Media’s Santa Claus

The knives are out in the BJP and party president Venkaiah Naidu, who put his foot in his mouth once again by unilaterally announcing the end of the alliance with the AIADMK, is the most likely target. Sushma Swaraj has made a subtle bid to take over Naidu’s post, though his three-year tenure has just begun. Swaraj’s high-pitched campaign against Sonia’s foreign origin has pleased the constituency that she was aiming at—RSS chief K Sudershan. Significantly, Swaraj has pipped her two contemporaries, Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan, to the post of Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

Murli Manohar Joshi, who had earlier insisted that there was no number two in the party, did not raise a squeak of protest when L K Advani was appointed Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Joshi is more concerned about ensuring a Rajya Sabha berth at the moment than fighting for the plums in the party organisation.

The demoralised party has recovered from its initial stupor largely because the same astrologer who predicted its defeat has assured them that its fortunes will improve dramatically from September.

Stars and some swipes

Subbirami Reddy, who organised the film stars for the Congress campaign, feels that his party’s Bollywood contingent proved more formidable than the BJP’s star squad. True, two film stars were elected from both parties—Sunil Dutt and Govinda from the Congress and Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna from the BJP—but even a losing Congress candidate like Moushumi Chatterjee damaged Trinamool Congress’s Ajit Panja’s chances, with the result that the CPI(M) ended up winning the seat. On the BJP side, the much-fancied Tulsi, nee Smriti Irrani, got less than half of Kapil Sibal’s votes in Chandni Chowk.

Actually the Samajwadi Party had the best success rate. Both its Bollywood candidates, Raj Babbar and Jaya Prada, won their seats and the latter after she had shifted base to the north. In UP Mulayam Yadav shines brighter than any movie star.

Express departure

The Indian Express scored a hat-trick with three of its popular columnists joining the new government. Mani Shankar Aiyar has become the Petroleum Minister, P Chidambaram Finance Minister, and J N Dixit National Security Adviser. Now a fourth has joined the distinguished list. Chief Editor of The Financial Express Sanjaya Baru has quit his post to become media adviser to the Prime Minister.

Minority vote

Manvendra Singh, son of Jaswant Singh, won by a larger margin than any other BJP MP. His victory margin from Barmer in Rajasthan—a seat that had never been won by either the BJP or the Jan Sangh—was a whopping 2.71 lakh. Manvendra’s impressive tally was because he is one of the few from his party who succeeded in wooing Muslim voters.

Manvendra was able to establish his credentials with the community by helping them obtain visas to Pakistan. (Most Muslims in this border district have relatives across the border). He has also actively pushed for a train from India to Pakistan between Khokrapar and Munabad, besides extension of the Delhi-Jodhpur train to Barmer. Manvendra’s party colleagues, many of whom had written off the minority vote, could learn a thing or two from his winning ways.

Aid to curry favour

In March, former health minister Sushma Swaraj asked the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) to produce a booklet giving a comprehensive picture about AIDS in India, focusing on the recent initiatives taken by the government. As luck would have it, the brochure was completed just before the May poll results. Advance copies were presented to a visiting US Congressional delegation by Swaraj, without anyone raising a murmur. But when the publication was about to be distributed at the World Health Assembly in Geneva on May 15, a senior Health Ministry official, keen to settle scores with those he had differences with in the Ministry, created a hue and cry and demanded the booklet be withdrawn immediately as a new government would be taking over.

His objection was not to the text of the manual but to the fact that there happened to be three pictures of Swaraj at AIDS-related functions in the 16-page brochure with some two dozen pictures, including those of Sonia Gandhi and President Kalam. Is it government policy to kill publications brought out by previous regimes when there is no controversy over the text? Or is it simply that some bureaucrats keen to ingratiate themselves with the new order picked on the well-produced brochure to demonstrate their loyalty to the new regime?

Judicial omission

If there was no representative from the Opposition at the swearing-in ceremony of Chief Justice R C Lahoti, it was simply because neither the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha or the Lok Sabha was invited. Nor was the former law minister called for the function.