Power & Politics/ Mail Today, April 27, 2009

HALF of India has already voted in the two rounds of elections held so far and three more rounds remain. We will have to wait till May 16 — or perhaps considerably longer — to know who our next rulers are. But one thing is certain: this is the dirtiest Lok Sabha campaign ever and the level of debate has alternated between the gutter and the sewer.

There is more than one reason for this. The first and obvious one is because all parties acknowledge that this election will be among the closest we have had since Indians began electing their rulers in 1952. Nobody is taking anything for granted and everyone is going for everyone else’s jugular. The second is because this is the first “ presidential” style election where the two biggest parties announced their prime ministerial candidates long before the first vote was cast. And the third is that the 15th Lok Sabha poll has become a TV election.

It was the BJP’s LK Advani who set both the style and the pace for this race, taking to the roads and the skies as early as six months ago, criss- crossing the country in chartered jets and choppers and touching down on some of the remotest areas of the country, a TV crew from either a national or regional channel and a handful of print journalists in tow. Not a day goes by without Advani appearing on one of the channels, holding forth from above 40,000 ft in his Hawker Beechcraft executive jet.

Even Manmohan Singh, who is normally publicity shy, is suddenly discovering merits in the media. In his five years as PM, he has addressed just one formal press conference. At other interactions, journalists are carefully chosen and the questioners handpicked. But suddenly, the prime minister is also turning media friendly. His recent heart surgery does not allow him to campaign as much as his managers would have wanted him to. He still travels a lot but, unlike his rival, never takes journalists along on his trips across the country. Though Advani challenged him to a TV debate, the prime minister ducked it and instead takes him on via press briefings and short TV interviews to select channels.

These have been mostly defensive exercises in response to Advani’s pointed attacks. Senior Congress managers then advised him to open up and in the past fortnight, he has really cosied up to the media. He hosted Delhi’s women’s press corps for high tea, invited a few senior editors for an off the record briefing and even hung around with journalists for over an hour at a book release function last week. Not being a man of the masses, he seems to be taking his message to them through the media. His efforts are complimented by Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka. Until about a month back, it was inconceivable that they would be so accessible to the media, but suddenly all three are on all major TV channels and it is not difficult to see why. With crowds staying away from campaign meetings, all of them think the medium is the message. But the low polling — some key constituencies recorded as low as 45 percent — indicates they are vastly overrating the power of the media.

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

Snippets/ Mail Today, April 27, 2009

WHETHER Advani’s long cherished dream of becoming prime minister will be fulfilled remains to be seen, but one thing is certain. He has set the agenda for the campaign and the ruling party’s reactions have been more like afterthought. Last Friday came the latest of the Congress party’s responses to an Advani offensive. In an interview in Guwahati, Manmohan Singh, who has been in office for exactly 1,798 days as I write this, has sought another 100 days to put the economy back on the rails, make people feel secure, and, get ready for this, bring back that huge cache of money that wealthy Indians have stashed away in Swiss accounts. The last, you will remember, was a demand initiated by Advani and seconded by Narendra Modi. Now Manmohan has promised to do that, though considering that much of the money is held by politicians and their industrialist friends, you can be sure there will be a wide gap between promise and deliverance.

All eyes are on Rahul Gandhi’s whiz kids

AS the dust of this nastiest of elections settles in about three weeks’ time, the Congress party will be anxious not just about the overall outcome but about the R- factor. The fate of a core group of Rahul’s favourites is being eagerly watched by senior Congress leaders who have little doubt that in the next Lok Sabha elections, it will be the young Nehru- Gandhi scion whom the party will project as its prime minister.

But for that to happen, much will hinge on the fate of Rahul’s core group, all in their 30s or early 40s. Their victory is essential for Rahul to establish his credentials as a leader and a vote catcher.

Milind Deora, Jiten Prasada, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Dipender Hooda, Sandeep Dikshit, Sachin Pilot, Manish Tewari and Raninder Singh, son of the former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, are among those who are part of Rahul’s inner circle. Like him, most of them are second or third generation politicians who have risen to positions of power without having to work for it.

