Teekhi Baat with Praful Patel/IBN7/March 02, 2013

'If there is consensus, Sharad Pawarji will be ready to be PM'

Nationalist Congress Party leader and Union Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel spoke on coalition politics, Maharashtra and NCP leader Sharad Pawar during Teekhi Baat on IBN7.

I want to talk regarding politics, but have to introduce you as heavy industries minister, but there is no much role in industry these days?

We facilitate.

Earlier Praful Patel used to fly in the skies, now you are on land

It is not possible to fly in the air always.

Two days ago, Sharad Pawar-ji said there is no difference between NDA and UPA government.

He said that there is similarity between NDA and UPA as far as foreign policy, economic policy are concerned.  This does not mean we are comparing NDA and UPA.

They have announced their leader

They have a right to announce their leader, we have no objection.

If UPA is in majority, and Rahul is leader, you will work under him

Certainly.

Praful Patel and Sharad Pawar both would work under him...

Who will take decisions (speaking of Congress-led UPA) is not the issue. The government runs on the basis of the largest party, Congress is the largest party in UPA and it does not seem that in future they won’t be the largest party.

But he (Sharad Pawar) said he won’t contest elections

He said he wont contest elections but…

He would get elected via Rajya Sabha route

He will be the president of our party, the reins of the party will be with him.

Then he will be out of the Prime Minister’s race

No, this is what your are saying, that he is our of the race of Prime Ministerial candidate.

But Pawar saab’s relations are good with Jayalalitha, Naveen Patnaik, Mamta, he has good relations with everybody. He is not retiring from politics

If there is a situation where there is consensus on the issue, then why not Prabhuji, Sharad Pawarji will be certainly ready. (to become Prime Minister). But I think to talk like this now is basically wrong.

Will there be no merger with Congress?

And this gossip of merger with Congress which happens many times, that is never possible.

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

Race Course Road/The Sunday Standard/May 29, 2011

UPA's Nuclear Push Morphis into Shove

As protests against proposed nuclear plants in India continue, the UPA has decided to brazen it out—both at home and abroad. The same team that bulldozed opposition to the 2008 nuclear deal has roped in commercial and academic interests to create a pro-nuclear climate among political, social and economic groups in India and overseas. Hostile leaders will be persuaded not to incite local populations against land acquisition for N-plants. Refusing to learn a lesson from the Fukushima disaster, the Indian government is, unwittingly, becoming a stooge of nuclear businessmen. Next month, a high-powered Indian team will participate in the ministerial-level meeting of the

International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. According to government sources, a nexus of US, UK and India will hardsell civil nuclear power with additional safeguards. India wants to maximise nuclear energy production by 2030 and is the biggest market for nuclear reactors—spending over $25 billion in the US and France. Atomic reactor-makers are facing a major crisis, following Switzerland, Germany, Italy and even Japan abandoning plans for new power plants and phasing out existing ones. But India has signed up for two big N-projects in Gujarat and Maharashtra. While all other major manufacturing proposals for steel, cement, thermal and hydro power plants as well as highway construction languish, nuclear stations are being cleared at jet speed—the impact on marine life, underground water pollution and their ability to withstand tsunami-type natural disasters ignored. Obviously, UPA II’s success lies in pushing expensive and unsafe nuclear energy to the aam admi.

Due Diligence on Vigilance Now

The Union Government has finally realised that it can’t delay the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner further. Last week, the PMO finally decided to compile the details of over 90 probable candidates. Following a Supreme Court judgment, the department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) invited applications from both serving and retired civil servants and the corporate sector. Bitten by the P J Thomas fiasco, the twice shy PMO is not willing to take risks. It has referred all applications to the intelligence agencies and the Income Tax department. For babus who have served in the states, reports from state governments are being sought. What is baffling the PMO is why senior corporate executives—over a dozen—are willing to give up lucrative jobs to become CVC at less than 10 per cent of their current salary. A corporate executive, if selected, will enjoy enormous clout over the selection of all senior civil servants, PSU chiefs and directors and supervise the CBI. The prevailing post-scam animosity towards corporates has made the DoPT cautious. The PMO will shortlist 15 candidates, of which five names will be put up before the selection committee. The PMO expects a unanimous decision but the current hostility with the UPA may force it to present a list of aspirants without political baggage.

What is Sharad Pawar up to?

When Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar sneezes, Congress leaders catch a cold. The massive political attack on his integrity had forced him to lie low for the past few months. Last week, he met Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu for over an hour in Delhi—their first meeting after the Assembly polls—flustering senior Congressmen. Since Naidu had earlier visited Chennai to attend Jayalalithaa’s swearing-in ceremony, his sudden arrival in New Delhi created a flutter in Congress circles. Pawar maintained that Naidu’s visit had no political overtones, but TDP leaders dropped enough hints suggesting otherwise. Pawar is assessing the Andhra Pradesh government’s stability; with the DMK in a sulk, a split in the Andhra Congress will rattle the UPA. Pawar’s annoyance with the Congress was obvious when he arrived late for the UPA’s second anniversary celebrations at the PM’s residence. While other allies shared the dais with Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, Pawar chose the first row, deputing Praful Patel to join them. After the speeches, he sat with Singh while others kept Sonia company.

Ministries at War Over Natgrid

In the UPA, the turf war is not confined to alliance partners. Ministries controlled by Congress ministers are at war on national security. Recently, the prime minister sent out the file on the National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) for further debate. A brainchild of P Chidambaram, the Rs 2900-crore Natgrid was conceived to ensure connectivity and collectivity of information regarding the suspicious activities of many Indians to be shared with other security and intelligence agencies. Raghu Raman, a senior Mahindra & Mahindra executive, has been chosen to set it up, and is paid Rs 1.5 lakh a month with the rank of secretary. Both the foreign and finance ministries have raised questions about the safety and reliability of information collected by a corporate honcho. Raghu Raman’s visits to the US without clearance from the RAW and the foreign ministry have been questioned. The finance ministry believes Natgrid is a colossal waste of money and will create confusion. Undeterred, Raghu Raman has mounted a massive PR exercise on Natgrid, which, he claims, will make India safer. Can he get away with it?

Power & Politics / Mail Today, July 12, 2010

A MONTH ago, when in the wake of the 2G spectrum scandal, rumours swirled about the possible axing of A. Raja. A Congress spokesperson sa id, “ It is the Prime Minister’s prerogative to decide who stays in his cabinet and who stays out.” That Raja is still in office says much not only about the limited prerogative of the incumbent PM but also of the limited powers that the Congress enjoys in the government that it heads.

Sharad Pawar has been around so long that he can give a few lessons in the art of politics to all in the UPA, barring perhaps Pranab Mukherjee. Like the Spaniards and Germans on a grass pitch, the Maratha is the master of counter attack in the field of politics. When the pressure mounts, he switches strategy, marshals his resources and blunts his opponent’s attack before launching a counter offensive that changes the course of the game.

For the past few months, both he and his NCP colleague Praful Patel have been under the scanner for their roles in the IPL. Pawar has been particularly targeted by the Congress for the uncontrolled inflation which the party believes will cost it dearly.

When the Left and the Right joined hands to bring the country to a halt last Monday to protest price rise, Pawar was in Singapore for his coronation as chief of cricket’s world body, the ICC. No sooner had he landed in New Delhi, he drove to the Prime Minister’s house and requested that some of the workload be taken off him. You can’t but sympathise with him. At 70, even a Grand Maratha cannot be expected to carry multiple burdens. And Pawar carries so many: minister of agriculture, food and civil supplies, consumer affairs and public distribution.

It’s a well- calibrated strategy, the kind that has served him well for the nearly 40 years he spent in public life. It has put the Congress on the defensive. Pawar wants his workload to be lightened, but is adamant about not yielding agriculture. That leaves Manmohan with the limited option of handing food and civil supplies and public distribution to someone else.

The question is: with inflation running in double digits, who would want to hold the hot potato? The real motive behind Pawar’s request was to force the Prime Minister to effect a cabinet reshuffle, something he knows the Congress is not ready for. At 77, this is the largest ever cabinet in independent India, with 58 from the Congress alone and Manmohan is not inclined to add to it.

Besides, he never tinkered with portfolios in UPA 1, so it would be out of character to expect him to do so within fourteen months of UPA 2. Within A. Raja the Congress, there is considerable anger at the inefficiency and the many charges of corruption hurled at alliance ministers, particularly from the DMK and the NCP.

