Quick-change artiste

When actress Smriti Malhotra Iraani’s name was about to be announced as the BJP candidate from Chandni Chowk, Sushma Swaraj phoned BJP president Venkaiah Naidu to protest. She felt that a bania candidate should be selected instead since Delhi’s Walled City has a high percentage of the trading community. Naidu, after getting the nod from Advani, cleared Smriti’s name anyway. Actually Swaraj was probably more concerned over the threat of a potential rival in the party than the BJP’s prospects in Chandni Chowk. None of the present BJP women MPs can rival Swaraj’s popular appeal. (The maverick Uma Bharti may be a fiery orator but she is now confined to Madhya Pradesh and does not have the same homebody, middle-class appeal).

It is precisely because Smriti was seen as a woman politician in the same mould as Swaraj that a section of the BJP has been promoting her so assiduously. TV’s Tusli impressed the party bosses with her quick repartee, oratory and confidence. In fact, initially she had requested to be fielded against Sonia Gandhi. A section of the BJP is keen to clip Sushma’s wings since she believes she has a special status because of her proximity to RSS boss K Sudershan. The fact that Swaraj got a 10 per cent approval rating as a prime ministerial candidate in a national poll survey, higher than anyone in the BJP after Vajpayee and Advani, has also riled her party colleagues.

Memory lapses

There is a major lacuna in the Election Commission order that all candidates have to list their assets. There is no clear guideline as to how a candidate assesses his property values. Do you put down the price at which the property was bought? Or today’s market value? Most candidates have opted for the first option, which explains why we see such curious valuations as five flats with a huge 28,977 m area in Mumbai being assessed for a mere Rs 1.35 crore. And a half share in a three-acre farmhouse in Delhi’s Mehrauli for only Rs 9.80 lakh. And considering that many candidates have even omitted specifications about the price of their land, why is poor Dharmendra being singled out for forgetting to mention the name of his actress wife in his affidavit? There are reportedly other candidates in Delhi in the same boat.

Equally intriguing is the large number of candidates who don’t own vehicles. It is understandable that those entitled to official transport like L K Advani, Ram Naik, Manohar Joshi and Rabri Devi do not need to own their own transport. But how do many others like Laloo Prasad Yadav, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Sunil Dutt, Bhupen Hazarika, Raj Babbar, S Bangarappa, Ram Jethmalani and Sachin Pilot travel? And does Dushayant Singh, son of Rajasthan Chief Minister, move around in his Rs 2.95 lakh tractor since he does not list any other vehicle in his name? Prime Minister Vajpayee on the other hand has been loyal to his 1995 ambassador car.

Wedding blues

Law Minister Arun Jaitley generously allows close friends to use the spacious backlawns of his official residence, 9 Ashoka Road, for weddings. Cricketer Virendra Sehwag’s marriage was solemnised here last week. But the bungalow’s permanent residents, mostly elderly bachelors who have been with the BJP, Jan Sangh and the RSS throughout, are not happy about the grounds being converted into a baraat ghar.

Party veteran Jagdish Mathur, who was one of the founders of the Jan Sangh, was irritated after a wedding contractor last year left behind his huge cooking pans for a week after the festivities and did not clean up the lawns. The last straw was when Mathur tripped on a hole during his morning walk on the lawns. Mathur now cautions all wedding planners that the garden should be cleaned up within 24 hours. Which is understandable. But tent contractors have a hard time complying with his instructions that they should not dig holes when pitching their shamianas.

Too close for comfort

The BJP’s election brains trust is rattled by the results of the exit polls. The BJP’s internal surveys had predicted that the NDA would get 290 seats. Now there is a distinct possibility that it might not even reach the 272 mark. While the BJP is expected to do better than its 1999 total of 182, its allies are certain to do worse, particularly in Andhra and Tamil Nadu. In a last-minute firefighting operation, the ruling party has singled out marginal seats throughout the country, where special efforts could tilt the balance. In UP, for instance, the party has zeroed in on 18 seats, including Ghazipur, Machhilishahr, Kaiserganj and Robertsganj. Seven seats in the Rajasthan Jat belt have also been identified as very close.