Though Rahul has personally campaigned in their constituencies, nobody is taking victory for granted. That is because the delimitation exercise has altered the demographic profile of their constituencies. If the UPA continues in office, those who come through will be in the next government. That automatically rules out several of the old guard returning as ministers. I am told some of them are hoping that a few of the young ones bite the election dust.

WITH every election, the cosy relationship between minister and bureaucrat comes under strain as both begin to worry about the future. Ministers worry about re- election and being back in office; bureaucrats, especially in Lutyens’ Delhi, worry because their future is linked with the way the electoral wind blows. With most ministers busy in their constituencies, I thought babus will be sitting back and taking it easy.

But debunking conventional preelection wisdom, I found bureaucrats hard at work during a couple of recent visits to North and South Blocks. It’s normal election eve practice for bureaucrats to do a review of the outgoing government’s performance and prepare a brief for the incoming government. Five years ago, when all opinion polls pointed to the NDA continuing in power, babus’ audits were full of praise for the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. When the UPA became the surprise winner, many of them were made to pay the price, shunted off to obscure postings. So this time, they are taking no chances. A senior bureaucrat told me that most of them are preparing two totally divergent sets of notes — one singing hosannas for the government and the other a stinging critique.

Funnily enough, babus in the economic ministries are falling back on the same set of documents and dismal statistics — the four economic surveys presented by this government, 10 per cent fiscal deficit, 20 per cent export decline, low infrastructure growth, high unemployment — to paint a picture of ministerial ineptitude as well as to show the mantrijis as administrative supermen. Politicians may be at the receiving end of voters’ wrath but for the bureaucrats, it is a winwin situation. The double work they put in is bound to pay off.

The idiot box has a lot of power

STRANGELY, even the Communists are veering round to the belief that the right media exposure is as potent a tool as committed cadres. Comrade Prakash Karat’s CPI( M) owns a couple of TV channels and his extended family a handful more but so far he has showed zero- tolerance for the press. The odd times that he deigns, the media are invited to that run- down edifice called the AKG Bhavan in Gole Market, the insides of which, in true Communist tradition, look more like an interrogation chamber than a national party’s headquarters.

Comrade Karat has discovered that the media can be a useful ally in his efforts to reach out to voters beyond the party’s bastions of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. The Left is likely to see fewer of its candidates returned this time from these states as compared to five years ago and they hope to make up the numbers from other states where alliances have been sewn up. That Karat is now beginning to concede the power of the idiot box is evident from the fact that he is ready to brave Delhi’s chaotic traffic to hop from TV studio to TV studio, a job that until now belonged exclusively to Sitaram Yechury. The comrade apparently believes that no government can be formed at the Centre without the CPI( M)’ s support and with too many prime ministerial aspirants from the Third and Fourth fronts, the CPI( M) supremo, I am told, fancies his chances as a possible consensus candidate.

Good luck to him.

As indeed to Jayalalithaa who probably thinks that the only thing that stands between her and the prime ministership is the free and vibrant press. She too is suddenly wooing the media, flying in TV journalists from Delhi at her expense for “ exclusive” interviews and making her Poes Garden residence in Chennai as open a house as a NSG protectee's could be. I am sure other pathological media bashers are also converting. The only one who won’t is Mayawati. She has as much use for the media as she has for Mulayam.

Seedhi Baat / Aajtak, April 19, 2009

'Withdrawal of Tytler's ticket right'

In an interview on Seedhi Baat, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit says party withdrew Jagdish Tytler's ticket as it listened to the people.

