Inside Track

Sharad Pawar was all set to prevent Atal Behari Vajpayee taking over as Prime Minister by wooing away a disgruntled Jayalalitha, who had departed for Chennai charging the BJP leadership with leaking her real demands to the Press in order to embarrass her. But the mercurial Jayalalitha changed her mind once again and opted to support the Vajpayee Government when she learnt that Sonia Gandhi had formally taken over as leader of the Congress party.

With Sonia coming upfront as Congress supremo, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu’s resolve to remain neutral in the vote of confidence was further strengthened.The BJP, after its initial holy horror over Jayalalitha’s hard-to-meet conditions, ended up being politically more savvy in dealing with her.

Vajpayee dispatched JaswantSingh to Chennai as his emissary to make the point that even under a finance minister other than Subramanian Swamy, Jayalalitha’s private agenda of settling scores with her DMK-TMC rivals and getting her own cases withdrawn could still be met.

Business interests

Jaswant Singh’s appointment as finance minister was thwarted at the very last minute thanks to the high-pressure tactics mounted by those in the party close to a powerful business house against whom Singh had registered a case during his 13 days in government in 1996. Even the RSS was galvanised into action. The business house in question seems in fact to have gained as large a representation in the Vajpayee Cabinet as Jayalalitha, including the Petroleum Ministry. As a sop to the other side in the on-going corporate warfare, Ram Jethmalani was suddenly included in the ministerial list, though his official party, the Shiv Sena, was not exactly pushing for him, and the obvious law portfolio was already booked by Jayalalitha. The Bombaybusiness lobby also had its way in ensuring that the Maneka Gandhi was denied her favourite portfolio of environment. It has gone to Suresh Prabhu of the Sena whose party is pressing for environmental clearance for the Bombay-Kurla highway and scaling down Melghat sanctuary.

Chastened courtiers

Poor Sharad Pawar’s glum face on Monday in Central Hall was more eloquent than any words that the taciturn Maratha chieftain could have muttered. Pawar had assumed he had succeeded in allaying Sonia’s suspicions and that he would be allowed to be the Opposition leader and potential prime ministerial candidate on behalf of his party. On television he confidently brushed aside suggestions of the nomination of a chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party since there was no such position under the party constitution.

Pranab Mukherjee who had assumed that he would be made the leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha and not Manmohan Singh also looked crest-fallen. Even Arjun Singh who claims specialproximity to Sonia was unnerved by the sudden attention she paid to P.V. Narasimha Rao though she drew the line at calling Rao to sit on the dais. Singh and M.L. Fotedar greeted Rao with folded hands disregarding the bad blood between them. As for Sitaram Kesri, his pouts and tears of two days earlier were forgotten and he meekly followed Sonia like a puppy dog as she moved down the aisle greeting MPs.

Too scared to squeak

At Sonia’s coronation ceremony, a Congress MP bore a huge bouquet hoping to attract special notice. But he went to the toilet for a few moments, and returned to find his bouquet sadly depleted since his party colleagues had pinched most of his buds so that they could pay their floral tributes to Sonia as well. Those who have been left out of the six-member co-ordination committee set up by Sonia grumble privately that the panel is packed with drawing-room politicians with no representation for OBCs, SC/STs, women or Muslims. But no one dares to tell Sonia directly, particularlyas they are ushered into her presence rarely if at all.

For the same reason, Congressmen are too intimidated to warn Sonia that the elegant brown shatoosh shawl she wore frequently during the poll campaign is not just politically incorrect but may even be illegal. The sale of the hugely expensive shatoosh shawls made from wool of the endangered Tibetan antelope is banned.

Re-inventing Sonia

For years Sonia’s close family friends have been asking the media to leave her in peace protesting that the poor lady hated politics and was very protective about her privacy. But despite the protests, there were enough signals to point to the contrary. Sonia’s faithful secretary Vincent George tipped off select journalists every time a VIP came visiting 10 Janpath, Sonia prayed at a samadhi or graced a function. Sonia didn’t dislike publicity per se but merely wanted it on her terms, without the irreverent prying that most politicians are subjected to. Now even the pretence that Sonia dislikes politics hasbeen forgotten. Her official biography says that Sonia was always deeply interested in politics and had frequent discussions with Indira Gandhi on the subject.