Inside track

Friendly journalists have been interviewing the actor-turned-politician of late. Sinha’s coy answers are not as revealing as the leading questions put to him. The party’s star crowd-puller in Bihar did not campaign for the crucial Patna by-election claiming he was not asked to do so by the state leadership.

After Pramod Mahajan’s back-door entry into the PMO, Sinha is hopeful that he can be absorbed in Advani’s Home ministry, after all he has not just lost an election but has vast experience in handling quite successfully at that law-and-order problems as a police officer in innumerable movies.

End of glasnost

The BJP’s high-handed solution to ensure good publicity for the party is to instal its handpickedfavourites in key positions in the media. During the poll campaign the BJP set up a high-powered media cell. The cell concentrated on totting up a newspaper’s column inches of pro-BJP and anti-BJP coverage so that scores could be settled after the elections rather than improving BJP’s image through good press relations.

Though the party is now in power, some under-employed members of the media cell and fellow travellers are aggrieved that they are not being rewarded with the high-power government jobs they expected for their efforts some of them had even made a 180-degree ideological to turn from Trotskyite red to Hindutva saffron. The disappointed scribes have perforce to settle instead for newspaper jobs, thanks to a good word being put in on their behalf by the new Government.

While the BJP had a press briefing every other day during the campaign and the party general secretaries were ever ready to answer media queries, once Atal Behari Vajpayee was installed as Prime Minister glasnost in the BJPended abruptly. There was no official party briefings for the next three weeks. General secretaries were unavailable for comment to the press.

RAW deal

Because of the cloak-and-dagger nature of its operations, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) does not believe in issuing denials or clarifications to the press. Consequently, RAW officers keen to settle scores with rivals within the organisation are free to plant cock-and-bull stories in the media without fear of contradiction. Fifteen years ago, a top RAW officer personally planted the story that the then RAW chief had defected to the USA. The report was eventually denied not by RAW but in Parliament after MPs raised a hue and cry.

Recently, thanks to internal rivalries, a senior police officer on deputation for nearly two decades was transferred back to his parent cadre of Orissa. A journalist, whose father once worked for RAW, splashed the news that the officer in question was removed because he was involved with an American spy. Since thefirst newspaper report went uncontradicted, more rumours started flying. A Delhi newspaper reported that the officer had a dangerous liaison with a woman from the Bangladesh embassy. It was left to the Bangladeshis to deny the report since RAW was unconcerned about the bad publicity it was getting, even though there was no truth in the reports.

New rivalry

A major rivalry is developing between Pramod Mahajan and Sushma Swaraj. Mahajan, whose appointment has infuriated the RSS, is being backed by those who claim they stand for economic liberalisation and pragmatism. The swadeshi lobby has gravitated towards Swaraj’s side. A leading private TV channel got caught in the crossfire. Since it had the backing of a media star close to Mahajan, it was overconfident of its clout, but realised belatedly that this was no help in getting an entry into the I&B ministry.

Slow start

Though it is a month since the Vajpayee-government was installed, a number of key positions are yet to be filled. In thePrime Minister’s Office (PMO) alone there are over half a dozen vacancies, from that of an additional secretary to an information adviser. Planning Commission members, some 40 to 50 chairmen of public sector undertakings and the personal staff in many ministries, have not been appointed.

Some attribute the delay to conflicting claims between the BJP and its allies for plum posts, others feel that Prime Minister Vajpayee has put his foot down against L.K. Advani trying to call all the shots in the selection. In the case of the ministers from Tamil Nadu most of whom have inherited positions vacated by TMC-DMK members of the last government the choice for selection of personnel staff is limited. Their supremo Jayalalitha has barred them from retaining officers who worked for the TMC-DMK ministers. The problem is that these officers are not only experienced, but more importantly, speak Tamil, an invaluable asset considering that most of the TN contingent are fluent neither in English nor Hindi.