It pays to be Bhajan Lal’s son

Tandon delays NURM

Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon may look amiable but the man has shown his mettle. A couple of days before the third phase of elections in Bihar, Tandon confronted the UPA government on finding that the Cabinet was going to clear the National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM). The scheme has Patna and Bodh Gaya among the 60 cities whose civic revamp will be partly funded by the Centre. Tandon told the government that the NURM approval would be a direct violation of the model code of conduct as it involved two cities in a poll-bound state. When the government said that it would not announce the scheme till after the elections despite the cabinet clearing it, Tandon responded with an emphatic ‘‘No’’. So even before the cabinet meeting began, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee brought the CEC’s objections to the notice of PM Manmohan Singh and sure enough NURM was dropped from the agenda for the time being.

Consolation for Natwar

Stripped of the External Affairs Ministry portfolio over the Volcker report, Union minister Natwar Singh wants to be on the right side of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the hope that he might get back his favourite ministry after Justice R.S. Pathak has completed his inquiry. Last Wednesday, an emergency Cabinet meeting was called to pass a condolence message on the death of former president K.R. Narayanan. Cabinet Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi prepared a condolence message for the PM’s approval but Natwar Singh intervened saying that the message should be changed as it lacked sensitivity. Natwar told the Cabinet that he liked the tribute paid by the PM as it had a ‘‘human touch’’ to it and parts of it should be incorporated in the condolence message. But Manmohan told the Cabinet that he spoke extempore and there was no record of his tributes. A certain enterprising bureaucrat jumped in to say he had noted the PM’s words. Not to let the opportunity slip by the Natwar used his diplomatic skills and helped Chaturvedi prepare a new condolence message that was ultimately passed by the Cabinet.

DMK woes for PM

As if Manmohan Singh did not have enough problems reining in Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav. Now DMK ministers have added to his woes. The country’s corporate czars have complained to the prime minister that his Environment Minister A. Raja took inordinately long in giving the mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment Report for projects worth over Rs 50 crore. Raja is known to sit on the EIA files asking mundane questions of the entrepreneurs. As Raja, who is from the DMK, appears least bothered, the Mumbai-based industrialists first approached the PMO and then the PM himself. But as it is a coalition government, the PM can hardly do anything against an ally that has 45 MPs. Raja is not the only one, his DMK colleague T.R. Baalu has virtually refused to implement an Appointments Committee of Cabinet order to make S. Hazara the chairman of the Shipping Corporation of India. Though the ACC, headed by PM, cleared Hazara’s appointment on August 31, the officer to date is only an acting CMD with Baalu paying little heed to advice given by the Department of Personnel. Even Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee have spoken to Baalu over the issue, but the man, who operates from Chennai, refuses to budge.

Left’s Cuban flavour

One couldn’t quite smell Cuban cigars in Ajoy Bhavan, the CPI headquarters, as the party marked the anniversary of the October Revolution last week. But with Cuban Ambassador Juan Carretero Ibanez a special guest at the function, it was clear that Cuba would be the flavour of the moment. It was also time for good old anti-imperialist rhetoric. General Secretary A.B. Bardhan pointed out to partymen how a country that was geographically so close to the US stood up to it. But India, thousands of miles away had buckled under, he said. The Cuban ambassador gave a longish account of the country’s fight against the US, which according to him was still trying to wipe off Cuba from the map. There was also some nostalgia about the Red Army. Bardhan, who recently gave a clean chit to Natwar Singh in the Volcker controversy said, ‘‘We should learn from the Red Army, be inspired by the Red Army.’’ However, few seemed to be inspired by the proceedings, least of all the party cadres who turned up in small numbers to fill up the modestly sized Ghate Hall. An important invitee, the CPI(M)’s Prakash Karat, could not attend the function and declined the invitation with a typically cryptic note.

The missing link

Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have been so busy strengthening their coordination with their UPA allies and the Left that the normal channels of communication between the ruling party and the government have become extinct. As a case in point, party managers at the Congress headquarters had to lean on private television channels for a final word on the death of former President K.R. Naraynan on November 9. When the TV channels, perennially competing for breaking news, jumped the gun to announce Naraynan’s death several hours before it actually occurred, the party managers promptly ordered the Congress flag at 24 Akbar Road flown at half-mast. It took them some two hours to realise the faux pas and send a minder to restore the flag to its original position, only to lower it later.

Monkey business

When US Treasury Secretary John Snow came calling upon his counterparts in the government of India, US security officiers accompanied him wherever he went. Apart from maintaining a strict vigil on the ever eager media waiting to latch on to any statement made by Snow after his meetings with government officials, they stood guard at every possible entrance keeping a close watch on people moving in and out of the buildings. Snow kicked off his Delhi visit by calling upon Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. While monitoring the flow of people into Yojana Bhavan, the security officers came across a rather strange visitor leaving the building just a few minutes after Snow walked into the building.

It was a 4 ft tall langur along with his master. True, the security guards were expected to keep a vigil on people, but a simian being escorted out was a sight that even the well trained security officers did not expect. Did somebody tell the totally perplexed officers that these langurs are actually on the pay rolls of the government as guards against the rapidly multiplying population of Rhesus monkeys in the premises?

In God he trusts

Faced with one setback after another—from the loss of chief ministership and a near-fatal accident to the arrest of his son Amit in a murder case—former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi is looking heavenwards to ensure his stars start looking up. One of the MLAs supporting him brought a goat from the state in the Chhattisgarhi tribal custom and sacrificed it at his 9 Moti Lal Nehru Marg residence on Friday to propitiate the gods into rewarding the former chief minister with a ministerial berth at the Centre. As things stand, nothing is working to Jogi’s advantage.