Still in a sulk

Since the February Assembly results, Laloo Yadav has been listless and snappish and not his usual bumptious self. He sensed defeat early in ...

Since the February Assembly results, Laloo Yadav has been listless and snappish and not his usual bumptious self. He sensed defeat early in the day and did not put his heart into the campaign. The famous Laloo cracks on how to use the voting machine, or the aloo Laloo jokes were missing. He was so distracted that often he forgot to mention the very issue that he had decided that same morning would be the thrust of his campaign speeches. In fact, he was getting so forgetful that he even failed to ensure proper disbursal of funds.

His followers are confident that once Laloo has finally come to terms with his defeat, he will regain his old swagger. True, on his first day back in the Railway Ministry in Delhi Laloo was snappish and bad-tempered throwing around files, but at least he is no longer demanding Paswan8217;s removal from the Cabinet.

Plot thickens

M L Fotedar could barely hide his smirk in Parliament after the Bihar results dubbing the outcome as 8216;8216;a win for democracy8217;8217;. After the February poll, Fotedar and Arjun Singh, then in charge of the Congress Bihar campaign, were roundly abused by Laloo Yadav for tying up with Ram Vilas Paswan which he claimed had resulted in a division of the secular vote. But their argument that a three-way contest would actually harm the NDA more than the RJD has turned out to be correct. Of course, they also believed that a weakened Laloo was good for the Congress.

In contrast, Digvijay Singh, who replaced them in Bihar, blindly followed Laloo8217;s lead. Many Congressmen are disturbed that Singh played along with Laloo, targeting the Election Commission, especially the on-the-spot observer K J Rao, implying that election reforms in the state were merely an upper caste plot.

No armchair success

Arun Jaitley8217;s rivals sneer that the last direct election he stood for was to the Delhi University Students Union, to make the point that he is an armchair politician who gets regularly nominated to the Parliament8217;s Upper House. But Jaitley has notched four victories in a row as campaign manager; Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat. In each state he shrewdly opted for a different campaign strategy, demonstrating that he has in fact a sound sense of grassroots politics.

In Gujarat, he backed an unrepentant Narendra Modi, projecting Gujarat pride and the saffron cause while the Congress talked about failures on the development front. In Madhya Pradesh, he focused the campaign on Uma Bharati, an OBC leader, and failure of development highlighted by the lack of bijli, sadak aur paani. In Karnataka, Jaitley calculated that the party8217;s best bet was to align with at least one section of the JDU and woo a popular backward caste leader like S Bangarappa. In Bihar, he sensed that the road to victory lay in offering an OBC alternative to Laloo as CM and centered the campaign around the JDU8217;s Nitish Kumar, even though the BJP8217;s upper caste Bihar star Shatrughan Sinha felt left out.

Not so sanghuine outlook

Since the BJP high command had assured Uma Bharati that it would take up the issue of the Madhya Pradesh chief ministership after the Bihar polls, Bharati had rosy dreams that she would get back her old job in Bhopal. But the party was simply buying time. Bharati had burnt her boats once she had broken the cardinal rule of the BJP. You can8217;t take on the party heavyweights and the RSS at the same time.

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Bharati also miscalculated in mounting a signature campaign against Babulal Gaur. She thought she was demonstrating her clout with the Madhya Pradesh legislators, but her efforts have backfired. It provided the pretext to dump both Gaur and Bharati and install their mutual rival, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, as CM, which was the party8217;s long-term strategy in any case. For Bharati, Chauhan is even more unacceptable than Gaur, apart from being a fellow OBC he has youth on his side, unlike Gaur.

Belated Bench mark

An additional judge in a high court in one of the southern states has not been confirmed as a judge by the collegium of Supreme Court judges. The judiciary has woken up belatedly to the unsuitability of the candidate. Two years back, when his name was first proposed, the law ministry had expressed reservations in the light of an adverse intelligence report. But the judiciary went ahead with the nomination.

When the file came before President A P J Abdul Kalam, he too felt that the candidate8217;s track record did not inspire confidence. In an unusual step, Kalam wrote his objections to the appointment on the file in his own hand. The judiciary nevertheless cleared the appointment. Now, two years down the line, the collegium has developed cold feet about its own nominee.

Breathing lessons

Hotelier and MP Lalit Suri was returning from Srinagar to Delhi in a chartered aircraft after attending the swearing-in ceremony for Kashmir8217;s new Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad. While flying over the Banihal Pass at a height of 25,000 feet, much to the horror of the VIPs on board, the pilot announced that the plane8217;s air pressure control mechanism was not working. The air pressure in the cabin could have been rectified only if the plane lowered its height to 13,000 feet, but this was not possible over the mountains. Oxygen masks were dropped. The nervous passengers breathed easy only after the aircraft crossed the Himalayas and was given permission to lower its height.