While Pawar constantly revises strategy to counter the Congress, the DMK is typically brazen and rubbishes demands for Raja’s ouster saying that it can happen only if he is found guilty by the courts in the 2G spectrum allocation case. With the Prime Minister looking on like a helpless spectator, senior Congress leaders are putting pressure on Sonia Gandhi to put the house in order. The internal bickerings in the UPA would have been fodder for the media if Kashmir had not flared up and hogged the headlines. Still the Congress strategists continue to ply their trade, with motivated leaks of an impending reshuffle and TV channels predicting, like Paul the Octopus, the names of new ministers.

A mid- term reshuffle is a normal course correction strategy that governments routinely undertake to repair their battered image. But by taking the initiative for a reshuffle, Pawar has effectively stalled one. It’s not the first time he has resorted to such chicanery. After 26/ 11, when Vilasrao Deshmukh refused to resign as Maharashtra CM and Union home minister Shivraj Patil continued to spend more time in front of the mirror than looking at files, Pawar got R. R. Patil of the NCP, the deputy CM and home minister to step down owning moral responsibility.

Both Deshmukh and Shivraj saw the writing on the wall and quit. And now comes the news that the NCP will contest next year’s assembly polls in Kerala in alliance with the Marxists. No one knows the black arts of the political trade more than Pawar.
The NCP may have only nine MPs in the Lok Sabha, but Pawar will continue to strut around as if he has 90.

Snippets / Mail Today, July 05, 2010

Politicians’ race to the Big Apple

THERE is something about New York that fires the traveller’s instinct among our MPs and once again it is that time of the year when our honourable representatives get the itch to travel to the Big Apple for the annual sojourn at the United Nations. The UN General Assembly meets only in September but the Prime Minister’s Office is already under immense political pressure from Congressmen as well as UPA allies to have their members included in the delegation. A bureaucrat friend said in jest that the lobbying was somewhat like what is witnessed on the eve of a cabinet session.

It’s easy to see why they are all clamouring to fly to New York. The Indian delegation normally consists of of 30 to 35 people. Sixteen of them are MPs who join the delegation in two batches of eight each and the rest are ministers and diplomats. For 45 days, all of them get to hole up in one of the best Manhattan hotels at the taxpayers’ expense. The stay is long enough for those afflicted with minor and major health problems to hold consultations with some of the best physicians in the world.

In normal circumstances, the selection is entirely the prerogative of the Prime Minister, but in a coalition like the UPA, as we have so often seen, the unusual is the rule rather than the exception.

So the final choice may not be Manmohan Singh’s alone. In a few days, we will know who have made the grade, but there is a record that will be hard to beat and it belongs to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

He first attended the UNGA in 1977 as foreign minister in the Morarji Desai government when he famously addressed the assembly in Hindi.

Between 1988 and 1994, India had four prime ministers.

That all of them chose the BJP veteran is perhaps a measure of the deep admiration they shared for a political adversary.

Absentee ministers make cabinet meetings a no- show

CONSIDERING all the praise that heads of states and governments lavish upon him, it’s easy to see why Manmohan Singh needs only the slightest of excuses to take to the skies. “ When the prime minister of India speaks, the world listens” or something to that effect, US President Barack Obama said in Toronto last week.

How Manmohan would wish his own ministers also listen to him with similar earnestness. Kashmir was in flames even as Manmohan was rubbing shoulders with the G- 20 leaders, so it was understandable that as soon as he returned, he wanted to take stock. So he decided to hold an emergency meeting of his cabinet on his return to the Capital on Thursday, which coincided with the day of the weekly cabinet meeting.

Incidentally, during the Vajpayee days, the cabinet used to meet on Tuesdays but this was shifted in the UPA era to Thursday, following requests from some of the powerful alliance ministers from the South. They said they wished to be home with their families during the weekend.

A five- item agenda paper was drawn up for circulation among all cabinet ministers and, as is procedure, the deputy secretary in the cabinet secretariat in charge of cabinet meetings rang up the private secretaries of all ministers to find out the “ availability” of their masters.
Only 15 of the 33 full fledged ministers were available in the Capital.

Among the notable absentees were the three DMK ministers, who were enjoying a wellearned rest after the exertion at the highly publicised World Tamil Congress in Coimbatore.

Sharad Pawar was in Singapore getting himself embroiled in yet another cricket- related controversy, while other worthies cited prior commitments to excuse themselves from the emergency meeting.

Finally, the scheduled cabinet meeting was converted into a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security, with the PM chairing the session attended by four of his senior- most colleagues — the ministers of defence, home, finance and external affairs.

STRANGE things are happening in Jharkhand.

