Sonia gets a fresh headache

They are Punjab8217;s new Tom and Jerry show, replacing Tohra vs Badal as Punjab8217;s best known political soap opera. They are also chal...

They are Punjab8217;s new Tom and Jerry show, replacing Tohra vs Badal as Punjab8217;s best known political soap opera. They are also chalk and cheese. Punjab8217;s Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is to the palace born, 8216;8216;maharaja of Patiala8217;8217; even to his ministers and MLAs. His bete noire Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, agriculture minister, is the ubiquitous bhenji it8217;s not pronounced behenji in Punjab, and often makes a virtue of the fact she was born in Central Jail, Lahore, where her freedom fighter parents were imprisoned.

As palace-born and jail-born travelled to Delhi to win over the Congress president 8212; Amarinder and Bhattal both claim to be close to Sonia Gandhi 8212; Amarinder8217;s camp was hoping their leader8217;s ability to make the point to Sonia would carry the day. Bhattal8217;s loyalists hoped Gandhi would prefer mathematics to English, and count the numbers of MLAs.

The two have varied backgrounds. Amarinder 8212; Lawrence School, Sanawar, Doon and the Indian Army behind him 8212; entered politics relatively late. Bhattal plunged in early, coming through the ranks, losing assembly elections in 1972 and 1977 before winning in 1980.

Amarinder was elected MP in 1980, but quit within hours of Operation Bluestar, 1984, carving a niche in many a Sikh heart. He became a minister in S.S. Barnala8217;s Akali Dal government in 1985. Bhattal was a minister in the next government, Beant Singh8217;s Congress regime, 1992, that ushered peace into Punjab, albeit with a heavy hand.

Bhattal rose in stature after Beant8217;s death, becoming deputy chief minister under H.S. Brar and, later, dislodging him altogether. For Amarinder, those were the days of wilderness. His separate fringe Akali Dal had flopped, and the G.S.Tohra-P.S.Badal run Akali polity had pushed him to the margins 8212; and, by the 1997 election, into the Congress.

It was now that Bhattal8217;s and Amarinder8217;s paths crossed. In early 1997, Bhattal led the party to defeat in the assembly elections. By 1998, she had lost the state unit presidency too. Amarinder was beginning to call the shots, supervising candidate selection in 2002 and eventually becoming chief minister.

Dissidence has been smouldering since. Bhattal sees herself as a 8216;8216;loyalist8217;8217; Congress worker, who stayed with the party in the harrowing 1980s. Her camp points to Amarinder8217;s fling with the Akalis. Their approaches are different. In contrast to Bhattal8217;s half-patronage, half-copybook politico style, Amarinder works through an exclusivist coterie.

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The king8217;s knights, particularly PR official turned adviser Bharat Inder Singh Chahal left no room for Bhattal. In a sense, the party is striking back at the government.

When Amarinder8217;s government moved with speed to pursue a case of embezzlement against Bhattal from one court to another, she landing up in Delhi, loyalist MLAs in tow. She had done it in 1996, when she overthrew Brar. Now she hopes for a repeat. But this time, she has two essentially non-political politicians to contend with 8212; Amarinder and Sonia.

And none can be more unpredictable than politicians who have made it without becoming adequately politicised. Bhattal should know. She can always blame it on the palace in Patiala. Or on 10 Janpath.