clearly stated that he was on a hunger strike for a separate state of Telengana and the CoA agreed to give him leave. Soren’s party colleague Kameshwar Baitha was in jail for 33 days, leave granted. Kabir Suman ( Trinamool) claimed illness to take 20 days off but during the period, newspapers reported extensively on the Maoist sympathiser’s public activities. Neither sarkari babus nor even school children would have had it so easy.

The return of the prodigal minister

IS THE irrepressible Alagiri turning over a new leaf? It’s not just the DMK leaders, but even other MPs seem to think so and the evidence is plenty. It now transpires that after Alagiri raised the banner of revolt by vowing to contest for the post of Chief Minister and president of the DMK once his father calls it a day, M Karunanidhi decided to crack the whip and a disciplinary notice was even drafted.

Alagiri got wind of this and knew that if the party suspended him, DMK MPs and MLAs who swore by him would desert him, making younger brother MK Stalin, the undisputed successor. Big brother was convinced that the succession battle would be fought on a level playing field only if stayed within the party.

Besides, the booty from the highly lucrative ministries that are in his charge would also come in handy to fight the cash rich Stalin. Once his aides tipped him off on disciplinary action, Alagiri flew into Delhi from Madurai, attended a cabinet meeting, sat through an entire day's proceedings in the Lok Sabha and even began attending office for three hours every day.
He also seems to be taking rapid English lessons because the man who spoke nothing but his native Tamil is suddenly talking, even if in monosyllables sometimes, in English. But what surely takes the vada is this: in front of many MPs in Central Hall last week, he called to one of the canteen bearers and asked him " Aaj Kya Kya Hein Menu Mein?" Even as those around him wondered how he had overnight managed to master the national language, Alagiri pulled out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and held it aloft for everyone to see the question in Hindi written in the Tamil script.
There were chuckles all around which turned into loud laughter when one of the MPs remarked that even national leaders routinely read out Hindi speeches written in the Roman script.

LATE last year, Cabinet Sectretary KM Chandrashekhar who is quite net savvy and an ardent votary of e- governance sent memos to secretaries of all departments about the pathetic quality of the government websites. They were pathetic in terms of design, accessibility, quality and currency of content, all of which were compounded by the obsolete technology that was used. “ Today, websites are considered the virtual face of the Department in cyber space… and must accurately reflect the Department's activities and initiatives in the real world as well as offer more and more services online” his note said and asked all department Secretaries to nominate senior officers at Additional Secretary or Joint Secretary level who would ensure up- to- date and high quality content on the websites as well as ensure timely response on queries received through websites.

He has now gone a step further and has decided to give incentives to the ministries/ departments than maintain the best websites. The National Informatics Centre maintains more than 450 websites relating to virtually any government department or organisation and a new software developed by NIC translates all contents into about 85 foreign languages. Prizes will be given away in November this year and the winner stands to gain a prize of one lakh rupees. As the prime minister very graciously put in recently, " e- tarakki" is a major achievement of both the NDA and UPA governments.

Snippets/Mail Today, March 15, 2010

Gadkari gives up on radical change in BJP

IT’S been nearly three months since Nitin Gadkari replaced Rajnath Singh as the BJP president and almost a month since his appointment was ratified by the party’s national executive that met in Indore, but there is still no sign of the new “ captain” putting in place his new team of office bearers which is meant to take the BJP back to its glory days. It appears that the BJP’s youngest ever president has taken very little time to realise that the party is full of old warhorses who simply refuse to fade away.

He has also learnt to his horror that there are more factions in the BJP than there are political parties represented in the Lok Sabha. I know him well enough to realise that he has little faith in numerology, astrology and such occult sciences, so what’s holding him up? Last I heard, he was advised by someone to let the Ides of March pass, and I gather from very reliable party sources that on Tuesday, March 16, he will announce the new team. Lest you think he was simply whiling away time, forget it.

I gather that he has held consultations with more than 120 former and current office bearers of the party, ranging from presidents and general secretaries to RSS bosses, state satraps and others. At the end of the long exercise, Gadkari seems to have realised that it would be an uphill task to shake off the old ghosts, making his plans to usher in a new team a virtual non- starter. If current indications are anything to go by, no more than 30 to 40 per cent of the incoming team will be new faces, which means that the majority will be the old guard.

They may not be able to remote control him the way his predecessor was, but it is evident that Gadkari’s wings will be clipped, while the powers of the cabal that runs 11 Ashoka Road continue undiluted.

Cabinet Secy warns babus on corruption

CORRUPTION in bureaucracy is as old as the hills. But the reports coming in from states in recent times about bureaucrats being caught with their hands in the till are enough to make the few good men and women among them contemplate voluntary retirement.

That perhaps explains why after newspapers carried reams and reams about a few bureaucrats, including an IAS couple in Madhya Pradesh, being caught with tens of crores in unaccounted money, Cabinet Secretary K. M. Chandrashekhar shot off a letter to the bureaucratic fraternity demanding “ zero tolerance on corruption”. Chandrashekhar is what I would call a proactive bureaucrat.

Earlier this year, I had in these pages written about his plans to bring babudom in tune with the government’s policies in these fast- changing times.

Last month, he had invited chief secretaries of all states for a two- day conference where many Union ministers were also present. It was a first of sorts in many respects, for apart from the mandatory speeches by the prime minister and the cabinet secretary, even chiefs of the army, navy and air force for the first time directly addressed bureaucrats from the states on the security environment.

His latest missive therefore comes as no surprise. “ Of late, there have been some disturbing incidents which call for serious introspection by civil servants. It is important that we ponder over the manner in which we discharge our duties and fulfil our responsibilities and what we need to do to refurbish our image,” he wrote while reminding them that though they were appointed on the basis of a fair and open competition, they must respond to the faith that citizens “ have reposed in us and meet their hopes and aspirations of good governance.

The government’s policy of zero tolerance on corruption must be implemented fully and effectively”. It is of course too much to hope that the bureaucrats will start putting the country above their own self- serving interests.

THE recent reconstitution of the various committees of the Union Cabinet gives an indication of the ministerial pecking order. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chairs eight of the 10 committees which were recast to “ lessen the workload burden of the Cabinet”. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P. Chidambaram figure in eight of them, followed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who has a seat in seven, followed by Defence Minister A. K. Antony who sits on four committees. Manmohan predictably heads all the key committees including those on prices, economic affairs, infrastructure and matters related to the WTO. The Prime Minister has had to do a fine balancing act in dealing with the DMK ministers while recasting the committees.

M. K. Alagiri, DMK chief Karunanidhi's son and the Union minister for fertilisers and chemicals, finds a place in the committee on prices, while textile minister Dayanidhi Maran is in the committee on political affairs as well as in that of parliamentary affairs. The pride of place goes to A. Raja, who is in three important committees of infrastructure, economic affairs and Unique Identification Authority of India.

The placement of three DMK ministers in so many crucial committees leaves one with the feeling that the entire exercise was undertaken just to placate an ally.