Just how many Janata parties are there? Far too many to keep count of. There is the Janata Dal (United) of Sharad Yadav, the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Yadav, the Janata Dal (Secular) of Deve Gowda, the Samajwadi Janata Party of Chandra Shekhar and the Janata Party of Subramaniam Swamy. Other breakaway factions of the Janata Parivar, such as Samata, Samajwadi and Lok Janshakti parties, have simply dropped the ‘J’ word altogether.Six months back, Deve Gowda and S.R. Bommai felt it was time to bury the hatchet and re-unite with their old rival from Karnataka, R.K. Hegde, who heads the Lok Shakti party. Later, Gowda had second thoughts, but Bommai went ahead with the merger on his own. The Hegde-Bommai combine, which includes the party’s most solid asset, liquor baron Vijay Mallya, named itself the All India Janata Dal (AIJD). But the JD(U) and the JD(S) petitioned the Election Commissioner objecting to the new name on the grounds that it would confuse voters. To retain the Janata name, the Hegde-Bommai party made up with another longtime foe, Subramaniam Swamy, who controls the symbol and name of the original Janata Party. In the new merger between Swamy’s party and the Hegde-Bommai group, Mallya will be the working president, but who gets to be the actual president is still uncertain.Paki PoopersThe Indian government was represented at the Pakistan Day reception in Delhi last week by a mere joint secretary and director from the MEA. Apart from Indian officialdom, other high profile Indians also boycotted the function in view of the massacre of 24 Pandits in Kashmir that morning. The Indians who showed up for the tea were largely from the Delhi press corps. The Pakistanis, whether deliberately or by way of economy, served Pepsi Blue, a variety of Coke meant to toast the Indian cricket team’s victories at the World Cup. Considering that India had lost the finals to Australia just a day earlier, the choice of drink seemed rather inappropriate.The main topic of conversation was the American invasion of Iraq. A US diplomat was heard commenting crossly that in a nation of one billion the only two politicians who seemed to have the guts to speak out freely were Subramaniam Swamy and Praveen Togadia — both have unequivocally backed the US stand on Iraq.Parivar WoesWhile media pundits are ever ready to see the ubiquitous RSS hand behind the BJP decisions, they ignored the interesting fact that the recent organisational upheavals in the RSS were inspired largely by the BJP. The PM has long been unhappy with RSS Sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudershan who makes no attempt to hide his antagonism towards Vajpayee and his Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra. Vajpayee’s response to Sudershan’s open warfare and embarrassing public statements was more subtle. He simply avoided inviting the RSS to discuss issues of governance. The RSS leadership got the PM’s message, but their dilemma was that under the rules a Sarsanghchalak can be removed only if he steps down voluntarily.An interesting strategy has been evolved to tackle the ticklish problem. Although Sudarshan continues officially as Sarsanghchalak and Mohan Bhagwat as general secretary, it has been discretely leaked to the media that the latter really calls the shots and was responsible for the recent changes in the organisation. Since this silent coup, it is significant that Vajpayee has been meeting RSS leaders more frequently than before.A Sorry PassLabour Minister Sahib Singh Verma misbehaved with the Jet Airways staff, including the lady in charge of customer relations, but it was the Jet Airways which apologised profusely to the minister the next day, rather than the other way around. Singh does not believe in saying sorry. Some months back, at a staff meeting, the minister publicly insulted an Additional Secretary rank woman IAS officer, who was in charge of the Employees State Insurance Scheme, for doing her duty. Singh was furious because the officer insisted that doctors could be recruited by the ministry only after a written exam. Despite Singh’s browbeating, the Additional Secretary stuck to her position, explaining that she had not framed the rules and that she was merely implementing them. She was abruptly transferred although her tenure was not over. The government did not want to upset the influential Jat leader from Delhi.Secret AdvantageIt is doubtful whether the public will ever get to know the full truth about the ghastly elevator accident in the RAW building in which Deputy Secretary Vipin Handa lost his life. Though an internal inquiry has been ordered, its findings will be strictly confidential for RAW manages to keep all its activities, even those unconnected with national security, top secret. The Delhi Police and the Fire Brigade were not permitted to enter the 13-storied RAW building immediately after the lift accident. A curious aspect of the tragedy is that over a year back, RAW Chief Vikram Sood got trapped in an elevator. After this a new lift was installed, meant exclusively for the use of the head of RAW and very senior officers. This was the same lift in which Handa got stuck.