Part2 ; Part3 ; Part4 ; Part5

समय पर होंगे कॉमनवेल्‍थ खेल: शीला

आज तक के कार्यक्रम सीधी बात में दिल्‍ली की मुख्‍यमंत्री शीला दीक्षित ने कहा कि 2010 में दिल्‍ली में होने वाले कॉमनवेल्‍थ खेल समय पर ही होंगे. टाइटलर के मामले में उन्‍होंने कहा कि इसे जानबूझकर मुद्दा बनाया गया. शीला ने कहा कि सर्वसम्‍मति से ही टाइटलर से टिकट वापस लिया गया.
टाइटलर मामले को मुद्दा बनाया गया: शीला

Power & Politics / Mail Today, April 20, 2009

A FEW weeks ago, Lal Kishan Advani made an impassioned plea for bringing the nearly US $ 1.4 trillion ( Rs 50 lakh crore) that rich and/ or corrupt Indians have stashed away abroad. Indians with tonnes of cash have always kept large chunks of it in Swiss banks and in tax havens in tiny isles across Europe.

So why is the BJP’s prime minister in waiting suddenly raking up the issue? His critics say his main fundraisers have promised much but delivered little, which is not surprising considering that it is a cash crunch season. Coming as it did in the run- up to the elections, major political parties are feeling the pinch.

The normally reliable benefactors — top flight industrialists — are struggling to save their bottom lines and have either disappeared or politely folded their hands and expressed helplessness. The other reliable provider — the real estate sector, where the colour of money is mostly black — is in distress and needs a bailout for itself.

A recent study showed that, apart from expenses run up by the Election Commission, political parties will spend close to Rs 4,000 crore while individual candidates will account for thousands of crore more during the 15th Lok Sabha polls. Under existing rules, companies are forbidden from making political donations in excess of five percent of their profits but politicians had always managed to find a way around and extract money in a way that it was not reflected in the balance sheets.

More than a decade ago, one of India’s most trusted business houses had drawn a corpus from all its group companies and created a trust to give political donations to the major political parties. By that yardstick, the Congress and the BJP would have got about Rs 5 crore from the industrial house.

That sum isn’t enough to run half a campaign in one constituency. In recent times, the more aggressive players in sunshine sectors like telecom, pharma etc also formally entered the field of political funding. I know of at least two such houses which have set aside Rs 2 lakh each for candidates contesting in areas where their business interests lie. For regional leaders like Jayalalithaa, Deve Gowda, Lalu Prasad or Naveen Patnaik whose parties contest a maximum of 30 seats, Rs 60 lakhs amounts to small change. Election Commission rules put a cap of Rs 25 lakh expenditure per candidate but it is no secret that no serious contender would enter the fray without setting aside at least Rs 10 crore for campaign expenses.

Of late, following sustained pressure from the regional leaders, some of the “ new business” leaders have been loosening their purse strings. One of them explained the logic to me thus.
Whoever forms the next government, allies will demand and get key portfolios like telecom, health, civil aviation, forest and environment, company affairs, steel and mines and others. Instead of doling out small amounts to large numbers of candidates of the national parties, it makes good business sense to splash liberally on lesser number of candidates from the smaller parties.

So while the national parties are scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep their campaigns going, smaller outfits have enough money to contest elections and still have some money to even buy an IPL cricket team. Governments may change, but some parties stay permanently in power. No wonder it is the small parties which are getting big money.

Snippets/ Mail Today, April 20, 2009

There is certainly a touch of pathos in watching George Fernandes going around the Muzaffarpur constituency in Bihar in a rickshaw seeking votes in his bid to enter the Lok Sabha. With one time good friend Sharad Yadav and his protégé Nitish Kumar banishing him, George, the demon slayer, is fighting as an independent and reports have it that he is gaining a lot of sympathy votes. The JD( U) leadership is worried since most observers say its candidate Jainarayan Nishad should consider himself lucky if he comes fourth. A desperate Nitish has requested his friends in the BJP’s B team to ask Advani to persuade George, the finest symbol of anti- Congressism, to withdraw for the cause of defeating the Grand Old Party and its fair- weather friends. It is doubtful if Advani will intervene but should he attempt it, my instincts tell me George, as much as he hates to do it, will rebuff his old friend.

CPI( M)’ s dirty tricks fail to deter Jaswant

AS A holiday destination, outsiders have always been attracted to Darjeeling and the scenic hill resort has welcomed visitors warmly. Now the place looks all set to elect an outsider and the unlikely candidate is the former NDA minister Jaswant Singh.

