Inside Track

Mahajan received a dressing down and the newspapers reported that he had been asked to clam up. But the very next day Mahajan who is perhaps unique in managing to keep a foot planted firmly in both the Vajpayee and the Advani camps defiantly held his daily darbar, as usual equating his views with thoseof government, of which he is only a half member. Only foreign policy was out of bounds for him.

Briefings on foreign policy have now been left to the PM’s Principal Secretary, Brajesh Mishra, a 70-year-old retired IFS officer who is so dazzled by the limelight after years in obscurity that he even agreed to appear on a light-hearted talk show Aap ki adalat which had traditionalists carping about propriety and the need for civil servants to be faceless.

The dry and academic Foreign Secretary, K. Raghunath, who generally avoids uttering a syllable more than is absolutely necessary once when asked as spokesperson as to what had transpired between former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and the Pope he retorted, “I don’t know, I wasn’t there ” has of late been asserting his right to speak on behalf of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Raghunath wants to still the whispers that the PMO and not the MEA is deciding foreign policy.

Dumb-struck spokesmen

Meanwhile, BJP party spokespersons K. VenkiahNaidu and K.L. Sharma are piqued that Mahajan’s evening briefings are stealing their thunder, besides which Mahajan answers queries with street-smart savvy and pragmatism without any pretence of principle or ideology. Naidu is competent, if occasionally indiscreet, but every time Sharma opens his mouth he successfully quells any attempt to project a more liberal image for the BJP.

L.K. Advani’s Pakistan baiting was at least couched in some degree of sophistry “Pakistan must accept the changed geo-political situation in the region” but Sharma descended to a Punjabi Bagh-level municipal corporation ward contest and issued a “sakht chetavni” (strict warning) to our unfriendly neighbour. Unofficial party spokesman Madan Lal Khurana rolled up his sleeves and went a step further and suggested that Pakistan could choose the time and place for the next war!

While this babble of politicians shooting off their mouth makes most rational folks wince, the curious part is that the two professionals who wereinducted to be spokespersons by the new Government have barely managed to open their mouths. The new MEA spokesman K.C. Singh is seldom allowed to speak by his two competing bosses, Mishra and Raghunath. The soft-spoken Ashok Tandon, a senior PTI journalist, who was brought in to be appointed Principal Information Officer when S. Narendra retires in June now finds himself in a quandary. Thanks to the new 60-year retirement age, Narendra will be in service for another two years, so it is a moot point as to who will officiate as the Government spokesman. The question may be merely academic, since so far the publicity hungry politicians are unwilling to let go of the limelight.

Real boss

The most controversial private secretary to a minister is K.J. Alphonse, who gives the impression that he and not Ram Jethmalani is the real boss of the Urban Development ministry. The private secretary cheekily refers to the septuagenarian Jethmalani by his first name and is in the habit of sending chits andinstructions to his erstwhile colleagues in the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in the name of the minister, even when Jethmalani is out of the country.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet cleared Alphonse’s appointment only last week, long after all the other PSs’ names were approved. The embarrassing delay was because of Alphonse’s checkered career and the fact that he has made many enemies, one of whom is a powerful Central minister whom he had criticised previously.

Chain reaction

The authorities are eager to keep the case under wraps. The victim has been assured repeatedly that her two-and-a-half tola gold chain which was snatched will be found and not to go public. But though nearly a month has passed, the crime has not been solved. The reason for the secrecy is that the victim, a correspondent, was walking behind the Prime Minister at the Gandhinagar BJP meet when the incident took place. If the matter is made public, embarrassing questions would be asked about the security detailin the PM’s inner ring.