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.

Power & Politics/ Mail Today, August 18, 2008

IF YOU think the UPA’s four- year- long nightmare ended on July 22, wait a minute. The government may no more be dependent on the 59 MPs from the solid Left Block in the Lok Sabha but with payback season at hand, fresh nightmares are threatening to ruin what it was thought would be a seamless run up to the elections.
And Shibu Soren isn’t the only one who is giving sleepless nights to Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, although it beats me how the UPA could concede his demand considering that the Jharkhand’s chief minister is not decided by the largest party in the Assembly but by the eight Independents, one of whom, Madhu Koda, now occupies the office. The Independents are hardly likely to oblige a government on its last legs when they know they have three more years in the legislature before the people make up their minds again.
But the real problem for the government, very acute at that, lies elsewhere.
It’s the Samajwadi Party, whose new found love for the Congress was what saved the government last month. As gratitude, Manmohan and Sonia are ready to offer ministerships to its members, but the SP will settle for nothing less than eight posts — five at the Cabinet level and three ministers of state.
The logic goes thus: the SP has 36 MPs making it the second largest contingent in the ruling establishment and if Lalu’s RJD with considerably less MPs can have three Cabinet Ministers and two ministers of state, five senior plus three junior ministers is the minimum they will settle for.
Manmohan’s problem are compounded by the fact that there is only one vacancy, in the Coal Ministry.
Lucrative as it is, it cannot make up for the many others they have set their eyes on. Mulayam Singh Yadav has made it amply clear his party will not settle for new ministries that may be carved out — minor Irrigation and that sort of stuff. They only want major portfolios.
Manmohan and Sonia cannot ask the allies to withdraw ministers to accommodate the SP’s demands, so the two have drawn up a Kamaraj Plan 2008 which involves many senior ministers being asked to give up office for party work in the belief that in an election year, that is the more onerous task carrying much more responsibility.
They include Arjun Singh, AK Antony, Shivraj Patil, AR Antulay, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Jaipal Reddy, Sis Ram Ola, Mahavir Prasad, PR Kyundiah, Santosh Mohan Dev, Saifuddin Soz, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Murli Deora, all Cabinet Ministers, Oscar Fernandes and Vilas Muttemwar, both ministers of state with independent charge and MoSs, E Ahmed, Prithvi Raj Chauhan, Anand Sharma, Ashwani Kumar and MH Ambareesh. Some of them won’t be missed, like Ambareesh, who I doubt knows where his office is located.
The list has thrown up fresh problems because each of them represents a caste or regional pressure group which the government can offend at its own peril. Besides, the list comprises Congressmen with loyalties split between Race Course Road and 10 Janpath. Thus if Manmohan wants to get a non- performer out, his proximity to 10 Janpath may ensure he hangs on. And vice versa. It remains to be seen how between them, the UPA Chairperson and the Prime Minister sort this out. But sort it they must. Otherwise Mulayam’s promise of seat adjustments and joint campaign in Uttar Pradesh may remain just that – a promise. It could put the parliamentary careers of some high profile Congress MP's in jeopardy.

An offer with his hands tied/Power&Politics/Mail Today-June30,2008

AMONG President John FKennedy’s more famous exhortations was calling on Americans to “pay any price and bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe,” for the cause of liberty. The UPA leadership seems to be heeding his advice and appears ready to pay any price and bear any burden. The cause once again is liberty, but with a twist. Liberty from the Left. Iam talking about the latest flirtation between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, which if it materialises will enable the Congress to rid itself of the baggage that is the Left. The question is: Can Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh come up with the kind of offer that Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh will find hard to refuse? For them, it's atough choice. If they do join, they have just awee bit to gain in the remaining tenure of this government, but much to lose. The SP is sure to be dumped by the UNPA, the backlash from the Muslim community, the SP’s core support group, could be catastrophic. The Congress offer has to be something that more than compensates for these losses. Will Manmohan, for example, be ready to give four or five Cabinet berths and afew junior ministers jobs to the SP, which with its 36 MPs, will become the second largest constituent in the UPA, if it chooses to join it? But Manmohan Singh is faced with arather ticklish problem. He is already presiding over the largest ever Council of Ministers with 74 members which is just about within the prescribed 15 per cent limit. His options are limited: He can either drop ministers from his party, which is relatively easy or ask smaller allies to vacate seats, which is alot more difficult. To save one deal, Manmohan Singh is weaving many smaller yet complex deals.