Barely 10 years into its inception, the state has already seen six changes of chief ministers and two spells of president’s rule, including the current one which began on June 1 after chief minister Shibu Soren resigned on the eve of a trust vote.

The assembly is under suspended animation since then and with no party in a position to form the government, the BJP has demanded fresh elections. But the Centre seems in no mood to oblige. Usually, immediately after President’s rule is imposed, the Centre appoints advisers to assist the governor, but even this has not been done though a month has gone by.

Worse, governor MOH Farooq, who is the de facto chief minister, is hardly ever in Ranchi. The 73- year- old former Pondicherry chief minister is said to be not in the best of health and spends half his time in Chennai for medical treatment.

But the UPA’s proxy rule in Ranchi is unlikely to last long since it has to get the presidential proclamation ratified by Parliament, which is not an easy task since the UPA is woefully short of the majority in the Rajya Sabha.

Last heard, the Centre is contemplating withdrawal of president’s rule before Parliament’s monsoon session begins later this month.

For whose benefit and under what conditions remains to be seen.

Snippets / Mail Today, February 15, 2010

Why did Pranab meet Patil?

EVER so often, we read in the newspapers about the prime minister calling on the president at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Such meetings are described either as mere “ courtesy calls” or sometimes more serious interactions where the prime minister and the head of state discussed more vital political issues. But it is seldom that cabinet ministers, however senior they are, meet the president individually. That is why eyebrows shot upwards last weekend when within the space of less than 12 hours, both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee called on President Pratibha Patil. Apart from being finance minister, Pranab da also heads the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.

So what prompted this unusual meeting? Did the finance minister meet Patil to brief her about the budget that he will present on February 26? Or was a crisis of unmanageable proportions brewing that the president had to be kept in the loop? Or, as is being speculated, did the twin meetings have to do with the judgment in a case in Amravati in Maharashtra, Patil’s home district, where the president’s husband Devi Singh Shekhawat, a man who has courted much controversy, was found guilty by a subdivisional magistrate’s court of usurping two acres of land belonging to a poor local farmer. Mukherjee met the president over an hourlong breakfast, after which he drove across to brief Manmohan Singh about his talks with Patil.

Later, in the same day, Manmohan Singh also went to Rashtrapati Bhavan and the fact that the visit lasted more than an hour suggests it was no mere courtesy call. Rumours swirling around the Capital suggest that the Opposition parties are planning to mount an offensive against the presidential spouse in an effort to embarrass the government. If these turn out to be true, the poor farmer may get his land back.

Pawar’s tete- a- tete with Balasaheb still a mystery

EVEN more than a week later, the smoke shrouding the secret meeting between Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is yet to be clear. While Pawar asserts that he had only IPL3 in mind when he drove to Matoshree, the Thackeray residence, the Congress party believes it just wasn’t about cricket.

The BCCI president Shashank Manohar accompanied Pawar to meet the senior Thackeray though Pawar is not a member of the IPL board which is an autonomous body, while Manohar is an exofficio member, being the cricket board chief. If indeed, as Pawar claims, it was IPL3 that he wanted to save from the Sena’s army of vandals, why didn’t he take along any of the IPL team owners or the tournament commissioners?

The Congress- NCP coalition government in the state has taken a strong stand against the Sena and the Home portfolio is with R. R. Patil of the NCP. If indeed it was the IPL that Pawar wanted to discuss with the Sena boss, why was Patil kept out? We all know that Pawar wears many hats; what is not known is which one he wore on this occasion. That he is a personal friend of Bal Thackeray is also well known. That’s why many, especially in the Congress, have concluded that the meeting was not about saving IPL3 but about embarrassing the Congress. After all, among the major political parties, the NCP alone has not come out in defence of Pakistani players while Pawar launched an offensive against team owners for their omission.

While Pawar keeps the Congress on the backfoot with his deadly googlies, the state home minister has shown whose side he is on. On the day the Shah Rukh starrer My Name is Khan was released, he went to the INOX multiplex in Nariman Point, bought a Rs 350 ticket and watched the film for precisely 10 minutes before getting back to office. Not that he found the movie a bore; more likely he just wanted to prove a point.

SECULARISM, it seems, is something to wax eloquent about, but not practise. Taslima Nasrin's case proves just that. When she fled Bangladesh in 1994 after her book Lajja inflamed Muslim fanatics, she was hailed as a crusader against fundamentalism. The Marxist government led by the Communist Party of India ( Marxist) in Kolkata gave her abode, New Delhi assured her all protection. But now she has become a victim of competitive vote bank politics.

