Inside Track

Though on paper the CBI comes under the Prime Minister’s Office, in practice it is Advani who calls the shots. And he makes no bones about it. It is not just a question of physical proximity, with both the CBI chief and Home Minister operating from offices next to each other in the North Block.

Acting CBI Director Trinath Mishra is a police officer and since the police forces are under the Home Ministry, which decides their future postings, he knows who he should take his orders from.

The PMO has by default allowed the control of the CBI to slip out ofits hands. Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra confines himself to foreign policy and national security affairs. Secretary to the PM N.K. Singh, keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, concerns himself mainly with financial ministries and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is not interested in empire building.

Party games

The political parties supporting the Vajpayee Government are already contemplating their post-poll strategies. It is not, however, merely a matter of jumping from the BJP ship and swimming across to the Congress deck in case the BJP fares poorly in the Assembly polls. Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, for one, is thinking in terms of forming a new federal front of regional parties which are opposed to both the Congress and the CPI(M).

The objective is that this new front should take over the government and the BJP should support it from outside. The Trinamool reckons that the BJP would have little choice in the matter since to deny support to it would result in theCongress taking over the reigns of government!

The Samata Party, meanwhile, is thinking in terms of not a broad-based front but a larger party through the mergers of various state parties. A fortnight ago, the proposal was mooted to the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) at a dinner attended by both Naveen Patnaik and Dilip Ray. Someone shrewdly pointed out to Patnaik that for him an immediate advantage of merging into a larger party was that he could avert a split in the BJD, a very real possibility considering the rebellion within the party’s ranks. Patnaik hemmed and hawed and talked of consulting L.K. Advani. If he had taken the option and acted speedily, he might have averted the predicament he is now in!

Not quite cricket

Last week, Doordarshan was ordered to pay a whopping $7 million as compensation to World Tel following arbitration of the long-pending dispute between DD, World Tel and PILCOM over the rights for telecasting the World Cup cricket matches in 1996. Some 80 per cent of the compensationmoney will revert to PILCOM, which represents the cricket boards of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and the remaining amount to World Tel.

DD cannot now grumble about getting the wrong end of the stick, since it agreed to the proposal to appoint N.K.P. Salve as the arbitrator knowing full well that he is a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). In fact, this year, the BCCI instituted the N.K.P. Salve Challenger Trophy for his services to the cricketing association.

Actually, back in 1996, DD officials had little say in the choice of an arbitrator. P.V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister and Salve was the energy minister and a senior party colleague of the then I&B minister, K.P. Singh Deo.

Parliamentary privilege

LOK Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi’s office has written to Doordarshan demanding that the Speaker’s visits abroad for conferences should be covered by DD. Television coverage outside India is a costly business since satellite time has to be booked at therate of some Rs 5,00,000 per minute of telecast time. Satellite feeds of foreign tours are normally meant only for the President, Prime Minister or Vice-President. But since the Lok Sabha Secretariat has agreed to reimburse the payments for the satellite feed, DD officials are not in a position to turn down the request. Particularly as DD is now part of Prasar Bharati, which is accountable to Parliament.

For form’s sake

Despite the much-publicised CBI raids on the Reliance group, it is doubtful if any progress will be made in the case under the Official Secrets Act against Reliance Industries Limited official V. Balasubramaniam. The well-connected company has many friends in powerful places. Which explains why there was no element of surprise in the CBI searches, which seem to have been conducted to convey the impression that the Government was not overawed by the Ambanis’ clout. For a week before the second raid, big bundles of papers were seen being removed from the companyoffice.

Incidentally, the Delhi Police, which had roped in the Income-Tax authorities to be party to the initial searches of Balasubramaniam’s house and the Reliance’s Delhi office, goofed up badly. The raids took place in the late evening and the night and violated the Income-Tax manual which stipulates that searches should not take place after sundown.