Assembly Polls will decide ...... Power & Politics / The Sunday Standard/ March 06, 2016

Assembly Polls Will Decide Which Way the Fortune Cookie Crumbles for the Big Five

(From left) Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, J Jayalalithaa, M Karunanadhi and Mamata Banerjee

Opportunism trumps ideology, come election time. The axiom appears to be metamorphosising into a fact in the ongoing countdown for the Assembly elections. During the next few weeks, over 170 million voters in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will vote and elect 824 new leaders. But, even before a single nomination has been filed in any of the states, political parties and their supreme leaders have begun looking for new allies and causes for seeking a legitimate mandate. Since politics is the art of converting symbolic-egotistic impossibility into a remunerative possibility, the leaders are working on a negative agenda, where the others’ defeat is more important than their own victory.

In Tamil Nadu, the Karunanidhi clan wants to dislodge current Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa by forging an alliance with those who have hardly anything in common with the DMK, including caste or religion. In West Bengal, the Reds have gone forth and merged with the tricolour to defeat Mamata Didi. Never before has a formal alliance between the Marxists and Congress taken place in the state just to trounce a ruling political deity. In Kerala, the BJP is out to cohabit with caste-led small parties only to stop both the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic front from grabbing power. The BJP doesn’t and can’t become the ruling party in the state but, in anticipation of a photofinish outcome, it wants to win at least a couple of seats and thereby play kingmaker. In Assam too, the BJP is confident of forming its first legitimately elected government in the Northeast by polarising the entire electorate along regional and communal lines. It has been able to instal a rebel Congress government in Arunanchal Pradesh by breaking it. In Assam too, the BJP has split the Congress by admitting a large number of partymen during the past few months.

A prerequisite to winning the battle for ballots is a meticulous deployment of logical contours and formations. Hence, breaking parties matters more than projecting an alternative leader or an agenda for governance. From Thiruvananthapuram to Guwahati, thus, political parties have unleashed deal-makers to strike visible and invisible deals with caste dons, religious gurus, corporate promoters and local opinion-makers to market their parties. But none of them have put forth even a strategy that’s synchronised with its ideology or leadership for seeking the mandate.

The outcome of the coming elections has serious implications for five individuals: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, DMK chief Karunanidhi, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. All of them have points to prove. But the stake is especially high for the BJP, which is still battling the dilemma of whether or not to fight the elections in the name of the Prime Minister. Of the 824 Assembly seats, the BJP won less than double digits during the 2011 state elections. Riding on the massive Modi wave, however, the party led over its rivals in 114 Assembly segments in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Currently, the BJP has the highest number of about 1,000 MLAs in all the states put together; that is some 100 more than the Congress. 

But the BJP doesn’t expect to form the government in any of the states except Assam. It is neither a ruling party nor an influential group in any of these states. After its ignonimous defeat in Delhi and Bihar, Shah and his team need to reverse the downward turn in the electoral fortunes of the party. The beating in the two northern states was seen as a mark of the diminishing appeal of the Prime Minister and the fallibility of Shah as master strategist. 

But the saffron party doesn’t have a single local leader in any one of the four states, much like Bihar and Delhi. In fact, it is confronted with formidable local leaders. Even a 79-year-old chief minister like Tarun Gagoi is giving the BJP a serious fight in Assam after remaining in power for just over a decade. Though the BJP has formally forged an alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad and appointed a new state party chief, it is still depending on the Congress rebels to give it a majority. Buoyed by winning seven of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, the BJP is confident of forming a government on its own. The party led in 79 of the 126 Assembly segments during the Lok Sabha elections although it had won barely five seats in 2011. Its share of popular votes rose tremendously from 11.45  per cent in 2011 to 36.50 per cent in 2014. 

According to party managers, both Modi and Shah have decided to move manpower and resources to Assam and win it at any cost. Though it has indirectly projected Union Minister of State for Sports Sarbananda Sonawal as its chief ministerial candidate against Gogoi, it dreads an unprecedented backlash from the Muslim community, which determines the outcome in about 30 seats. The Muslim-dominated AIUDF won 16 of the minority seats and led in 24 segments in 2014. The Congress party is already trying to strike a strategic alliance with the Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF to defeat the BJP+AGP combination. West Bengal’s case is more dire. There, the BJP is faced with the same threat of polarisation of votes along religious lines to prevent the division of anti-Mamata votes. The party has only one MLA in the current Assembly and has not been able to groom a state-level leader even after leading in 24 Assembly segments. In southern states, the party is conspicuous by its token presence outside the state Assemblies. 

Well, 2016 is not 2014 when Narendra Damodardas Modi was taller than all the other leaders put together. In 2016, he may still be the tallest leader individually, but the BJP has failed to create anyone who can stand up to the likes of Mamata, Jayalalithaa and Nitish Kumar. Going by the early signals, both Mamata and Jayalalithaa are likely to romp home with handsome victories while the Left may stage a comeback in Kerala. For the BJP to prove to the country that the Modi-Shah partnership wasn’t a one-knock wonder, it needs to beat or at least repeat its 2014 Lok Sabha performance in terms of vote share.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Revealing, not withholding information, is Real Power ... Power & Politics/ The Sunday Standard/ September 20, 2015

Revealing, not Withholding Information, is Real Power. In India, It's the Other Way Round

Information is power. Withholding information is even more power. News is what the powerful want to hide from the public. The rest is just free publicity. Since the government is the sole repository of all classified matter, it is instinctively reluctant to disclose any information on any subject. An Indian citizen cannot access any file marked ‘confidential’ by any babu, even if it is something relatively harmless like instructions on framing a policy to contain dengue. The civil services have flourished in the smoke and mirrors ecosystem, by cloaking in secrecy even the most visible silhouettes of the establishment and revealing little of what lies hidden in history. The denial of information is its most potent magic spell, which preserves its clubby sense of power. Preventing the public from being illuminated on government matters is deemed the most effective method of protecting national interest.

For the past few weeks, the political class has been obsessed with the quality and quantity of the Subhas Chandra Bose files made public so far. Since West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee joined the Bose battle, it has become evident that the classified files on the INA war hero are a puissant political bomb. Setting an odd precedent, Banerjee not only ordered the local police to release 64 files containing 12,000 pages, but also drove down to the police station herself where they were kept. Bose had become Didi’s latest instrument to woo Netaji worshippers for the upcoming Assembly elections. She went a step further by challenging the Centre to release all Bose files kept in North and South Block.

The furor over the files indicates the lack of transparency in our administrative system. Netaji was one of India’s most respected political leaders. The country has the right to know about his whereabouts and how he spent his days after fleeing India. For the past 65 years, successive governments have refrained from releasing the entire docket of files despite promises made during election campaigns. It is clear that it is the political leadership and civil service, which decide to hold back information without following any consistent principle or policy. For example, why cannot Banerjee reveal the truth about the rise and death of Naxalism in Bengal and the dismissal of state governments in the past?