The darling of the secular chatteratti classes is now searching for a place to hide and platform to speak. Last week, she flew into the Capital from New York where she has been living since she was asked to leave India last August. Due to the many “ fatwas” from Islamic fundamentalists everywhere, the security agencies in Delhi have taken Taslima into protective custody but officials handling her are at a loss about her repeated demands to go to Kolkata.

But the same government which once gave her a home now doesn’t want her to step into its territory. She came to India to renew her residence permit, something she has to do every six months. Indeed, it was extended but on condition that it must not be used by her to reside in this country and that she leaves immediately thereafter!!! It’s as heartless as telling a poor villager: Here’s your ration card. You are entitled to keep it as long as you don’t draw your rations.

Seedhi Baat / Aajtak, February 07, 2010

Food prices will reduce: Pawar

The Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar says that several reasons such as rising purchasing power, high international prices for the spiralling food prices in the country.

Part 2 ; Part 3 ; Part 4

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, September 28, 2009

THE PROLIFERATION of political dynasties no more surprises us. But as fast as they breed, there is also trouble brewing in the backyards of the big parties. The intra party strife is mostly triggered by the conflicting interests of the big political families. An analysis of the distribution of tickets for the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections shows that nearly 25 percent of the seats have been given to sons, daughters and relatives of leaders from big political families in both states. It is now clear that dynasties, at least in politics, can be double edged weapons: they can be a marquee draw; they can also be a drawback.

Never have we seen such an explosion of dynastic ambitions and never have we seen familial ambitions stoking so much inner party strife. Parties are no more fighting each other. It is families within parties that are fighting one another and every leader with a son or daughter back home wants the progeny to carry the baton just to ensure that power stays within the family. Never mind if it triggers a faction war within the party.

The rot starts at the top. Having delivered nine of the ten Lok Sabha seats to the Congress, including his son Deepinder’s, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is busy securing tickets for near relatives. After a long innings, former state Congress president SS Surjewala has bowed but only on condition that his son takes over the Kaithal seat. Kiran Chowdhury, the state tourism minister and Bansi Lal’s daughter in law, has already sent her daughter to the Lok Sabha, so her efforts are solely aimed at stalling future threats to her little girl.

There is a moral vacuum in the NCP which is controlled by the three Pawars, Sharad, daughter Supriya and nephew Ajit. A few months ago, it expelled Padam Singh Patil, a former state minister and incumbent MP after he was charged with murder. Yet the party found nothing wrong in giving a ticket to his son. The Thackerays are a house divided after Raj, Bal Thackeray’s nephew and once seen as the heir apparent, was sidelined by Uddhav.

Inspired perhaps by his mother’s unexpected elevation to the highest office in the land, President Pratibha Patil’s son Rajendra Shekhawat, a first timer, staked claim and got the ticket for the Amaravati assembly constituency in Maharashtra, edging out a popular state minister who has now not only turned a rebel candidate but even dragged the Rashtrapati Sharad Pawar Bhavan into Congress politics by accusing the president of misuse of office.

The candidate selection process in the BJP has seen frayed tempers stopping just short of fisticuffs after the powerful former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde overruled the claims of several party veterans and handed out tickets to his daughter Pankaja, his brother’s son in law Madhusoodan Kendre and his late brother in law Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam Mahajan Rao. Now that one of his sons has a toe hold in Bollywood, Union Industries minister and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh inducted another into politics. For union power minister, Sushil Shinde, one was not enough. So he got both his daughter and son in law tickets.

Having sent one son into the Lok Sabha last May, it was time for Narayan Rane to get the next to enter the assembly. Ditto for Chaggan Bhujbal who thinks only his son can keep the flag flying. In the late seventies, when Indira Gandhi pushed Sanjay into politics, there were howls of protests about dynastic rule.
Sanjay’s aggressive, abrasive and autocratic ways convinced even many Congressmen that dynastic succession may not be a good thing after all.
Times have changed and these days nobody bats an eyelid when the latest offspring is unveiled on the political stage.

Some, like Rahul, are welcomed enthusiastically by partymen and he in turn has more than lived up to their expectations venturing into territories that similar English speaking public school educated “ elitists” would loathe. It is to be hoped that the new generation that is seeking power despite already enjoying all its trappings proves to be similarly worthy. Once upon a time, parties were differentiated by their ideologies. These have now blurred and parties are now known by the legacy not of their national leaders but of a few state level satraps.

