by Harihar Swarup

‘Mr clean’ of Cong may put spoke in BJP rath
IMAGE-WISE Dr Manmohan Singh is, perhaps, the cleanest leader in the weird world of politics and, had probity been the sole criterion for judging a person in public life, he would be leading the nation. Unfortunately, it is not so; honesty and integrity are not enough for a successful politician more so for one who leads the nation. The yardstick of clean image may, however, see him through the coming mid-term poll from the Delhi (South) constituency.

Sonia — misleading media or being misled?
WAS it a case of misleading the media or being misled by its logistics managers in the end.

75 Years Ago

Rise in the price of foodgrains
CONSIDERABLE alarm and hardship have been caused by the sudden rise in the price of wheat, the staple food of the people, by nearly 40 per cent and of other foodgrains and seeds also to some extent.

by Harihar Swarup
‘Mr clean’ of Cong may put spoke in BJP rath

IMAGE-WISE Dr Manmohan Singh is, perhaps, the cleanest leader in the weird world of politics and, had probity been the sole criterion for judging a person in public life, he would be leading the nation. Unfortunately, it is not so; honesty and integrity are not enough for a successful politician more so for one who leads the nation. The yardstick of clean image may, however, see him through the coming mid-term poll from the Delhi (South) constituency.

The leadership of the Congress has big plans for him in the event of the party mustering enough strength to stake a claim to form the government. The Congress has not officially projected him as its Prime Ministerial candidate but from all indications, he may be Sonia Gandhi’s man for the top slot, if the situation so warrants, and if she does not want to don the mantle herself. Many ifs and buts notwithstanding, the Delhi (South) seat has turned out to be a key constituency and will be watched with interest, along with other important constituencies, throughout the country.

Oxford-educated Dr Manmohan Singh (67) is basically an economist and his exposure to politics has been comparatively less. He would have remained an economist but for a call he received form Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, who had just taken over as Prime Minister in June 1991. Dr Singh, then Chairman of the University Grants Commission, recalled: “ P.V. was looking for a Finance Minister to tackle an exceedingly difficult economic situation and wanted me to take over the office”:

“I was given just 12 hours to make up my mind”, he says. “I was convalescing from a heart bypass surgery and was advised by friends not to take up the strenuous job of Finance Minister. It was a big challenge. When I spoke to P.V. about my predicament he put the poser what if we get sacked?” Evidently, Mr Rao had made up his mind to bring about sweeping economic reforms and thought that Dr Singh was the right person for the job. The former Prime Minister was absolutely right in his estimation of Dr Manmohan Singh.

The top economist says when he moved to the Finance Minister’s office in the North Block the country was on the brink of bankruptcy and the first six months were very tough. “We converted a collapsing economy into one of the most thriving economies of the world. This had never happened before”: He was expected to demolish what had come to be known as “licence raj” and succeeded to a large extent in achieving the objective. “Right from the beginning when I came to the government, I had been of the view that India needed deregulation, liberalisation, tax reform and reduction in excessively high rates of taxation”, Dr Singh says looking almost a decade back.

The biggest challenge of his career came a year after in 1992 when the bank securities scandal — the mother of all scams — came to light. No Finance Minister could have survived after the scam of this magnitude but Dr Manmohan Singh’s reputation for honesty helped him weather the stock-trading racket that had rocked the country. He promptly accepted the demand of the Opposition in Parliament for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the scam.

During the acrimonious deliberations and in the stormy debates members of Parliament cutting across party lines, pilloried the government for collapse of the banking system but none doubted the personal integrity of the Finance Minister. The JPC censured the Finance Ministry for failing to prevent the diversion of $1.5 billion in loans from government-owned banks to speculate in fraudulent stocks. Deeply hurt, Dr Manmohan Singh, offered to resign but the Prime Minister rejected it outright.

Mr Narasimha Rao’s US visit as Prime Minister in 1994 was highly successful and it was the first step towards improving Indo-US relations. Dr Manmohan Singh accompanied him and this correspondent, who joined the PM’s entourage can vouch that Dr Manmohan Singh was the most popular figure during the US trip, even more than Mr Rao,

The prestigious New York Times, in its Sunday issue (May 8,1994), summed up the Finance Minister’s personality in these words: “Mr Singh’s strength, apart from his economic expertise, lies partly in the reputation he has built up for honesty.... and that there is no double-talk with Singh... what he says he believes”:

Few know that he accepted only a token salary of a rupee per month as Finance Minister. When he ceased to be Finance Minister, he himself drove his Maruti-800 to Parliament and back while his erstwhile ministerial colleagues moved in chauffeur driven limousines.

After returning from Oxford in the sixties, he spent most of his career as a civil servant, administering the economic system. Before becoming the Reserve Bank Governor in 1982, he held senior positions in the Finance, Economic Affairs and Foreign Trade Ministries.

