Inside Track

Rahul, who works as a freelance financial consultant from London, will return to India and accompany Sonia on the campaign trail, while Priyanka will be stationed mostly in Amethi looking after the constituency.

Rahul has inherited his father8217;s easy-going temperament, but he looks slightly un-Indian and is rather shy which does not make him ideal political material. The glamorous South American who is his frequent companion abroad is a political liability, as is Rahul8217;s faltering hindi. Most Congressmen are convinced that the bubbly Priyanka has a natural flair for politics, which was evident in the last campaign when she even helped write Sonia8217;s speeches. But no one in the party dares bellthe cat and advise the Congress president that in a political dynasty males do not necessarily take precedence, as the Bhuttos and Bhandaranayakes have shown in the neighbouring countries.

Brand new image

In a bid to modernise the BJP image, three party veterans, K.L. Sharma, K.R. Malkani and J.P. Mathur, have been asked to stay away from television talk shows. During last year8217;s campaign the three were seen regularly on the small screen and their outdated theories and lacklustre performance did not exactly boost the party8217;s prestige. The BJP leadership decided that younger, quick-thinking and media-savvy spokespersons were required. Apart from the three general secretaries, Govindacharya, Venkiah Naidu and Narendra Modi, only Arun Shourie, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jetley are now authorised to speak on the party8217;s behalf to the media.

Two of the three veterans have gracefully accepted the party8217;s diktat, but Mathur, who is in-charge of the media still, continues to brief the press informally, tothe chagrin of some of his party colleagues.

Channel fixing

In March this year, Iamp;B minister Pramod Mahajan launched a full-time sports channel, but almost nobody in Delhi is able to tune in to this new channel on their TV sets! Mahajan8217;s new baby is a new 24-hour news channel which starts from Sunday at an estimated cost of Rs 200 crore. How the cash-strapped Doordarshan will pay for the channel is a mystery. DD8217;s budget has made no provision for the project, nor has it been cleared by the Planning Commission.

Since Mahajan has already personally selected the private producers commissioned to make programmes for the channel, the Election Commission8217;s admonition that Prasar Bharati must maintain its independence is wishful thinking. For instance, the acting CEO of Prasar Bharati Rajiv Rattan Shah had practically hired psephologist Yogendra Yadav and his team for the special 72-hour election special programme. But when the Iamp;B minister was informed, he vetoed the move. He wanted the programme tobe given to 8220;hamare log8221;our people.

House of Mr Tewari

At the recent cabinet committee on accommodation, the Ministry of Urban Development recommended that Congressman N.D. Tewari, who lost the last two parliamentary elections, be allowed to retain government accommodation as a freedom fighter. A minister on the committee pointed out that since Tewari owns two houses, one in Lucknow and the other in Bareily, he could hardly be classified as homeless. Another minister added that Tewari owned a house in his former constituency Nainital as well.

Tewari8217;s application for government accommodation on the freedom fighter8217;s quota has been made on the advice of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Urban Development, who were keen that Tewari at least vacate his large C-4 type bungalow and offered a smaller C-1 flat instead. HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi pleaded Tewari8217;s case; caste and regional loyalties after all override political differences.

Fallible oracle

The BJP8217;s latest recruit ArunNehru has acquired a reputation for predicting the results of parliamentary polls with unerring accuracy and his weekly poll forecasts for the media are much in demand. But the oracle8217;s powers seem a trifle exaggerated. After checking Nehru8217;s last year8217;s forecast with the actual Lok Sabha poll results, I discovered that the heavyweight politician was as fallible as any pollster.

In Tamil Nadu he predicted that the BJP-AIADMK alliance would get around 11 seats and the DMK 28 , whereas the actual outcome was entirely the reverse. In Maharashtra his seat count was 37 seats for the BJP-Shiv Sena and 10 for the Congress. In fact, the Congress won 33 seats and the Shiv Sena- BJP alliance 10. In Rajasthan, his estimate was BJP 11:Congress 14, the result was BJP 5: Congress 18.