Snippets/ Mail Today, July 06, 2009

THAT Union Home Minister P Chidambaram is a stern taskmaster is to state the obvious. He sets high standards and expects everyone else to keep up with these and anyone who produces results below expectations can look forward to an early dispatch to the recycle bin. Less than two months into the new government and some officers are already moving out or being moved out. As of now, there is little indication whether it is because of the pressure getting on to them or whether they are just not up to the job. But mystery surrounds the transfer of Raman Srivastava, a highly acclaimed former DGP of Kerala who was brought in Special Security ( Internal Security) a week after 26/ 11. Last week, the government appointed him as the Director General of the Border Security Force, which in bureaucratic parlance would be seen as a demotion. With the BSF’s fleet of airplanes that include the Brazilian built Embraer, Srivastava can draw some comfort from the fact that he has more flying machines at his disposal than India’s richest businessmen.

Hang together or we hang separately

AMONGST our current crop of politicians, there is no one quite like Sharad Pawar whose words and deeds are often mismatched. The occasions in the past when he flexed his muscles to eventually chicken out are far too numerous to list here but there he was last week up to his old tricks. Ten years ago, the affable, ever grinning PA Sangma had walked out of the Congress along with Pawar to form the Nationalist Congress Party, but after his daughter Agatha was made a minister in the UPA government in May, Sangma had called on Sonia Gandhi to rebuild bridges. This time, it was the slender shoulders of Sangma that Pawar chose to fire from when he got the former Lok Sabha Speaker to issue a July 15 deadline to the Congress to formalise the NCP- Congress coalition ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections due later this year. But a day later, Pawar sprang a surprise when at the inauguration of the Bandra- Worli sea link in Mumbai, he suggested that the bridge be named after Rajiv Gandhi. Chief minister Ashok Chavan found nothing wrong in promptly accepting the suggestion without even referring the matter to his cabinet. If you think this was quick decision making at the highest levels in government, perish the thought. Pawar and Chavan are guided purely by narrow self interest.

The NCP will end up as an electoral wreck without the Congress which is currently on a roll; and with former chief minister and current Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh setting his eyes once again on Mantralaya, Chavan needs Pawar to checkmate his ambitions.

Deshmukh wants the Congress to go it alone and is confident the party will come up trumps, while Pawar and Chavan have recurring nightmares about a coalition break- up handing the state to the BJP- Shiv- Sena alliance on a platter. That is a distinct possibility, if talks of reconciliation in the Thackeray family turn out to have any truth.

HERE’S further proof that many men- only bastions are crumbling one by one.
Last week, the government appointed Nirupama Rao, currently our ambassador in Beijing, to succeed Shiv Shankar Menon as the next Foreign Secretary.
It is after nearly a decade that the foreign office will have a woman at the top and soon Ms Rao will be in good sisterly company. By the end of the year, the MEA would end up having three women secretaries, as current incumbents N. Ravi will retire and Nalin Surie, is likely to be posted to London as High Commissioner. Parbati Sen Vyas is already there as secretary and one of the vacancies is expected to be filled by Vijayalata Reddy, currently ambassador in Bangkok, leaving to Vivek Katju, Special Secretary ( Pol), the job of ensuring that the once male bastion doesn’t entirely crumble. Since the UPA government gave the country its first woman President, Pratibha Patil, in 2007, the glass ceiling has been repeatedly battered.

We now have a woman Speaker, Meira Kumar, presiding over the Lok Sabha; more women were elected to the Lok Sabha this time than at any time in the past; the president’s address to the opening session of the 15th Lok Sabha announced more womencentric programmes than any previous government has done. There is only one job that is left to be regained, which for the last 25 years has been a male preserve. It’s the big one. The decision is Sonia's and so is the job.

Babri report is too much and too late

A WHOLE lot of people are nervously chewing their fingernails over the contents of the Justice Liberhan Commission report on the demolition of the Babri Masjid but there’s equal mystery shrouding the timing of its submission. It took 17 years, 48 tenure extensions and a cost of over Rs 8 crore to the exchequer before the Honourable Justice ( Retd) MS Liberhan produced his tome.

