Opinion Refusing to yield

Not out yet

Despite desperate efforts to retain relevance,the Prime Minister’s principal secretary TKA Nair is slowly being eased out. Till the very end,Nair fought to retain his turf. In fact,even the official notification of his successor Pulok Chatterjee’s appointment in the PMO was worded vaguely in the hope that there would be enough room to manoeuver. Now,it has finally been formally announced that Chatterjee is to be the principal secretary and Nair advisor in the PMO. But,as of now,the understanding is that Nair’s advisory role is an interim arrangement. He is merely expected to show the ropes to his successor. Last year,Nair was offered a governorship as an incentive to move out of the PMO but he seems to have lost that option in the bargain. There are a number of retired Congress politicians waiting in line for governorships.

Humourless colleagues

The irrepressible Mani Shankar Aiyar has a flair for being frank and funny. But his irreverent humour is not always appreciated by his party. At the launch of a book on the Congress headquarters,24 Akbar Road,Aiyar,one of the principal speakers,cracked a joke. He pointed out that those who were truly powerful in the party called on Sonia Gandhi at 10 Janpath. Those slightly less well-connected went to 23 Willingdon Crescent,residence of Ahmed Patel. It was only those who had no “ma baap” who loitered around 24 Akbar Road. The next day,Aiyar was called for a meeting with Patel who saw no humour in his remark and wanted to make it clear that he should not be included in any list of people wielding clout in the party

Shallow backgrounders

The Prime Minister’s much publicised interaction with five editors last month was to be followed by a series of briefings with editors who were left out. But,instead of the Prime Minister,it is a group of ministers which interacts with select groups of senior journalists. The ministerial group responsible for the “deep backgrounders” consists of P Chidambaram,Ambika Soni,Kapil Sibal,Salman Khursheed,Pawan Bansal and V Narayanasamy. Although the briefings are off the record,the ministers remain extremely guarded in their responses. Even a simple query as to whether the government was planning some amendments to the Lokpal Bill,which is to be presented before Parliament,was left unanswered.

Setting record straight

At a function last week,Mani Shankar Aiyar sought to contradict TV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai’s claim that the Congress was so upset with former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao,that it ensured that his funeral was not held in Delhi. Aiyar asserted that it was Rao’s family which wanted the funeral in Hyderabad. Another speaker,Sanjay Baru,intervened to point out that as media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,he was personally approached by a senior Congress leader to request Rao’s family not to arrange the funeral in the Capital. Baru asked a close family friend to speak to Rao’s sons,but she declined to do so. The Congress high command appears to have put pressure on the family through other sources. The gates of 24 Akbar Road were not even opened to allow the carriage with the late PM’s body to pass through on the ostensible grounds that the entrance was too narrow. But the entrance had proved broad enough to accommodate the carriages for departed leaders like Madhavrao Scindia and Sitaram Kesri.

Whitewash or inquiry?

The BJP state government has appointed retired Supreme Court Judge Shivaraj V Patil as the new Lokayukta in Karnataka in place of Justice Santosh Hegde,whose term has ended. The appointment is ironical considering that the BJP was highly critical of Patil’s appointment by Telecommunication Minister Kapil Sibal to investigate spectrum allocations. BJP members later dubbed Patil’s report a whitewash and demanded a JPC probe into the scam.