At the Centre, the Modi government had promised to make the maximum number of classified government files public. But most Union ministries are reluctant to disclose information. According to the Manual of Department Security Instruction, 1994, “every classified file/document will be reviewed every five years for the purpose of declassification”. It also says the “automatic declassification may take place after 25 years except in cases where particular information may require to remain classified beyond this period for reasons of national security and national interest”. Rarely has the bureaucracy followed its own manual in letter and spirit. Official agencies do not maintain records about the number of files to be considered for annual declassification. Many are marked ‘Not to Go Out’. Even a joint secretary-rank official cannot retrieve one.

The situation in the states is worse. None of them have declassified any file during the past six decades. If classified documents that contain details of snooping on political and opinion-driving leaders were to be made public, it would expose the tyrannical nature of ruling establishments. Even Parliament has been denied knowledge about a serious matter like the number of corporate shares held by senior civil servants, by invoking the privacy or security clause. The most well-guarded open secret of the past is the process of appointment of High Court and Supreme Court judges. Much before the collegium system came into force, it was on the basis of secret reports that a person was chosen for the post of a judge. If 50-year-old files about their appointments were made accessible, the ugliest side of the Indian political system will come to light. Even files on the appointments and removal of governors would tell their own stories that delineate the noxious narrative of Centre-state relations.

Ironically, babus have invoked convenient clauses relating to national security to conceal files containing matter that pose a real threat to national security or the leadership. Many, like the ones dealing with the defence preparedness during the Indo-China war haven’t been declassified. But then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon was forced to resign. Why doesn’t the government release the chain of files and correspondence preceding the 1965 Indo-Pak war and Tashkent declaration, after which PM Lal Bahadur Shastri met a mysterious death? If the files containing Indira Gandhi’s views on Henry Kissinger and the US establishment were to be made public, they would expose a simulacrum of the tortured nature of the Indo-US relationship in the 1970s. Why is India being blindfolded to the circumstances that led to cancellation of nuclear tests when P V Narasimha Rao was in power? How did Mrs Gandhi conduct the Pokhran nuclear test without a single colleague getting a whiff about her intentions? Even her decisions to sack Finance Minister Morarji Desai and nationalise private banks were taken after exchange of secret notes with the Cabinet Secretary.

The people have the right to know the details in the files in North and South Block, concerning US groupies infiltrating the system. There lie numerous files in the defence ministry, containing questions a few upright civil servants had raised on defence procurements. Some of them even name the individuals responsible for sabotaging the domestic production of equipment. Declassification of 30-year-old files from the petroleum ministry would reveal how ONGC wasn’t allowed to explore more terrain and which foreign oil companies were favoured for imports. Even the documents dealing with choosing the new PM’s home after Jawaharlal Nehru’s passing would make an interesting study about decision-making. Who decided to reverse the decision to retain Teen Murti Bhavan as Prime Minister Shastri’s official residence?

The unedited saga of the imposition of Emergency and supersession of three Supreme Court judges is yet to be told. Files recording the consultations among various ministries and PMO on Operation Blue Star remain hidden. Other democratic countries like the US and UK declassify material after periodic reviews. Unfortunately, in India, withholding information from the people is considered the tool to retain power than gaining it by revealing more and more.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

The Battle for Bengal .... Power & Politics/ The Sunday Standard/December 21, 2014

The Battle for Bengal will be Between Neo-Marxist CM and Right-wing Leftist PM

The spotlight has always shone on West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. Hers is the Janus face of confrontation, which sees hardly any difference between a ruler and an opponent. Last week, she was in New Delhi to add fuel to the Opposition’s fire against the Modi government. Ostensibly, she came to call on President Pranab Mukherjee, who was recuperating after a minor angioplasty. But she spent the next 40 hours trying to neutralise the most vicious campaign ever unleashed against her and her government by the BJP and Left. As a loner negotiating the labyrinthine world of conspiracy-infested politics, West Bengal’s small and frail-looking first female CM looked distressed. Under attack for her inept handling of terror activities in her state and the involvement of key aides in the Saradha scam, Banerjee chose offence as her best defence. Though all other non-NDA CMs have chosen a wait-and-watch policy on the PM, Didi is the most vocal critic of the style and substance of the seven-month-old Modi-led dispensation.

In West Bengal, the conflict is between Banerjee and the rest. And this twin formation is precisely what she has been aiming for. By forcing the Left to be perceived as a comrade of the saffron party and Congress, she is trying to project herself as the sole victim of a class coalition, whose only objective is to topple a simple, lower middle class woman. For the past three years, she has been lording over West Bengal, which among India’s states is the sixth largest economy with an annual GSDP of over $1.20 billion. Though she is yet to deliver any results credible with her slogan ‘Ma, Mati, Manush’, Banerjee is dependent on political engineering to achieve her objectives. Ironically, she sees her own Marxist model as most effective to retain power. For 35 years, the Left government never accomplished economic reform. When they started flirting with corporates, they lost the elections. Now, Banerjee, in her neo-Marxist version, has charted a mission, which will make both Marxism and leftover Marxists irrelevant. Her propaganda espouses the cause of minorities, labour, farmers and Dalits.

Confident of winning her war solo, Banerjee’s struggle against the Centre has acquired an ideological veneer. Predictably, she has attacked the CBI for defaming and destabilising her government. But her political tone reflects her resolve to decimate the Left in Bengal and convert the political tussle as one between the Sangh Parivar and her. She has been the only genuine rival of the Marxists in her state, after decades. While the state Congress was perceived as B-team of the Marxist government, Didi was ploughing a lonely furrow from her humble abode in Kolkata, where she still spends most of her time. Not only had she dislodged the Left government in 2012, but also crushed the Communists in 2014 by winning a record 33 Lok Sabha seats.

But now, her fresh battle is not against her traditional enemy, the Left, which still controls the second largest chunk of votes in Bengal. The BJP, under its President Amit Shah, is on the prowl and has made terror and bad governance its main artillery to weaken the feisty CM’s besieged citadel. The Marxists are still not in a position to decide which issue they should adopt—terror or the minorities. Banerjee has decided to back the Muslims while letting the investigative agencies do their job of tackling terrorists.

For the past few months, Didi and Trinamool Congress (TMC) have chosen to use violence and muscle power to counter the aggressive posturing of her opponents. For political survival, she is mimicking the tactics used by the Congress and Communists during the early 70s to 2012. For almost three decades, political pogroms were used as the only effective strategy to win an election. The liberals in the state charged the Communist regime of resorting to force to eliminate foes. In an article in the Left-leaning magazine Mainstream, it was noted that “to come to a reliable figure of murders between 1997 and 2009, we have taken the annual average of 2,284 to come to a total figure of 27,408. Thus, between 1977 and 2009, the total number of murders was 28,000+27,408=55,408. It means a yearly average of 1,787, a monthly average of 149 and a daily average of five. In other words, in every four hours and 50 minutes, one person was being killed for political reasons in West Bengal. The CPI(M) can claim credit that instead of a murder an hour, they could limit it to four hour and 50 minutes per murder. What an achievement”.

