Opinion Inside Track by Coomi Kapoor: No free pass in PM Modi’s regime

Valued punch liner

Prime Minister Modi’s address to the joint session of the US Congress was undoubtedly a hit with 15 standing ovations. Modi read his lines from the fibre glass teleprompter. Inputs for the speech came from India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, NSA Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, who oversaw the final draft. But it is suspected that many of the punch lines, which pushed the right buttons with the Americans, were the brainwave of the Indian Ambassador in Paris, Jawed Ashraf, who has spent several years in the USA as a diplomat and has an understanding of US culture and history.

Ashraf has written many important prime ministerial speeches including Manmohan Singh’s nuclear deal speech to the US Congress, Vajpayee’s speech to the US Congress in 2000, Modi’s speech in Kazakhstan on Central Asia and Modi’s speech at the Shangrila dialogue in Singapore. Ashraf has worked in the PMO under both Singh and Modi.

Cat among pigeons

Lalu Yadav set the cat among the pigeons by remarking at the Bihar Opposition meet that if Rahul Gandhi finally got married they would all be part of his baraat. Some saw the remark as not simply a reference to Gandhi’s bachelor status, which permits him a somewhat nomadic existence, but a suggestion that he should lead the opposition from the front. (It was Lalu who telephoned Sonia Gandhi and requested her to ensure that Rahul came to the Patna conclave even if the date had to be postponed as he was in the USA.) Nitish Kumar appeared taken aback by Lalu’s comment, since some like Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav are firm that Rahul should not be projected as the main challenger to Prime Minister Modi in the 2024 polls.

While Congresspersons try to reassure doubters that since Rahul is disbarred from contesting the Lok Sabha election he cannot be fielded as a candidate for prime minister, the Congress posters put up in Patna make crystal clear who the party considers the star of the united show of strength. Another contentious issue on Opposition unity is whether Nitish Kumar, who has emerged as convener of the Opposition front by default, should continue in that role. Sharad Pawar believes he is more acceptable than Nitish, who has spent too many years allied with the BJP. Mamata Banerjee, who was a picture of amiability at the get-together, would also like to be convener. Banerjee made all the right gestures, even respectfully touching Lalu’s feet, but she is unlikely to yield an inch of territory in Bengal.

Those were the days

He may have been given nicknames like bulldog and bully, but T N Seshan must be credited for setting the template for making the Election Commission truly independent. (Sadly, in recent years, some of his successors have reverted to the old meek model of falling in line with the government’s wishes.) Seshan passed away in 2019, but his autobiography, Through the Broken Glass, which has just been released, highlights how as Chief Election Commissioner he took orders from no one.

One of the best examples of Seshan’s independence was in 1991 when P V Narasimha Rao had just been appointed PM. Seshan was fighting on two fronts.

The Opposition led by the Janata Dal was threatening to impeach him, while Rao’s government ordered Seshan not to notify a by-election for the Etawah constituency since it was a non-Congress bastion and Rao’s majority in the Lok Sabha was shaky.

When then MoS Law, Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, tried to put pressure on Seshan, he stood firm and instead demanded the government apologise to him in writing. The Etawah by-election was duly notified and the government’s apology sent. The PM could ill-afford to take on the CEC. Seshan could also have held up notifying a by-election for the Nandyal Lok Sabha constituency, from where Rao planned to contest. If Rao was not elected to the Lok Sabha in six months, he would have had to give up his prime ministership.