Letter From Delhi: Early parliament polls still a live issue

Never mind the denials, the BJP leadership has not abandoned the idea of advancing the Lok Sabha poll. It is still very keen to hold the general elections early next year. One view is that the government should go in for a vote-on-account in mid-January and then dissolve the House and go for the election sometime in late February.

The party believes that good governance will stay on hold until the necessary though distracting business of election is put behind it. Besides, the fear of opposition unity and the dissipation of the anti-incumbency mood in the States scheduled to elect new Assemblies later this year would make the BJP's re-election task difficult if the Lok Sabha polls are held as scheduled in late 2004.

BJP leaders informally discussed the early poll idea at their recent Chintan Baithak near Mumbai.

Senior RSS functionary, Madan Dal Devi, who liaises with the Government on behalf of all the Sangh parivar outfits, is reportedly not adverse to the idea of advancing the LS polls.

But the final decision was left to the BJP leaders who, in turn, will await the outcome of the forthcoming polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi before deciding to go for an early general election.

As mentioned in this column two weeks ago, the BJP leadership is also keen to push through a constitutional amendment in order to synchronise the Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections.

Mrs Gandhi had de-linked these elections back in 1971 and ever since the country has had to pay a heavy price insofar as the unending cycle of elections in one or the other State has imposed undue costs, financial and otherwise, on the nation.

However the BJP cannot expect to make any headway in this regard without the active cooperation of the Congress Party which controls a vast majority of the State Governments. As of now, the Congress is not warming up to the idea of simultaneous elections since it suspects the BJP's motives.

Wanted: Another RNG

It is normal for politicians, especially of the ruling variety, to have their favourite scribes. They get the invites to dine at the high table at official dos and also get to travel with the prime minister on his all-too-frequent visits abroad. But industrial houses maintaining a negative list of media persons is a new in this country.

Given the huge ad spends of the top corporate houses, their bosses, increasingly, are beginning to interfere in what till the other day was a purely editorial function.

Only the other day a political journalist who makes no bones about his less-than-appreciative views on the rise and rise of a controversial industrial house had had his long-time column stopped by two prestigious media outlets.

Yet another newspaper was brusquely told that it will have to choose between the ads from the company or the said journalist's weekly column. Predictably, it lost no time in terminating the use of the column.

As for the columnist in question, well, he continues unfazed, unwilling to bend before the power of the moneybags.

Mr Simplicity

For Virender Sehwag there is no life outside of his passion, cricket. The ace Indian opener now playing for an English county for big bucks, in all honesty claimed to be unaware of the existence of Time, arguably the world's best known weekly magazine. He gave the run-around to its correspondent for days on end, saying that he was clueless about the magazine.

And upon being told about it, said that he would rather be on the cover of Sports Illustrated than Time.

Eventually, he agreed to be interviewed by Time only on the condition that its correspondent talk to him while he flew from Delhi to Mumbai on a cricketing assignment.

A few weeks later when he found his mug on the cover of the famous magazine, he told senior cricket managers that he did not know he was that important a person.

Musical chairs

Indira Gandhi kept a close watch on her ministers who lived in the fear of the sack. Anyone who did not find favour with her found himself dumped unceremoniously.

One of the crucial tools she employed to keep a watch on her ministerial colleagues was the secretary in respective ministries.

While ministers could choose junior officers, the appointment of secretaries was always the prerogative of the then prime minister.

But now ministers have become so emboldened that they pick and choose their own secretaries, thus denting their loyalty to the PMO and the Cabinet Secretary.

That was why the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, was able to ease out her Secretary, V.S. Lakshi Ratan, a 1967 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, within a couple of weeks of his taking charge.

Ratan was Secretary, Planning Commission, before being inducted into the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry last month.

No reason was assigned for his summary removal, though in the bureaucratic circles the buzz is that he was not suitably deferential to the Minister who has a rather high opinion of herself.

Also, his application to take leave for a few days in order to attend a private family ceremony during the coming monsoon session of parliament riled Swaraj so much that she instantaneously dismissed him.

Ratan has gone back to the Planning Commission, his place in parliamentary affairs ministry having been given to V. K. Agnihotri, a 1968 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer.

Businesslike dinner

Then there is this Indian Ambassador in a western country who invited Vajpayee and his foster family, and of course, the all-powerful Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Brajesh Mishra, for dinner but forgot the existence of two senior Cabinet ministers who were travelling with the Prime Minister.

Or maybe he thought, rightly, that his rise up the greasy pole of diplomatic babudom depended on Vajpayee and Mishra and not the two ministers.

Not-so-Laloo

Bihar chieftain and the RJD boss, Laloo Prasad Yadav, is known for his earthy sense of humour. Also, he has cultivated a nonchalant rural style in speech and mannerisms which the urban-centric media happily laps up, thus enhancing further the Laloo Yadav brand.

The other day in the Central Hall of Parliament Laloo caused great mirth when he told Kanti Singh, the RJD MP, when she approached to sit next to him.

"Arrey, hum so parrey baitha karo, log kahtey hain hamare sambandh hain" ( You should sit away from me since people say that we are rather close.)