According to an issue of the Economic and Political Weekly in 1997, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had stated in the Assembly that between 1977 (when they came to power) and 1996, 28,000 political murders were committed. This sotto voce statement does not convey the enormity of CPI(M)’s crimes. It meant on an average, 125.7 murders happened in a month. The daily rate of murder was four, which means one every six hours for 19 years. Could any member of the Opposition feel safe in such a “haven of peace”? Thirty-eight years later, the same question on the safety of the people is being raised by both the CPI(M) and BJP. In private, all parties have realised that only violence can establish political supremacy in West Bengal. The Marxists claim that over 160 CPI(M) and Left Front leaders have been murdered between May 2011 and June 2014. The BJP has gone a step further. Its state president Rahul Sinha has written to the Election Commission that the TMC should be declared a terrorist party.

As the countdown for the 2016 state elections begins, Banerjee has captured the middle space vacated by the Congress. She has also eaten into the minority and labour class base of the Marxists by adopting their own techniques. The BJP’s rise is a bubbling broth of both good and bad news for Banerjee. Since the Modi-Shah team has chosen the state as the next fort to conquer, she expects a major polarisation to happen, which would marginalise the Congress. With 25 per cent minority votes and over 40 per cent BPL families in the state, the little lady habitually clad in a cheap cotton sari projects herself as the only symbol that can stop Modi’s war machine from capturing the east. West Bengal is headed for a conclusive confrontation between the neo-Marxist CM and India’s right-wing Leftist PM.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Little Fish preparing to Eat the Big Old One/ Sunday Standard / May 13, 2012

POWER & POLITICS

The Inverted Politics of Little Fish Preparing to Eat the Big Old one

When Mamata comes calling, the Congress starts crawling. But this time, she didn’t call on any top Congress leader, but merely speculated on an early Lok Sabha poll. Her statements have often created stalemates in governance. Her opinion on a mid-term poll sent shivers down the spine of many UPA partners. On Saturday, senior Congress leaders were seen confabulating on how to dissect the latest long-range M-missile. Since she blamed an unnamed party for holding a meeting to explore the possibility of forcing an early election, well-connected leaders from the BJP and the Congress activated their media, intelligence and corporate connections to find out which is the party that is keen to topple the UPA government. No national party is currently willing to risk an election as they are plagued by internal dissent, ego clashes and misgovernance at the Centre. They want to hang on to power as long as possible. They wouldn’t like to seek a mandate from the people, since they didn’t get one earlier. They are in power thanks to coalition conspiracies, which kept the real leaders out of power.

Expectedly, the Congress was quick to dismiss Mamata’s statement as just another political joke. But there is no doubt that most regional parties want an end to the politically weak and paralysed Centre. Mamata may have decided against disclosing the party’s name, but the capital’s grapevine is giving many twists and turns to her hour-long meeting with Samajwadi Party President Mulayam Singh Yadav in New Delhi two weeks ago. The ostensible reason for the meeting was to discuss presidential possibilities, but they also discussed the implications of a Congress-sponsored candidate losing the election. Both the SP and Mamata’s TMC control 116,861 votes. A collaboration means they can get their candidate elected with the support of either the NDA or Congress.

Undoubtedly, the selection of the candidate will also determine the date of the national election. If the Congress is able to impose its choice on all UPA allies, including the SP, then elections will be held only in 2014. If the allies choose to reject the Congress nominee, it could well be the bugle for Lok Sabha polls in 2013. It is politically expedient for most regional parties to force the UPA to dissolve the current house before 2014. For the past three decades, India hasn’t behaved as one nation when it came to voting for one-party rule. States have chosen parties that jelled culturally, socially and economically. The Congress rules by itself only in one large state—Andhra Pradesh—which elects 42 MPs.

The political calculations of regional parties like the SP, NCP and TMC—which are supporting the government—are simple. The SP led in over 55 Lok Sabha seats in the recent Assembly elections. Even if voters decide to be uncharitable, Mulayam expects his party’s tally to rise from 22 to at least 45, if elections are held before 2014. Currently, he is out of power. If he is able to return with 45 MPs, not only will he dictate the numbers and names of his party’s cabinet portfolios, he may well be a candidate for prime minister. At the moment, he is at the Centre’s mercy over judicial and CBI-related problems. Mamata hasn’t hidden her national ambitions either. She is about to launch a newspaper and a TV news channel. Some of her followers have already spoken about her qualities and virtues. Her honeymoon with voters may have soured, but is not over yet. Didi would like to reap political dividends now, than wait until 2014. According to TMC insiders, if elections are held later this year, the party may win at least 30 of the 48 seats from West Bengal. It currently has only 19 seats.

One leader who is keen to go for elections sooner than later is NCP boss Sharad Pawar, whose party has only nine seats in the Lok Sabha. Though he is the only supporter Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has for obvious reasons, he expects to perform better in Maharashtra and a few other states, and double his tally. He is deeply hurt by the UPA establishment for targeting his party leaders and unleashing various investigative agencies against his ministers at the Centre and the states. Of late, Pawar has been kept out of all crucial government decisions.

If Pawar, Mulayam and Mamata decide to take the plunge, they will also be in position to rope in other regional leaders like former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa and Orissa’s Naveen Patnaik to prevent the Congress from getting their support for its survival and strength. All of them are expected to do better than before. The Mamatas, Yadavs, Patnaiks and Pawars are now looking for a bigger share of the pie. They are the ones who will dictate the agenda and the leadership, and not those who have become leaders without leading any party to victory.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

The Arrogance of a few leaders threatens the Democracy/The Sunday Standard/ April 15, 2012

The Arrogance of a few leaders threatens the Democracy of All

Arrogance and intolerance only bring agony, sooner or later. But new age political leaders see only virtue in hubris. Perhaps they learnt it from superstar Shah Rukh Khan who says, when he feels like being arrogant, he visits America. But he ends up in unjustified custody instead, and lands on Page 1 and primetime for behaving like a Khan. Mamata Banerjee is no different. She acquired front page space legitimately, thanks to her historic victory over the Left Front in West Bengal. Perhaps, it may be her last achievement as a political leader. For the past few months, Didi has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Her government arrests and slaps a criminal case against an academic for lampooning her. Earlier, she ordered that no public library or school in West Bengal can buy English newspapers. If that wasn’t enough, she went to the extent of conducting a roll call during a meeting of top industrialists and chief executives of many multinational corporations. Instead of laying the roadmap for the state’s future development and marketing West Bengal as one of the most profitable industrial destinations for investment, like a school headmistress, Mamata asked each one of them: “Will you invest in my state or not? Please tell me. Please tell me.” The corporate leaders, not used to such grilling and earthy persuasion, went back to their homes and offices with the resolve never to return to Kolkata for such scolding sessions.

Mamata’s unflinching commitment to the poor is beyond doubt. Even after becoming the chief minister, she continues to travel in an ordinary car without the massive paraphernalia that is the symbol of power for our politicians. She still travels by economy class. But her moody methods reflect her dictatorial tendencies while her mundane methods don’t reflect her maverick madness. Didi is out to prove that she has now got the authority to rule over those who had dismissed her as just another girl from the slums, who lacks the degree and pedigree the ruler of West Bengal should possess. None of the elitist coconuts (brown from outside but white inside) could ever imagine that one day they would have to sit meekly before Mamata and listen to her lessons on governance and social conduct. It’s a tragedy that political leaders are now taking democratic mandate as an unconditional licence to silence their critics and promote cronyism in their political outfits. They expect others to either fall in line or fall by the wayside. They will use any pretence in the dirty tricks department to destroy, defame and derail those who question their wily wisdom and baneful brilliance.

