Inside Track

By positioning myself in the Press Gallery just above Sonia Gandhi8217;s seat last Wednesday, I got a ringside view of the style of functioning of the Congress in Parliament. The half-hour sequence during the discussion on the Pope8217;s visit to India in the zero hour went something like this: First N. Janardhan Reddy kept whispering to Sonia, over the head of Congress deputy leader, Madhavrao Scindia, who was sitting inbetween. Then Sonia scribbled a note and asked Kanti Lal Bhuria to deliver it to George. Bhuria, clutching his briefcase and carrying the note, immediately left the House. He must have been searching in Parliament House for George for quite a while, since it took almost 15 minutes for the message to reach George sitting in the Speaker8217;s Gallery, who promptly got up to respond to the message from his boss.

Ten minutes later Bhuria was back in the House with a reply for Sonia. Meanwhile, Mani Shankar Aiyar, sitting just behind Sonia, was busy drafting two pages of notes in large type, in between jumping up and decrying the BJP8217;s communalism. Aiyar8217;s note was handed to Scindia, who appeared to be scratching out bits and making his own additions. By the time, the paper reached Sonia, Home Minister L.K. Advani had got up to clarify the government8217;s position on the Pope8217;s visit. If, as one presumes, the notes referred to the subject under discussion, these came too late to be of any use!

Incidentally, accordingto some catty BJP MPs, Sonia was wearing her trade mark shahtoosh shawl to Parliament even though winter has yet to set in, to camouflage the constant exchange of notes from the TV cameras!

Legal eagles

Arun Jaitley wound up his flourishing legal chambers, the day after he took oath as minister which will mean a major cut in his income. Harish Salve, who is the new Solicitor General will have to make a similar financial sacrifice. Since Salve8217;s father is veteran Congressman N.K.P. Salve, there is some surprise at Salve Junior accepting the post. Salve, however, is apolitical and had in fact once worked as a junior to Attorney General Soli Sorabjee. Mukul Rohtagi who is being appointed an additional solicitor general will similarly feel the financial pinch of working for the government.

With so many leading lawyers of the Supreme Court handing back their legal briefs, one immediate beneficiary will be P. Chidambaram, who is planning to concentrate on his practice now that he is no longer inParliament.

Delayed reaction

With the new government filing the Bofors charge-sheet in court naming Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister Vajpayee may not be able to get his economic bills passed in Parliament in a spirit of consensus as he had hoped. Considering that it took over a decade to file the charge-sheet, it made practical sense for the government to have delayed filing the charge-sheet for a while longer.

But delay in filing the charge-sheet any further had become untenable, since all paper work had been completed by early this year and CBI officials were questioning why the Government was continuously dragging its feet.

Particularly as an argument of counsel for the Bofors suspects against releasing the final documents for one of the bank accounts, is that the Indian government had not even bothered to file a criminal case on the basis of the papers already made available.

In March , the draft of the charge-sheet was presented to President K.R. Narayanan, who gave his assent within threeweeks. Shortly afterwards, the government fell and the Kargil conflict erupted. According to one version the Government was afraid to file the case for fear of further alienating the Congress while there was trouble on the border, another theory is that it was the fear of Bofors non-cooperation in supplying spares that tied the government8217;s hands.

Italian partner

While Sharad Pawar was still in the Congress party, he tied up with an Italian collaborator to manufacture wine from grapes grown in his Baramati vineyards. Now that Pawar is in the NCP, he is contemplating replacing his Italian partner with a French wine maker. The reason, however, Pawar emphasises has nothing to do with his allergy to an Italian-born prime minister. It is simply that his distributor wants the quality of his wines improved since he even had to reduce the price of one of his popular red wine brands.