No Middlemen

With the Congress searching desperately for allies, the CPM’s Harkishen Singh Surjeet climbed out of the woodwork to offer his services...

With the Congress searching desperately for allies, the CPM’s Harkishen Singh Surjeet climbed out of the woodwork to offer his services as an ‘‘honest broker.’’ Surjeet may have been successful as an intermediary with Karunanidhi but he was snubbed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was expected to be a key ally in a Congress-led front. Mulayam made it clear that he was keeping his options open till after the general elections and to demonstrate his neutrality he called on Prime Minister Vajpayee and George Fernandes on the very same day he met Surjeet.

The Samajwadi Party hardly needs Surjeet’s services when it has its in-house broker Amar Singh, who has conclusively demonstrated that he is the master of the game. Besides, Mulayam has not forgiven Surjeet for denying him the prime ministership during the United Front government. Mulayam was promised that he would replace Deve Gowda as PM, but at the eleventh hour Surjeet, thanks to Laloo Yadav’s persuasion, sneakily installed Inder Kumar Gujral instead. By the time Mulayam woke up to the doublecross Surjeet had flown off to Moscow claiming that he had to attend an urgent party conference and could not be contacted.

UP’s Bombay Club

Amar Singh and his gang, which includes the Bachchans, the Ambanis, the Godrejes and the Subrato Roys, celebrated the New Year in Dubai. The gang is as close knit as ever and they have all been appointed advisers on the UP Vikas Parishad now that Mulayam Singh is chief minister of the state. The BJP’s Lalji Tandon complains that the development committee has no constitutional status, having been formed by an administrative order and the advisers or their relatives are all direct beneficiaries of state schemes. He also carps that apart from Roy none of the committee members lives in UP, all are Mumbai-based.

Official Junket

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Joint parliamentary committees on the official language have always been a favourite with MPs because of the opportunities they provide for foreign junkets. Committee members globetrot on the excuse that they have to check to what extent Hindi is being propagated by our missions abroad. The 13th Lok Sabha’s official language committee has outdone its predecessors. A programme has been drawn between January 26 and February 14, three separate groups of the 24 member committee will fly abroad in three different directions. The MPs will be touring five continents and cynics say the expenditure to the government after taking into account first class fares, accommodation and free transport could work out to almost a crore per MP, though for the record the amount will be pegged much lower.

Birthday Line-op

The line-up of VIPs to greet Prime Minister Vajpayee on his 79th birthday last week was impressive. Former presidents K R Narayanan and R Venkatraman, former prime ministers, I K Gujral and Narasimha Rao plus sundry chief ministers, central ministers, governors and other high-ranking dignitaries were among those who called on the PM. Party president Venkaiah Naidu acted as the master of ceremonies with a running commentary at the Panchvati Hall of Race Course Road.

Apart from bouquets the most popular gift for the birthday boy were pictures of Krishna. Some had more individualistic offerings. Sahib Singh Verma presented a pagree, Prakash Jawdekar announced that he had distributed ten lakh copies of Vajpayee’s poems. The PM did not appear impressed with the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati’s gift of a spoonful of prasad from Ujjain. Haryana Chief Minister came armed with a sculpture of a tree and a conch. Vajpayee put the musical instrument to his lips and blew but no sound emanated despite three attempts. Sycophants standing around dismissed the conch as a bad piece, even as Chautala tried to protest that the instrument was not at fault.

Fashionable Line

An inter-ministerial committee to discuss a venture capital fund for Bollywood with the Planning Commission’s ubiquitous N K Singh as chairman has been set up at the behest of I and B minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Though this year’s Exim Policy has recognised that the Indian film industry is a thrust sector for exports, little has been done to professionalise funding for the high risk industry which often depends on the underworld. The committee includes representatives from the I and B, finance and commerce ministries. Shahnawaz Husain has demanded that his textile ministry should be included and the fashion industry should be part of the agenda. His argument that fashion and films are inextricably linked has been accepted.

No Room at Top

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Shankuntala Mahawal was elevated to the rank of senior additional Principal Information Officer just a month back. Despite her promotion as the second most senior official in the Press Information Bureau hierarchy, she has not been provided an office room in keeping with her new status despite several reminders to the government. Mahawal has now written a letter of protest stating that she will take up her administrative responsibilities only after she is provided suitable office space. The snag is that there are only two very large rooms in the PIB at Shastri Bhavan, one is occupied by the PIO and the other by Sudheendra Kulkarni, the media adviser to the PM. Kulkarni may be junior in rank, but thanks to his proximity to Vajpayee, no one wants to disturb him.