Mamata is not the only one. The membership of the Club of Arrogant Leaders is expanding very fast. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Jammu and Kashmir’s Omar Abdullah, Gujarat’s Narendra Modi, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati as well as many current leaders of national parties now expect their partyworkers and the ‘aam aadmi’ to prostrate before them. Nitish’s critics claim that he goes so ballistic on any criticism that he even withdraws advertisements from newspapers and refuses plum posts to those who don’t seemingly share his leadership acumen and qualities. Since most of these leaders have either electorally defeated national parties or have captured power through devious methods, they are the ones who show a stronger level of intolerance. No doubt, some of them are personally clean. But they kill internal democracy and eliminate those who they feel can pose a threat to their leadership in the future. There are over half a dozen Union ministers who think they were born to rule, and abhor any challenge from their colleagues. Their only qualification seems to be that they were born in the right family, went to the right schools and chose the right techniques to reach the top. A large majority of top functionaries of the national parties are not in a position to win their own seats, leave alone bringing their party into power. Unlike the chief ministers, these luminaries get their power and arrogance from the financial clout they have acquired after formally joining politics. However, there are exceptions like Sheila Dikshit, Naveen Patnaik, Sukhbir Singh Badal and Akhilesh Yadav who don’t carry their official crown on their sleeves.

The rise and rise of our egoistic leaders is dangerous for the democratic functioning of both political parties and the government. The nation still remembers leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Govind Ballabh Pant, K Kamraj, Indira Gandhi, EMS Namboodiripad and Atal Bihari Vajpayee who were symbols of substance and tolerance. Now they have been replaced by the Mamatas, Nitish Kumars, Mayawatis and Omar Abdullahs for whom political power is an instrument of authority and autocratic conduct, and not of public service.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Genetics Beats Cosmetics/The Sunday Standard/March 18, 2012

POWER & POLITICS

Moral of the Trivedi Story: Genetics Beats Cosmetics in Indian Politics

Foreign-educated Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi has learnt a few lessons in domestic realpolitik. Unless one owns a political party, mere degree and pedigree doesn’t make an acceptable leader. Trivedi committed the cardinal mistake of using political symbolism to portray himself as a legitimate reformer without his party’s mandate.

A person is known by the company he keeps. Trivedi is mostly seen in the company of corporate leaders, elitist opinion leaders, foreign-educated policymakers and technocrats. Perhaps that is his natural habitat. But he forgot, the company he keeps is anathema to the party that gave him political identity. Even after his 14-year association with the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Trivedi remains an outsider; an alien in an organisation that thrives on pro-poor slogans and ordinary lifestyles. The party has no class. It has only mass. Trivedi arrogantly tried to change the party’s ideology which had made him a minister. He was tolerated for his usefulness in certain invisible quarters. After Mamata Banerjee came to power, many more personalities who have the same utility sprouted in the party.

There is a lesson in Trivedi’s sudden rise and fall from grace. And a method too. Family-owned political parties now rule more than two-thirds of India. Some of them have acquired their democratic mandate on the basis of caste or community appeal. A majority of the two dozen-odd regional parties are run by a single leader who had not just conceived the party but came into power, thanks to his personal appeal and caste-backing. Mamata delivered the TMC. Like there is no Congress without the Gandhis, there is no TMC without Mamata. This rule applies to all other regional parties like DMK, AIADMK, NCP, NC, Indian National Lok Dal, Shiv Sena, JMM, Akali Dal, SP and BSP as well. All are extremely inclusive and socially cohesive parties. They co-opt persons from outside their families or caste only on the basis of utility and nothing else. For example, Manpreet Badal, a suave and well-educated relative of the ruling Badal family, thought he could challenge familial hierarchy. Like Trivedi, he marketed himself as Punjab’s most reformist finance minister ever. He was not only ejected from the party, but failed to win a single seat in the recent Assembly polls. In the SP, the once-seemingly infallible Amar Singh was forced to make way for dynastic succession because he challenged family supremacy. He was a powerful Thakur whose mandate was to provide all facilities and resources necessary to turn the SP into a force to reckon with. His utility ended there. He wasn’t a vote- catcher. Period. Now, Akhilesh Yadav has replaced his father Mulayam and has found many more Amar Singhs who can provide similar utilities without posing a threat to his authority. Mulayam never thought twice before catapulting his son to power as Uttar Pradesh’s youngest chief minister. Other members of the Yadav clan had to cave in.

Even in Bihar, both the Rashtriya Lok Dal and Janata Dal (United) appear to be broad- based, but neither have given important party posts to those who don’t conform to their social or caste contours. Members of land-owning backward communities and relatives dominate both parties. Only Rabri Devi can replace Lalu. Former Union minister Prem Gupta will always remain an outsider in RJD even if he is able to deliver all the utilities for his party’s success. Nand Kumar Singh, a former civil servant and a Thakur, has been rewarded with a sinecure in the State Planning Board for services rendered to Nitish Kumar. But he is not an insider yet. Even in West Bengal, former FICCI functionary Amit Mitra was awarded the finance ministry because he was useful in certain areas. But he can’t spend a paisa without his chief minister’s approval.

The south and west are no exceptions. Raj Thackeray was shown the door by uncle Bal Thackeray because he considered himself the logical heir apparent to the Shiv Sena legacy. Shiv Sena is a brand created by Bal Thackeray who thinks it should be inherited only by his son, Uddhav. Only a Pawar can replace Sharad Pawar as successor. Praful Patel will survive as long as he confines himself to his defined role. J Jayalalithaa threw her former confidante Sasikala out of the house because she and her family took over the functioning of the party and government.

As regional satraps and parties consolidate their control over national politics, individuals with egos bloated over academic degrees, elitist social backgrounds and backers of their own kind will find it difficult to survive in the system. They can be the most efficient delivery boys, but they will perish if they try to alter the genetics or biology of political formations.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.comFollow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

A Coalition Dharma .... /The Sunday Standard/ December 11, 2011

POWER & POLITICS

A Coalition dharma that Undercuts Cabinet is Bad News Indeed for PM

Once upon a time, India’s destiny was decided in Calcutta when it became the capital of British-controlled India in 1772. Calcutta, as Kolkata was called then, was the seat of the Governor General of India whose writ ran large over all Indian princely states, small and big. In 1911, better sense prevailed and King George V decided to move the capital to Delhi, as it was not merely surrounded by faithful royalty but was also conveniently connected with the rest of the country. Like all of British India, Kolkata too started receiving instructions and directions from Delhi. Almost 100 years later, Kolkata’s present ruler is now talking like the Governor General of India. And after 66 years of Independence, Kolkata is once again deciding the future of the country. History has come full circle.

