The isolation of Ajit Jogi

And while Jogi and his son were famously driving to the meeting point where he handed over the controversial letter that sunk him, the Raipur media was parked in the BJP office, waiting for the bombshell they were told to expect. Again, not a word of warning went to Jogi. It appears father and son were the only ones in the dark. In his hour of defeat, Jogi truly was alone.

Eye on Washington

Another person who seems to have joined the list of hopefuls to succeed Lalit Mansingh as ambassador in Washington in 2004 is Cabinet Secretary Kamal Pandey. Indication of his interest came when the government tried to kick him upstairs by offering him a governorship. Pandey is believed to have politely declined, saying if the powers-that-be wanted him to quit, he’d do so gladly. He did, however, point out that the ambassador’s job in Washington fell vacant in April and asked whether the government had thought about Mansingh’s successor.

Considering Pandey is barely halfway into his term, it’s a bit odd alternative assignments are being discussed. The buzz is he may be on his way out because the government wants a more ‘‘amenable’’ cabinet secretary. There’s been considerable friction over various bureaucratic appointments, particularly in the Finance Ministry.

It’s proving as difficult to find a replacement for Pandey as it is to find him a suitable post. The next in seniority is Deepak Chatterjee, recently in the news because of the controversy over his appointment as Competition Commission chairman. The favourite is said to be Home Secretary N. Gopalaswamy. He’s a Gujarat cadre officer but unfortunately several notches below Chatterjee on the merit list.

Old politicians never quit

Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharati may have just got lucky. Their most formidable opponents met their Waterloo in the recent elections. In Rajasthan the two thorns in Vasundhara’s side, Hari Shankar Bhabra and Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi, both lost. Ironically they had changed constituencies fearing defeat. In Madhya Pradesh Uma’s main tormentor, Sunderlal Patwa, bowed out in favour of his son. So did Kailash Joshi. The sons won but the fathers are unemployed now.

These leaders have become a headache for the central government. All four have lined up asking for a governor’s post or a Rajya Sabha seat. Two states are without governors, Rajasthan and Pondicherry, while one third of the Upper House will be up for election in 2004.

Such a fine balance

One person missing from the bevy of Union ministers who attended Uma Bharati’s swearing in ceremony in Bhopal on Monday was the man being hailed as the architect of her victory, Law Minister Arun Jaitley. He was apparently instructed to remain in Delhi to tackle the expected storm in Parliament over the Judeo-Jogi episodes. However, it also meant he had to field questions on behalf of several ministers missing that day, forcing him to spend his Sunday doing homework.

Interestingly, while Atal Behari Vajpayee did not attend either Uma’s or Vasundhara’s swearing in ceremonies, L.K. Advani went to Bhopal. The BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, was dispatched to Jaipur so that Vasundhara didn’t feel ignored. Now was there a political signal in that?