Hop, skip, jump

Ram Bharose is an experienced MLA, master in the art of jumping from one party to another. On him depended the fate of the government. It ha...

Ram Bharose is an experienced MLA, master in the art of jumping from one party to another. On him depended the fate of the government. It happened like this. There was a no-confidence motion in the Legislative Assembly against the government. The hotch-potch collage that constituted it had the same strength as the hotch-potch collage that was the Opposition. Both were equally divided. The views of the Speaker, who was supposed to be above all parties, were not known. He had served the two largest parties on both sides with equal distinction.

If only one MLA from the Opposition could abstain from the vote, the government could survive. Ram Bharose8217;s name came to everyone8217;s slips. He could be persuaded not to attend the Assembly on the crucial day. A delegation of three important leaders of the ruling hotch-potch, known for their persuasive abilities, was deputed to meet Ram Bharose.

Ram Bharose was not an easy nut to crack. He was willing and yet not willing. He said that even though as a matter of principle, he would stand by the opposition, he could change his mind and abstain if he could be appointed a member of the cabinet after the government won the vote of confidence. That was not acceptable. Nine out of every ten members of the coalition were already ministers.

A good deal of bargaining was done. Finally it was agreed that Ram Bharose should constitute a one-man goodwill delegation from India to some foreign land. Which foreign land? UK? No, Ram Bharose had already been there several times. France? No, he did not know the French language. Germany? No, what will Ram Bharose do there? Nobody would recognise him as a great Indian leader in Germany. US? That is where the action is. Ram Bharose agreed. Then the question arose: what will Ram Bharose8217;s one-man goodwill delegation do in the US? It will build bridges of understanding between India and the US.

That done, Ram Bharose developed chest pain and was airlifted to New Delhi and promptly admitted in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. A team of doctors examined him and declared his condition stable. The team said that Ram Bharose should be kept under observation for some days. Meanwhile, the crucial no-confidence motion came up in the Assembly. The government survived the vote of no-confidence. And true to the best traditions of Indian democracy, it stood by its promise to Ram Bharose and sent him to the US immediately on discharge from AIIMS.

What did Ram Bharose do in the US? Nobody knows for sure. The last I heard was that he was attending a conference of the world8217;s top religious leaders on transcendental meditation in California as India8217;s distinguished one-man delegation.