It was West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who first announced the Union government’s decision to suspend FDI in retail trade. Her emphatic revelation came after a telephonic conversation with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. He refused to go public on his private conversation. In Parliament three days later, he lamely repeated the decision Banerjee had announced earlier to the thumping majority of both treasury and Opposition benches. A couple of days earlier, the same finance minister had scolded Dinesh Trivedi, Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader, for opposing the Government’s decision on FDI. Mukherjee even gave him a few lessons on the functioning and sanctity of the Cabinet, after which the TMC minister made a hurried exit from the Cabinet meeting.

The Mamata Mantra of dictating the discourse of coalition politics reflects the growing erosion of the institutions of both the Union Cabinet and the Prime Minister. Rarely is a Cabinet decision reversed or kept in abeyance by a government faced with an ally issuing public threats. Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh found it humiliating to explain his about-turn on FDI to the same Cabinet in which he and Mukherjee had bulldozed and silenced every dissenting voice. It was Manmohan’s Faustus moment. His own party and Cabinet did not fully stand behind him. His allies were defiant instead of being deferential. Prananbda, the permanent prime minister-in-waiting, dropped a bombshell at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting when he admitted that if the FDI decision wasn’t reversed, a mid-term poll would be inevitable—implying the Government had lost its majority in the House. Both Sonia and Manmohan remained silent listeners to Pranabda’s lament. Rahul Gandhi was invisible by his silence on an issue that threatened the very survival of the Government. The Congress could no longer take for granted its artificial and opportunistic majority in the Lok Sabha.

This is not the first time the Prime Minister has faced strong opposition to his policies from UPA allies. During UPA I, the CPI(M) prevented Manmohan from taking many crucial decisions, but it rarely forced the Government to reverse or hold any Cabinet decision. The Left parties never spoke on behalf of the Government either. However, it is not just the Prime Minister’s authority and acceptability that has been eroded. During the past few months, iconic ministers like Home Minister P Chidambaram, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, forgetful External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, over-enthusiastic reformer Anand Sharma and an experienced Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar have either been sidelined or are facing Opposition ire on one issue or the other. If the home minister is boycotted in Parliament; if the foreign minister, against whom an FIR has been lodged, forgets to read the correct speech; if a senior minister resigns from the Cabinet panel because of opposition from a social activist, the entire Cabinet loses relevance and purpose. No wonder, the attendance in the 34-member Union Cabinet is down by 60 to 70 per cent, with many ministers staying away even from crucial meetings. The Congress swears by coalition dharma but it hardly takes any of the ministers into confidence before taking crucial economic or political decisions. Even within the party, ever since its President Sonia Gandhi fell sick, complete absence of participative democracy prevails. Its five-member core committee does meet often to resolve one crisis after another, but the UPA itself has hardly met in the past two years to take stock of its plummeting popularity and ailing government. It is no more possible for New Delhi to tell others to fall in line or fall aside. Now it is Kolkata or Chennai who writes on the wall. If the Prime Minister and the Congress president refuse to read it, they always land up in big trouble.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com

Bengal's Great Game Changer is Really Just a Name Changer/Power & Politics/November 20, 2011/The Sunday Standard

Power & Politics

Bengal's Great Game Changer is Really Just a Name Changer

To her admirers, Mamata Banerjee is a mission and a message. Her mission: trounce and liquidate the Red Empire that ruled West Bengal for three decades. Her message: restore responsive and participative governance. But after six months, the 56-year-old first-ever woman chief minister of West Bengal hasn’t been able to find a credible mechanism to deliver her message to people so that she can achieve her mission.

Mamata is a known rabble-rouser. Soon after her resounding victory in May, she was conferred a powerful corporate adjective — the Game Changer. But last week, her actions and utterances betrayed all the expectations her underwriters had promised. Instead of being chief ministerial in her posturing and performance, Mamata is still competing with her old rivals to retain the title of the state’s most effective Leader of the Opposition. Her attack on the Congress leadership, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, and her dealings with Maoists who were her former comrades-in-arms reflect her combative attitude.

Mamata has always been known for throwing tantrums and dictating terms. She hasn’t understood, or refuses to understand, the meaning of coalition dharma. She believes that it is her fundamental right to occupy both the Opposition’s and the ruling party’s space. If the Congress refuses to see reason in her unreasonable demands, she takes to the streets and lashes out in an offensive and humiliating manner. Last week, when Pranab invoked genuine constitutional provisions, stating his inability to fulfill her demand for a huge financial package, her response was, “We may not be a pundit like him. He has been in politics longer. He knows a lot and is a great and respected leader. We may be servants, but we will protect the prestige of West Bengal. I can tolerate everything. But not insult to the people of West Bengal. We are not seeking alms from Centre. It is our right. Bengal should be considered as a special case as we are carrying on with a paralysed economy.” Since the Congress party depends on her for survival in Delhi, it suffers her insults. However, when some courageous Youth Congress workers protested against her government’s repressive attitude, she threatened the Congress with serious consequences. On Friday she said, “It’s for the Congress to decide whether to support Trinamool or extend indirect support to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). It will be sorted out because both cannot go hand in hand. They (Congress) have earlier done the same thing. Trinamool doesn’t want to stay with political parties which have covert relations with CPI-M.” But most surprising was her fallout with the Maoists who provided her the weapon and muscle to keep the Marxists in check during the elections. Not only has she forgotten her promises to resolve contentious issues but has threatened to launch a full-fledged war against them. Now she is accusing them of planning to eliminate her: “I have reports that a joint conspiracy has been hatched to eliminate me.” Mamata has become the second woman chief minister after Mayawati who has received assassination threats.

It is not just the terms of engagement with her ally or with others that has made Mamata’s message West Bengal’s nightmare. Except changing the name of her state, she has hardly done anything that symbolises change in governance—not one portfolio under her has shown any progress in any area. She holds all the politically important portfolios of home, health, public administration, land and land reforms, cultural affairs, education, power, information and administrative reforms.

Listening to others has never been Mamata’s virtue. When she storms into a police station with her power-hungry supporters, the cops don’t know to handle the unprecedented situation in which a ruler herself breaks the law and takes away the accused. Earlier, when she visited one of the badly run government hospitals, she found fault with the doctors and not with what was ailing the hospital. During the past six months she has grabbed every photo-op to be in the headlines for her words instead of her deeds. She has used her clout to get the petroleum price hike, the Teesta river accord with Bangladesh and some provisions of the Land Reforms Bill reversed. But she hasn’t changed the face of her own bureaucracy or empowered her colleagues. Least of all, Mamata hasn’t defined her agenda for change. What is definitely looking better, though, is the exterior of the Writers’ Building with its fresh coat of paint. Inside, the rot is worse than what it was during Marxist rule.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com

Power & Politics/ Mail Today, April 19, 2010

THE MESSAGE to both the Congress and the Prime Minister appears to be stern, loud and clear: your foes are known, now choose your friends. Last week when the railway minister, Mamata Banerjee, directed her 19 MPs, six of them ministers in the UPA government, to avoid sittings of the Lok Sabha and return to their constituencies, she was merely reiterating what she had all along been saying: political friendship is not a one - way street.

With the government appearing to be faltering on several fronts, the Congress will have no option but to reciprocate. And Mamata wants the Congress to respond not by merely handing out a few cabinet berths to her party but standing shoulder to shoulder with her in her ‘ bloody’ battle against the Marxists.