Actually, it should come as no surprise because Singh is an ex- army man and I presume the predominantly martial people of this constituency will welcome anyone who has ever worn a uniform. But the real reason why Singh is likely to win is because the Gurkha Janmukti Morcha is backing his candidature, in return for the BJP’s promise to take a “ sympathetic view” of their demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

With the GJM’s popular leader Bimal Gurung backing Jaswant, victory is almost certainly his. The arrival of the Washington friendly Singh — he claims to have been on first name terms with the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others — has the CPI( M) seething with rage. But if the party’s famed dirty tricks department had lived up to its reputation, Singh may not even have been in the race. His nomination papers were almost rejected because he had failed to attach the mandatory letter from the state president of his party and had only submitted the official letter from the central office which was signed by BJP chief Rajnath Singh.

The state BJP unit was immediately alerted and the relevant papers signed by the state unit chief Satyabrat Mukherjee were soon readied. Two party workers travelled by road for over 16 hours to make the 650 km plus road journey from Kolkata to Darjeeling. The CPI( M) party faithful who are said to have moles in every other political outfit failed to detect or capture the couriers. All is not lost however. They can still capture the booths.

TWO weeks ago, LK Advani released the please- all BJP manifesto. He had then stated that the National Democratic Alliance would release its manifesto by April 16 after BJP leaders discussed its finer points with alliance partners. The day has come and gone and there is still no sign of it. It is not as if the coalition partners — or whoever is left in it — are unable to find a common meeting ground.

It is just that Nitish Kumar is playing hooky once again. When, on his behalf, Advani’s aides broached the subject with the Bihar chief minister, Kumar brusquely told them that since the BJP had already announced its manifesto without consulting its partners, he did not feel the need for releasing a common manifesto at this juncture. And he added for good measure that an Agenda for Governance can be thrashed out among the partners after the results are out.
Considering that as recently as three weeks ago, Nitish had stated that his JD( U) was in the NDA, but only “ as of now”, this sounded like an ominous early warning of several possibilities.
One could be that he seriously believes that the numbers will favour the alliance in which case he expects more parties to come into the NDA fold. The chances of that happening appear very slim and the more likely scenario is Nitish is waiting to jump ship once the final tally becomes clear on May 16. Now that even Manmohan Singh has begun to praise Nitish, the chances of this happening cannot be minimised.

Exactly five years ago, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had released the NDA manifesto and the BJP’s resident sloganeerpar- excellence Venkiah Naidu was quick to come out with the memorable one liner “ BJP ka Jhanda, NDA Ka Agenda ”. From the current frosty relations, it appears to be “ BJP Ka Jhanda, NDA Thanda ” this time.

Jaya can swing either way

ALL HER political life, she has been watched and analysed like few others and with the elections now kicking off, every move Jayalalithaa makes and every word she utters will be watched and analysed like never before. Since that day in 1998 when she pulled the AIADMK out of the NDA triggering the collapse of the Vajpayee government, the tag “ unpredictable” has stuck to her.
Speculation is now swirling around the political market place about the path she is likely to choose if, as is widely expected, the AIADMK gets the better of the DMK in these elections.
She has played a gracious host at parties aimed at reviving the Third Front and the party manifesto she released on Friday had elements that clearly show her party’s views converging with the Left’s: she is all for scrapping the Indo- US nuclear deal, she would not allow disinvestment in PSUs.

Yet parts of the same manifesto have enough to warm the cockles of the BJP’s heart: on the Ram temple, her views are similar to that of the BJP; like the BJP, she wants tough and specific anti- terror laws; she has also echoed Advani’s demand to bring back the money Indians have stashed away in Swiss banks. Her support for the last is based on her belief that DMK ministers account for a fair bit of that cash. Even the Congress is not ruled out. She would even agree to sup with the party if the Congress concedes her demand and dismisses the DMK government.
If she gets considerably more seats than the DMK, the Grand Old Party won’t think twice about sacking Karunanidhi and getting her on board as it did in 1991.

History may be waiting to be repeated.