Inside Track

Pardey ke peechey Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the murky world of Delhi politics, nothing is simple and straightforward. One...

Pardey ke peechey

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the murky world of Delhi politics, nothing is simple and straightforward. One has to look below the surface to discover what created the ripples.

Perhaps there was more to the sudden death of the Gujral Government than the 17-volume Jain treatise, which almost no one in the party, including Sitaram Kesri, had ever bothered to read.On November 7, the Gujral Government, which until then had been quietly sitting over the information received in February from the Swiss Government about the Bofors money transferred into Channel Island accounts, suddenly became active. It gave permission to the CBI to proceed with the formalities for preparing a letter rogatory to the British Government asking for the names of the account holders.

Two days earlier, Kesri had indicated that the Congress was contemplating joining the UF Government. On November 9, two days after the Government8217;s go-ahead to the CBI, the Congress Working Committee took up the Jain Commission report and Gandhi loyalists began mounting pressure to bring about the fall of the government.On November 21, the die was cast with the magistrate clearing the letter rogatory to the British government asking for the names of the Channel Island account holders.

A day later, Prime Minister I.K. Gujral declared publicly that polls were around the corner 8212; till then a patch-up between the UF and Congress appeared likely. On December 5, the letter rogatory was dispatched to the Indian High Commission in London. On December 29, Sonia, who always claimed she disliked politics, announced her decision to campaign for the Congress.

There are no definite solutions to the jigsaw puzzle, only surmises. Was Kesri8217;s decision to join the UF Government in anyway related to the sudden decision to pursue the Bofors investigations? Did the Government8217;s initiative on the Channel Island accounts trigger off the indignation over the Jain Commission report, considering that the same extracts had appeared in the regional Press three weeks before they were noticed in the capital?

Symbolic touch

The prize for the most evocative new election symbol goes to Mamata Banerjee8217;s Trinamool Congress which has with a few artistic strokes produced two daisies amidst blades of grass to represent grass-roots. The prize for the dumbest symbol goes to George Fernandes8217; Samata Party which has selected a mashaal flaming torch, forgetting that voters are prone to get confused between his torch and a battery torch, which too is an election symbol.

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Former communications minister Sukh Ram8217;s choice of a telephone is very apt considering he brought about a telephone revolution in Himachal Pradesh. But the first prize for a suggestive symbol goes to UP MLA Naresh Aggarwal8217;s Lok Tantrik Party, which was created by two dozen Congress MLAs defecting to the BJP. The party8217;s symbol is, of all things, a chair!Extra work-loadTHE SPG will have its hands full in the coming months. Most of its protectees, from Prime Minister I.K. Gujral to A.B. Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi, Deve Gowda and Chandra Shekhar, are to hit the campaign trail.The SPG is now headed by M.R.

Reddy, considered a no-nonsense man but an extremely efficient officer. Ten years ago when Rajiv Gandhi was holidaying in the Andaman Islands, Reddy, then a deputy director of the SPG, was unceremoniously recalled and transferred from the force to his parent cadre. He had inadvertently incurred Rajiv Gandhi8217;s wrath for requisitioning a black ambassador for the prime ministerial cavalcade when Rajiv was averse to the colour black.

Incidentally, B.V. Wanchoo, who looked after the Gandhi family security for years and was considered only slightly less powerful than personal secretary Vincent George, and had often acted as Sonia8217;s messenger to the outside world, was finally transferred out of the household in November.Empress re-emergesTHE deposed Empress of Tamil Nadu has emerged from her three-month sojourn in jail a new person. Gone is the old arrogant and aloof behaviour.

The new Jayalalitha is far more accessible to the public and Press and agrees to meet one correspondent every day.Jayalalitha once sported six gold bangles on each arm, a bejewelled wrist- watch and an emerald nose-pin in the shape of the AIADMK symbol. Now she wears no jewellery. Even Jayalalitha8217;s matching cape has disappeared, making her look thinner. She has given up make-up and her extravagant saris for a demure look. All this has done wonders for the public image of a woman from whom the State Anti-corruption Department claimed to have confiscated some 700 personal effects, including 85 gold bangles, 350 pairs of shoes, dozens of watches and half-a-dozen gold belts.

In-law trouble

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These days NTR8217;s widow Lakshmi Parvathi is often accompanied by a Kashmiri professor of economics from Jammu and Kashmir who answers queries from the Press on her behalf when she is in north India. Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, keen to put down his step mother-in-law and political rival, has tipped off central intelligence agencies to investigate why the professor had been making trips to, of all places, Libya and Iraq.