She has made it clear that the MPs from her Trinamool Congress will return to Parliament only if the Centre serves an ultimatum to the Left Front government to improve the law and order situation in West Bengal and refrain from attacking her ministers and cadres.

Her latest ire against the UPA leadership was triggered by violent attacks on Union ministers Mukul Roy and Sultan Ahmed. A senior TMC Lok Sabha member asked me: “ Will the Congress leadership keep quiet if a Congress minister is attacked in Uttar Pradesh or Gujarat? Why hasn’t the Centre sought an explanation from the state government so far?” The Trinamool feels that the Congress is using its allies to stay in power but is not joining the battle of the regional parties against their common enemies in the states. Since her eyes are set on occupying Writers’ Building after the assembly elections that are due next year, Mamata has been mounting pressure on the UPA government to keep a wide distance from the West Bengal government. She is particularly upset with both the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and home minister P. Chidambaram, who, for maintaining cordial relations with the state government, have done nothing more than observe protocol in their dealings with the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government.

Mamata’s antics after Jyoti Basu’s death last year, which left even her ardent supporters red- faced, were shameful. She boycotted the funeral because she thought Manmohan Singh was getting too close to Buddhadeb when all that happened was that the two stood next to each other at the state funeral for the late leader. Protocol dictates that when the Prime Minister visits a state, the chief minister be present at all public functions. Yet Mamata seemed Buddhadeb convinced that the Prime Minister and the chief minister were hatching something.

What Mamata fails to understand is that in a federal set up such as ours, both the Centre and the state governments have to operate within the Constitutional framework. Mamata nevertheless wants the Modi treatment to be extended to the Marxists too. Shun them, shame them, call them all things vile for their anti- poor policies. She routinely boycotts the visits of senior Congress leaders to the state and even as she stays in the Union cabinet, has been opposing most of the policies of the UPA. So obsessed is she with dislodging the Marxists from Writers Building that she has not attended even 25 per cent of the cabinet meetings held so far. Asked once about her chronic absenteeism, she retorted: “ I am not Delhi- based, am I?” Her habitual absence from cabinet meetings poses no danger to the stability of the UPA. But her defiance could turn out to be ominous for the Manmohan regime. Other UPA allies such as the NCP and the DMK are already upset because they suspect that the Congress is unleashing various central government agencies to keep a tab on them. The NDA and the non- UPA parties in the Lok Sabha have decided to move a cut motion on the Finance Bill during the current session and the Congress will need the collective strength of all its allies to defeat it as well as to ensure the safe passage of important government Bills. True, at this point, none of the allies would want to topple the government.

But Mamata’s posturing has sharpened the debate within the UPA. If the Congress wants the government to be strong, safe and stable, it must lend strength to its allies, give them the feeling that it values their support and will in turn stand by them.

Snippets/ Mail Today, January 25, 2010

Mulayam’s support base set to shrink

MORE and more, the Samajwadi Party is beginning to look like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland . The leadership’s grin remains intact, but everything else has fallen apart or disappeared. The last couple of years have been forgettable for Mulayam Singh Yadav electorally and as the party now begins to resemble a family run fiefdom, the downhill slide has picked up speed. The death last week of the affable Janeswar Mishra, the Brahmin face of the SP, comes close on the heels of the palace coup in Etawah that saw the departure of Amar Singh. With both the Brahmin and Thakur leaders out of the party, its impact is being assessed. Now Mulayam has the daunting task of wooing or retaining the few Rajputs and Brahmins left in the SP. Amar’s departure just three days before the council elections created enough confusion among the higher and middle level leaders of the SP. The party had fielded only five candidates in 36 seats and managed to win just one.

Rajputs are particularly angry because Amar Singh was not only one among them but also the only leader with nationwide visibility that the party had; the rest were at best, constituency- level leaders who had no say in the party affairs. With his cross party friends and vast business and other contacts, Amar Singh had given the one- state party a reach beyond the borders of Uttar Pradesh.

During the Mulayam regime in 2003- 07 period, there were violent Yadav- Thakur clashes in eastern UP and when the police seemed to be working in tandem with the Yadavs, it was he who raised the issue with Mulayam and restored order. The SP currently has 14 Rajput MLAs in the assembly, three in the council and four Rajput MPs. Insiders tell me many of them are beginning to feel “ uncomfortable” in the SP as they fear they will be targeted for being “ Amar Singh's men”. With the SP firmly in the grip of Mulayam, brothers Shivpal and Ram Gopal and son Akhilesh, its next poll slogan may well be “ I Me, Mine”.

FOR years, Sharad Pawar’s reputation as one of the country’s efficient administrators has preceded him. But with prices going through the roof despite robust agricultural growth and record procurement, they are all targeting one man: the Agriculture Minister. His reputation as an efficient Minister now lies in tatters . But Pawar’s counter is this: “ I have been in politics for 50 years. This is the first time I have seen that price rise is being linked only to the Agriculture Ministry”.

He is intrigued why nobody is pointing fingers at the railway ministry which, because of fog over north India, has put restrictions on movement of goods trains because of which prices of everyday goods as well as materials like steel and cement have risen sharply.

Pawar feels that he is a victim of internal politics of the Congress which incidentally has not defended the minister on this issue. He is even upset about rumours over his health allegedly being promoted from certain Congress quarters. Recently, he excused himself from a cabinet meeting after his agenda was gone because of a bad toothache. That was enough for the rumours to swirl again. His followers want him to hit back, but the man swears by collective responsibility. So I know he won’t.

Why did Mamata miss the funeral?

MAMATA Banerjee’s penchant for theatricals is legendary but I am sure even the most ardent of her Trinamool supporters have been left red faced by her antics at the funeral of the Marxist veteran Jyoti Basu last week. A funeral is an occasion when even sworn enemies gather in silence and maybe keep a safe and dignified distance. Everyone knows that Mamata views a communist in the same manner that a bull looks at a red rag.

But someone ought to tell the lady that her responsibilities as a minister in the union government far outweigh the irresponsibility that come with being leader of the Trinamool Congress. Reports have it that she boycotted the funeral because she believed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was cosying up to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the man she hopes to replace at Writers Building after the assembly elections next year.

It was nothing of the sort. Protocol dictates that when the prime minister visits a state, the local chief minister must be present at all public functions. The two may have done nothing more than exchange pleasantries, but conspiracy buffs in the Trinamool seem to have convinced Mamata that they were hatching something. It now appears that the real reason was something else.

Rumours doing the rounds suggest Mamata wanted to accompany Sonia Gandhi in her car for the funeral but the elite Special Protection Group would have nothing of it. Mamata is then said to have demanded that she be allowed to travel in one of the many cars that formed the SPG convoy but was politely told by an officer that the rulebook did not allow such free rides. She is then said to have had a running verbal feud with the leader of the commando group before finally walking away in a huff, but not before accusing the SPG of trying to keep her away from Sonia. In the months to come, Mamata can be expected to spin many such conspiracy theories that will fascinate Bengalis, at least until the assembly elections next year.

Snippets/ Mail Today, October 26, 2009

Can we afford unpredictable and erratic Mamata?