That itself is a record that is unlikely to be bettered for a long time to come. But it is speculation over its timing that raises eyebrows. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are waiting for the report to be tabled in Parliament, but it is my firm belief that the government will keep it a closely guarded secret for some time, just to add grist to the rumour mill with an eye on putting the opposition BJP, already writhing in pain from self- inflicted injuries, in total disarray. Newspaper reports have quoted sources close to the horse’s mouth and indicted LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, among others, and as long as these remain in the realm of speculation, they will be under a cloud. They will not be able to launch a counteroffensive, a prerogative they would have if the report is made public.

The Samajwadi Party will also be squirming in embarrassment since speculation centres around its latest recruit, Kalyan Singh, who was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1992 when the Masjid was brought down.
The few remaining allies of the NDA who swear by secularism, like the JD( U), will also have a rethink on supping with such friends.

Later this year, elections are due in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and possibly Haryana where chief minister BS Hooda wants to bring them forward. Don’t be surprised if within days after the poll dates are announced, the government tables the report. It can always claim that Liberhan took 17 years, and it just a few months.

Seedhi Baat / Aajtak, April 26, 2009

'लेफ्ट के बिना सरकार नहीं बन सकती'

आज तक के खास कार्यक्रम सीधी बात में राष्‍ट्रवादी कांग्रेस पार्टी के प्रमुख शरद पवार से बात की. पवार की राय में लेफ्ट की मदद के बिना सरकार नहीं बन सकती और तीसरे मोर्चे की सरकार बनना मुश्किल है.

Part 2 --> Part 3 --> Part 4 --> Part 5

Power & Politics/Mail Today, January 26, 2009

DESPITE the many false steps in the past, Sharad Pawar gives the impression of being a man who has learnt no lessons and still does not have much of an idea about choosing the right time and the right place to make the right decision. Conventional wisdom has it that with the elections almost upon us, all national parties would be busy firming up alliances and finetuning their strategies to retain or regain power. But some of the Nationalist Congress Party leaders seem to draw some thrill out of setting the cat among the pigeons.

“ Pawar is fully qualified to become the Prime Minister of India,” a senior NCP leader was quoted as saying the other day. Nobody questions that assertion. After all, this is a country which has had the misfortune of having the likes of HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral occupy the high office. Compared, Pawar is a giant. Yet, mystery surrounds that statement.

What was the need to shift the goalposts just when the game was entering stoppage time? Just a couple of weeks back, as the guest on my TV show Seedhi Baat on Aaj Tak , Pawar told me that Manmohan Singh would continue to lead the UPA into the 15th Lok Sabha elections. He was, in fact, the first senior leader from the coalition to assert that the UPA need not have to look beyond the incumbent. What then did his partymen seek to achieve by unilaterally raising the “ Pawar for PM” demand? Often in the last few months, Pawar has dropped enough hints about taking leave of electoral politics.

The NCP even announced that Supriya Sule, Pawar’s only child, would contest from Baramati, Pawar’s constituency for long. This reinforced the belief that the Grand Maratha was readying to spend the rest of his life looking after the vast vineyards that he owns and the somewhat lesser pluckings from the International Cricket Council, of which he is to take over as President next year.

My guess is that Pawar, who feels absolutely comfortable working with Manmohan, has reasons to suspect the Congress’ commitment to project the genial sardar as its prime ministerial candidate in the impending campaign. Manmohan’s heart condition has only reinforced these suspicions. Who then? There are any number of claimants: Lalu Yadav, Pranab Mukherjee, why Rahul Gandhi himself. When Manmohan went in for heart surgery on Saturday, the government scattered his responsibilities amongst half a dozen cabinet colleagues, yet another indication of the confusion within the party. A Congressman for long, Pawar knows how to milk such confusion for his own benefit.

Apart from numerous Congress leaders who may choose to back him over so many others from their own party, he is also banking on the excellent rapport that he has with several regional chieftains — N Chandrababu Naidu, Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, Prafulla Mahanta, to name just a few. When push comes to shove, they will back him. It is a strategy that may well pay off.
But a Congress friend tells me that reports about the “ Pawar for PM” demand setting off alarm bells in the Congress are exaggerated and that the NCP strategy was aimed at nothing more than extracting a few more seats for the party which currently has just 11 members. He could be proved wrong. My guess is that Pawar will get the seats he seeks from the coalition. I won’t be surprised if his political skills still carry the day.

Sharad Pawar on Aajtak, November 10, 2008

"People do not support Raj Thackeray"

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar says on Aajtak that people from different parts of India stay together in Mumbai as Mumbaikars.

Watch video: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5 and part 6