Opinion The road to Rajasthan

Left holding the baby

The government was so keen to steal the credit for the Lokpal Bill that it ignored sound advice from the shrewd Sharad Pawar that leaders from main Opposition parties like the BJP and the CPI(M) should be included in the committee along with Anna Hazare and his nominees. By leaving out the Opposition from the committee,the government has fallen into a trap. Now that it would like to disband the Lokpal committee— as it is in no position to meet the untenable demands of the activists such as bringing the PM into the Lokpal ambit—it has to face fresh flak. The Opposition to whom it now turned to for help has refused to come to its rescue.

Passing the buck

The PMO issued a denial to television channels,claiming that the PMO was not involved in the grand official reception accorded to Baba Ramdev when he arrived at the Delhi airport on a Sahara group aircraft (The Sahara TV channel got exclusive footage of the baba’s arrival as a consequence). The denial was based on the single point that the PM’s principal secretary,TKA Nair,was not present at the airport. But the four central ministers who drove to the airport to meet the controversial seer,Pranab Mukherjee,Kapil Sibal,P K Bansal and Subodh Kant Sahay,as well as Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar and his successor Ajit Kumar Seth,were all clearly acting at the Prime Minister’s behest. Sibal had to call off a trip to London and Sahay had to cut short his visit to the US so that they could stay back in Delhi to meet Ramdev. Mukherjee,who admits his Hindi is basic and he has to speak to Ramdev through an interpreter,was roped in to explain the measures taken by the government to counter black money. Mukherjee initially assumed he would be meeting Ramdev at his office or his residence,but was only informed at the last minute that he had to proceed to the airport instead. The Congress high command later used Digvijay Singh to disassociate itself from the government’s embarrassing attempt to bend over backwards to appease the seer.

Communication gap

The charge against former Communication Minister Dayanidhi Maran—that his family-owned Sun TV was a beneficiary of pay-offs by a Malaysian company—came to light as the result of an interaction between CAG Vinod Rai and members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee earlier this week. Rai had been called to explain the CAG report on the 2G scam and Congress MPs insisted that Rai make a presentation going back to 1998 when the BJP was in power. However,when Rai referred to the loss to the exchequer in 2004,the BJP MPs pricked up their ears. Actually it was mentioned in the 2004 report but nobody seemed to have noticed it earlier. It was Maran’s actions rather than those of the late Pramod Mahajan which became the focus of attention,even though the Auditor General did not mention the names of any individuals.

Retreating in style

Pakistani delegates to the Indo-Pak Neemrana dialogue last week were booked at the plush Oberoi Hotel in Delhi. Indian delegates when they attend the same Track Two diplomacy talks in Islamabad are accorded similar five-star accommodation. There is an interesting story behind the decision to keep our Indo-Pakistan experts in the lap of luxury while visiting each other’s countries. When the Neemrana dialogue initiative first started,the Indian delegates on a visit to Pakistan were taken aback to find they were put up in a rather downmarket hotel since Pakistanis are known for their generous hospitality. It turned out the Pakistanis were merely reacting because they felt they had been jerked around by the Indians and put up in a rather modest retreat. The message got across and it was decided that in future,only the best hotels would be provided for the delegates since the energies of the participants should not be frittered away in discussing mundane issues like non-working air conditioners and leaking flushes.