Inside Track

The Prime Minister’s Office in turn is upset with the RAW for its completely wrong assessment of the political situation in Pakistan. For over a year, even during I.K. Gujral’s tenure, the RAW has been providing intelligence reports suggesting that Nawaz Sharif is a very weak prime minister who will be overthrown by the Army. But Sharif, on the contrary, threw out hisArmy chief, and the Indian Government was caught napping.

List of who’s who

Political games are rife in the Romesh Sharma affair and it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. An official-looking list bearing 48 names of politicians, including three former prime ministers, key bureaucrats, police officers, six journalists and two industrialists, has been leaked by the Home Ministry to a few select correspondents. In no other investigation have the sleuths shown such super efficiency as to meticulously compile a master list of possible contacts and witnesses with such lightning speed! Since the names, whether true or false, are making the rounds, the question is who is out to embarrass some of the most powerful men in the Capital?Home Minister L.K. Advani talked tough about getting to the bottom of Sharma’s political and criminal nexus, but that was before the maverick Delhi Police officer Amod Kanth, on his own steam, got a case registered under the Official Secrets Act against topReliance official V. Balasubramanian. For once, both the Home Minister and the Prime Minister seem to be on the same side. The Official Secrets Act case was immediately transferred from the New Delhi Police to the Crime Branch and now to the CBI, which means it will have a quiet burial.

Already those who matter in the Government claim that there was no great violation of the Official Secrets Act and, anyway, just about every paper in the Government of India is marked top secret, even a minister’s tour programme. But a deep throat reveals that the papers seized from the Reliance office include consultations on proposals for disinvestment in public sector undertakings — information which only some half-a-dozen people were privy to.

Advani, who scrupulously keeps a distance from business houses in general, is perhaps being swayed in this case by three of his close aides. One still works for an Ambani company, while the second is a friend of Balasubramanian and accompanied him to several houses ofpoliticians on election eve.

Gross misjudgement

The acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Mahinder Narain, suffered a heart attack last month in New York while attending a law conference there. Narain was rushed to a hospital for by-pass surgery. A month later, the file dealing with the judge’s hospital bills is still shuttling between the finance, law and health ministries. The babus are quibbling over whether the hospital in question is on the Government’s approved list, whether the judge was on duty and so on. Though Narain has recovered, he cannot leave the hospital without the settlement of his bill, putting him in an embarrassing position. Thanks to the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Indian Embassy in Washington has finally agreed to make the payment, even though the relevant clearance is pending.

Considering the outcry after the death of Chief Justice Sabyasachi Mukherjee in London from a heart attack, one assumed that by now the bureaucacy would have learnt alesson in dealing more speedily with such sensitive matters.

Two-in-one plan

Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi ensured that his junior minister, Uma Bharati, had little work and less authority in the ministry. Joshi and Bharati were in constant conflict. But now Joshi is ardently advocating Bharati’s case for taking over the chief ministership of Madhya Pradesh should the BJP win. Joshi feels that this will kill two birds with one stone. On one hand, the redoubtable and persistent sanyasin will be out of his hair. On the other, with an OBC installed as a BJP chief minister in Madhya Pradesh, it is easier to make out a case for dislodging another BJP OBC Chief Minister from Uttar Pradesh, Joshi’s bete noire Kalyan Singh.

Feeling neglected

Minister of State for Finance R. Janarthanan has been complaining loudly that he wants to step down as minister since no one gives him any respect. Even the special secretary in the ministry, Mohan Guruswamy, is treated with moredeference, he grouses. After AIADMK boss Jayalalitha took up his complaint with Minister of Finance Yashwant Sinha, he has instructed his officials that no file should reach him without first being sent to Janarthanan.