LIKE THE weather, the only predictable thing about Mamata Banerjee is her unpredictability. Examples are many, but recall just the latest in May last when she became the first ever minister to assume office, not at the ministry headquarters in New Delhi, but at the divisional office in Kolkata. And Ms Unpredictable is living up to her name once again. Among the hundreds of mails that I got last week was one which made nonsense of her claim of being the sole guardian angel of the poor and the underprivileged, a theme around which her entire political career has been built for nearly three and a half decades now. The mail was from an Odiya organisation that was protesting the Railway Ministry’s decision to withdraw the weekly Garib Rath express that currently runs between Puri and Bangalore.

Readers may recall that it was Mamata’s predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav who introduced these “ poor man’s air conditioned chariots” in 2005. Over the last four years, 28 of these were rolled out to enable the poor to make long distance journeys in air- conditioned comfort.

The weekly Puri- Bangalore Garib Rath was introduced just a month ago and was used mostly by poor Odiya labourers working as cooks, carpenters, plumbers etc in Bangalore.

The decision to withdraw the train, less than a month after it started operation, flew in the face of Mamata’s famed concern for the poor, as did her bizarre behaviour last week, when more than 30 people died in a train accident near Agra.

Instead of rushing to commiserate with the poor, she stayed put in her Kolkata home for two days, only to land up in Agra and do the rounds of hospitals where the injured lay. A day later, she said she would settle for nothing less than a CBI inquiry to look into the cause of the accident.

Coming from a railway minister, this was astonishing because such matters are normally looked into by a departmental inquiry. In calling for a CBI inquiry, was Mamata suggesting that she had no faith in her officers? She should clarify.

MORE on the BJP. As I said earlier, the Parliament Board met last Friday but had no time to introspect on the latest round of defeats and why the party found itself in such a mess.

Probably the array of leaders without followers were scared that they would end up pointing fingers at each other. Instead, they acted with lightning speed to accept Vasundhara Raje Scindia’s resignation as leader of the opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly and to appoint a leader of opposition in Maharashtra where the party was soundly thrashed. This is further proof that they intend to target the few charismatic individuals who can still bring in the votes, not to speak of posing a threat to the so called GenNext who, like squatters, continue to occupy the party headquarters long after the lease has expired.
They have already silenced leaders like Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh, and now Raje Scindia. Her resignation was sought in the wake of the BJP’s disastrous outing in the Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan, which was supposed to have been one of the party’s strongholds. By that yardstick, the wise men at 11 Ashoka Road who have been collectively responsible for so many electoral debacles should have been asked to retire from politics. The party is so much a victim of internal dissension that my gut instincts tell me the BJP’s future is already behind it.

BJP is up a creek minus the paddle

THE BJP has in Rajnath Singh a president whose last known brave act was to take a flight in the dark from an airport without night flying equipment. The verdict from Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh is proof that its leaders are groping in the dark even as the party lurches from one crisis to another. But instead of switching on the panic signs, the BJP leaders seem to have disconnected the electricity and gone underground. The fact that the BJP National Executive, originally scheduled to be held later this month, was postponed, almost makes me think that the leadership had an inkling of the impending disaster. Normally, the members of the Parliament Board and office bearers meet after election results are declared to draft a political response to the verdict. The PB met briefly, not to conduct a postmortem but to ratify Vasundhara Raje’s resignation.

The normally TV savvy leaders suddenly became camera shy and fielded the likes of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to face the media. He flitted from studio to TV studio and provided for much mirth.

When asked about the reasons for the disastrous performance of his party, Naqvi was clueless and came up with a very original alibi: it’s the damn Electronic Voting Machines( EVMs).

LK Advani, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar — the BJP’s A- team that planned and executed the entire campaign were exposed as B- grade strategists. Politics is the art of the possible, about seizing the right moment at the right place, but these people have let too many moments slip.

Take Haryana. They jettisoned Om Prakash Chautala who is of course chuckling now. Could they have won in alliance with the INLD? Couldn’t genuine efforts have been made to douse Raj Thackeray’s ire? The search for answers must be accompanied by the axing of a few heads. But will they?

Snippets / Mail Today, July 20, 2009

OUR lawmakers who sit in the twin houses that constitute Parliament are faced with challenging tasks every day but their attention of late has turned from legislation to personal safety. Like any 82 year old, the building has seen much wear and tear and if your job as a minister, MP or even secretariat staff takes you to Parliament House, there is a good chance that you may end up at the nearby dispensary to be treated for minor abrasions or hypertension.
About two weeks ago, chunks of concrete and bricks came off the ceiling of the room of Petroleum Minister Murli Deora. Fortunately, the minister was not in office.

Last week, half a dozen secretariat staff who had got on to an elevator were trapped inside for close to three hours and none heard their shrieks for help from the deep bowels of that cavernous building. The seat of our democracy should not be such a health hazard.

NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED IN OUR RAILWAYS

I FIRST sat in a train more than fifty years ago and one thing I know for sure is that they haven't changed a bit in the last half century. While going through the railway budget papers I was therefore a bit surprised to notice that of the total investment of Rs 40,745 crore envisaged in this year's budget, Mamata Banerjee has earmarked Rs 12,393 crore for “ research”. I don’t know what kind of research goes into gauge conversion or for switching from steam or diesel to electric engines but the money set aside for research is the kind that would enable global auto majors, for example, to design half a dozen new hybrid cars. Forget hybrid trains, they have not been able to provide us decent toilets. There is Rs 12000 crore plus for research when less than half that amount has been set aside for safety that would save several hundred lives every year, Rs 1797 crore for machinery and plants, and Rs 2054 crore for restoration of lines.

Much has been written about it being a railway budget for Bengal. A letter I got from an irate reader in Orissa sums up the neglect, betrayal and the sense of letdown after Mamata's budget, particularly among people living outside Bengal. After going through the Railway budget papers with a toothcomb, he has discovered that while Orissa generates more than Rs 5000 crore for the railways, the minister sanctioned just Rs 715 crore for railway development in the state.

What’s more, that is about Rs 235 crores less than what Lalu had sanctioned in the 2008- 09 budget. One of the prerequisites of a good minister is the ability to be responsive to different groups and constituencies and to make decisions that are in the best interests of the people as well as the ministry.

In theory this sounds good, but in practice it seldom works. Ministers keep an eye on the next election and shower bounties on their constituency/ state at the expense of others. Much has been written about the goodies Mamata has showered on West Bengal at the expense of other states. Such largesse for her home state is not surprising considering that she hopes to replace Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Writers Building in about two years’ time.

POOR Nitish Kumar. He has been taking one wrong step after another ever since newspapers, in the runup to counting day in May, painted him as a kingmaker. He actually believed all those reports and positioned his JD( U) as a secular outfit, in the NDA, but independent of the right- wing BJP and willing to do business with the government, if requested.

He must be ruing the day. True, Manmohan Singh sang Nitish’s praise, but that was before the results gave the UPA a clean sweep. Since then, the Congress party has dealt with him the way it treats its other allies — with a take it or leave it attitude. News reports say that for more than a month now, he has been trying to get an appointment with the prime minister and every time he is told Manmohan is busy.

Ever since the flooding of River Kosi ravaged large parts of Bihar last year, he has been knocking on the Centre’s doors. It was bad enough that help wasn’t forthcoming. But the speed with which New Delhi sanctioned crores of rupees and rushed relief measures for those affected by Cyclone Aila in West Bengal was really rubbing salt into his wounds. More embarrassments could be in store if newspaper reports suggesting a rift between him and the JD( U) chief Sharad Yadav turn out to be true.

BJP gets a life- saving injection

RIVEN by dissension and infighting, the BJP’s chances of long term survival seemed remote as late as a week ago. But suddenly there is a spring in its leaders’ steps and who should they collectively thank, but Manmohan Singh, just back from Egypt. With opinion gaining ground that Manmohan gave away more than he got when he clasped hands with Gilani at Sharm- el- Sheikh, the BJP sees a window of opportunity.

Take a random poll among ordinary Indians and a majority of them would say that Pakistan’s leaders are not to be trusted. But devious as they are seen to be, our leaders seem to go weak in the knees in their presence.

LK Advani, who led the BJP walkout of the Lok Sabha on Friday, learnt this four years when he sang Jinnah’s praise and was roundly stung by his party. Manmohan met Gilani in neutral territory, yet got so carried away that he is now accused of having capitulated on India’s known stance on the issue of cross border terrorism. So eager was he to display bonhomie that he even traded his trademark namaskaar for an aadaab. There is much mystery over why he did what he did. With an election won, he had no domestic compulsions.

In parliament Manmohan said things that seemed inconsistent with the joint statement issued in Egypt. The mystery is not likely to be solved soon either. And how did Balochistan, which has never figured in any round of talks over the years, finally find a place in the joint statement? Islamabad can fling that ball back at us and accuse India of fomenting trouble in the province.

A month ago, I had written about the absence of the RoD ( record of discussion) of the PM’s “ chance” meeting with Asif Ali Zardari at a multi- lateral summit in Russia. Is there an RoD of the Manmohan- Gilani meeting? If so, the people have a right to know. Meanwhile, Advani should thank Manmohan for bringing BJP out of its comatose state.

Snippets/ Mail Today, May 18, 2009

IN THE weeks ahead, the losers of E- 2009 will sit down amongst themselves to ponder over what went wrong. Jayalalithaa and her AIADMK have no need for that. They already have found the reason. An AIADMK leader told me in all seriousness that his party fared badly because “ Madam” walked into a trap laid by the establishment. The story goes thus: the Intelligence Bureau had informed her — as well as 41 other leaders — of serious threat to her life during the campaign because of the LTTE’s last ditch offensive. Presumably, Jaya considered her life more precious than other things and so dispensed with her normal campaign style — motorcades through the villages, kissing and naming babies, giving away saris et al — and stuck to choppers for the first time ever.
The closest that anyone could get to her was about a 100 yards. She lost touch, they lost touch. And she is paying the price. Good yarn

For Didi this was just the preliminary test

THE GOOD doctor will take the oath of office for a second consecutive term sometime this week and already speculation is rife about who will get what in the new cabinet. Some of the incumbents who demanded and got plum posts five years ago are not likely to be easily accommodated. For all the good work and turnaround in the Indian Railways that he is said to have brought about, Congressmen are of the view that Lalu Prasad Yadav should forget about retaining his portfolio. At best, he should hope for a free all- India railpass for self and family in lieu of the four seats that the RJD has brought in.

Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar who held his hat in his hand, ready to throw it into the ring at the last minute, held back only on Saturday morning after reality dawned. He should prepare to bid goodbye to Krishi Bhavan and instead concentrate on the International Cricket Council, which he is due to take over as chief executive soon, the consolation being the ICC is an empire of its own. His lieutenant Praful Patel is somewhat better placed, being a Congressman at heart despite holding a NCP card. On the other side are the DMK and Trinamool members, whose swelled numbers contributed in large measure to the UPA’s victory margin. After patching up with his granduncle, Dayanidhi Maran can look forward to being back in Sanchar Bhavan and Karunanidhi can afford to pick and choose his ministers and their portfolios.

But what about Mamata? My instincts tell me she will nominate a couple of her leaders for important ministries and then choose to grind it out in the killing fields of Singur and Nandigram and elsewhere in West Bengal. She has already felled the formidable Leftists. She will not rest content until she drags their noses through the dirt and the filth that is their own making. We should all wish her Godspeed.

HOURS after it became clear that his first and last bid for prime ministership had ended disastrously, Lal Kishan Advani resigned as the party’s parliamentary leader. But many BJP leaders who owe their rapid climb up the party ladder to the genial Advani wouldn’t have it.
They termed it an offer to resign though Advani said it was “ a decision.” It’s bad enough that through their fratricidal and self destructive tendencies, they have already dispatched a man thanks to whom they enjoyed nearly a decade and a half of uninterrupted and unbridled power within the party. These are people who have benefited enormously under his tutelage, which even caused ruptures in Advani’s relationship with the cadres.

Now, citing the lack of a consensus replacement, they are asking him to stay on in the hope that that would enable them to stay on too. On Sunday, a top RSS team led by Madan Das Devi met Advani, their mission being not to persuade him to stay back but to facilitate the appointment of a successor with his blessings. Advani did not disappoint them but made it clear that his future role would be no more than that of a moral arbitrator.

It was pathetic to see various party spokesmen claiming collective responsibility but not owning up their own responsibility for the catastrophe that now threatens to turn the BJP into an endangered species. It would be worth recalling that five years ago, Pramod Mahajan, as the party’s national campaign manager, had owned up responsibility and offered to resign. Once upon a time, loyalty was said to be the BJP’s secret weapon. It has now been replaced by intrigue and faction fights. No wonder the people reject them.

Bihar next in his line of fire

COMETH THE hour, cometh the man. Rahul has achieved the near impossible in Uttar Pradesh by, first daring to go it alone and then winning more than a quarter of the seats from India’s largest state. To appreciate his achievement, one must remember that the last time the Congress touched double figures from the state in the Lok Sabha was in 1984 when it won all 85 seats. Since then, it has been one big downhill slide and the Congress even failed to win a seat once. And here they are now, with 21 Lok Sabha seats, which strangely enough is exactly the number of seats that the party has in the state assembly.

Translated into assembly segments, that would account for over 120 seats which is an impressive turnaround for a party whose candidates seemed content just not to lose their deposits. Is it any wonder then that suddenly Congressmen elsewhere are beginning to see a whisker of a chance of revival in their own states? Addressing party workers in his constituency soon after the results were out, Rahul promised them: “ Soon you will see a new Congress in Uttar Pradesh”. Mayawati had better watch out. And so should Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, a man on whom Rahul lavished much praise before the results were out but who may not come in for such praise any longer.

I am told his next target is Bihar where the Congress won just two seats out of the 40 at stake and where he is going to be spending a lot of his time. So the next time villagers in Bihar see a handsome young man resting in a cowshed in the back of beyond in Begusarai, Darbhanga or Munger, they can be sure they are in the presence of the future prime minister of India.