He was a brilliant student all through his career. When he was a primary school student in undivided Punjab in the late thirties, he took his examination in a town 20 miles from the village where his family worked as ordinary farmers. Each year, he covered the distance — a journey of eight to 10 hours, on foot — to and fro under the scorching sun.

Sonia — misleading media or being misled?

WAS it a case of misleading the media or being misled by its logistics managers in the end.

Considering the fact that the BJP managed to spring a surprise by pitting high-profile former Union Minister Sushma Swaraj against Congress President, Sonia Gandhi in Bellary, Karnataka, the cloak and dagger operation mounted by the AICC managers eventually failed.

Not only did the uncooperative attitude of the AICC functionaries who did everything to mislead the media or keep the whole thing under wraps, earn the Congress adverse publicity its claim of transparency suffered a serious dent.

Such was the shroud of secrecy that when a television camera person, who accompanied Mrs Sonia Gandhi as she set out from Delhi on Tuesday night to Hyderabad, made polite inquiry from the pilot as to the destination he was asked to just enjoy the flight.

Even the party’s official spokespersons were unaware of their President’s movement and those who went on record of her being a candidate from Cuddapah in Andhra Pradesh were pilloried later for having misled the media.

It has now surfaced that the Congress President diverted the plane mid-air after taking off from Hyderabad for Cuddapah and landed at Bellary. It has not only caused problems for the party rank and file but also to the Special Protection Group which too was caught off-guard with only her close-protection team left to do the difficult task.

The BJP managers who had despatched Mrs Swaraj to be present in Bellary also made a midnight call to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N Chandrababu Naidu, to have a standby at Cuddapah. Accordingly Vijayshanti, popularly known as lady Amitabh of the Telugu screen, was sounded to be the challenger. A special helicopter was placed at a strategic location to ensure she makes it to the returning officer from Chennai. In the end, the BJP strategists seem to have cocked a snook at their Congress counterparts.

As a BJP leader summed it up, it was a case of Sonia not knowing the ABC of politics, abbreviated from Amethi, Bellary and Cuddapah.

Power woes

The BJP has been grappling with a power crisis of a different kind these days. The party’s newly spruced up air-conditioned media hall has everything in place except for the right power connections.

In a strange coincidence, every time a senior BJP leader addresses a Press conference, the electricity has been going off. It happened for the first time when the party released its list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The problem recurred again during the major Press conference, Mr L.K. Advani, addressed as Chairman of the campaign committee of the BJP last week. And, again when the Union Finance Minister Mr Yashwant Sinha, released the Charter of Commitments of the National Democratic Alliance.

Mr Sinha who was at the midst of explaining his Government’s efforts in boosting infrastructure, especially telecom and power, in the country was at a loss to explain the sudden power cut. There were voices from the floor on the “Enron” power project. Mr Sinha clarified that this power cut definitely could not be attributed to the performance of the Power Minister, Mr P.R.Kumaramangalam.

For once the BJP cannot blame it on the Congress-led Delhi government since their headquarters on Ashoka Road falls in Lutyens Delhi, an area directly under the New Delhi Municipal Council which is controlled by the BJP.

Editor’s politics

Editor-turned-politician, Mr Arun Shourie, is on a job that he likes best— exposing the Bofors deal. With the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, opening a Pandora’s box by challenging her opponents to disclose facts of the Bofors case and her family friend Ottavio Quattrocchi’s involvement in it, Mr Shourie, a BJP MP now, has become hyperactive these days.

The Bharatiya Janata Party lost little time in fielding him as its official spokesman and Mr Shourie has been speaking at length on the Bofors deal. However, Mr Shourie seems to be caught by the dichotomy of his professional roles. Having been an Editor of a national daily for several years, he has been having to answer questions posed by several scribes, who invariably are junior to him in the profession.

This dilemma came to the fore at a recent media briefing by him when one of his erstwhile juniors in journalism pounded him with uncomfortable questions on the stand taken by the BJP on the Bofors deal.

A visibly irritated Mr Shourie shot back saying the scribe who had worked with him would not want to enter into a debate with him. The scribe was flabbergasted. He has vowed to confront Mr Shourie with details of a Parliamentary debate involving the Law Minister, Mr Ram Jethmalani, the subject matter of the wordy duel. It was last heard that the scribe has been busy in the Parliament library to apparently make his point with his former chief.

Confusing parties?

It was with much fanfare that the Indian National Lok Dal, opened its Central Office in Delhi at the residence of Mr Kishan Singh Sangwan who was the leader of its Parliamentary Party in the 13th Lok Sabha.

At that time, neither was the INLD anywhere near power in Haryana nor was Mr Sangwan an MP then. But now there seems to some logistical mix-up.

Mr Sangwan has now joined the BJP and is a candidate from the Sonepat Parliamentary constituency in Haryana but yet the INLD board proclaiming the venue to be its central office is still displayed prominently.

The only addition is that Mr Sangwan has hoisted a BJP flag atop his bungalow allotted to him as an MP. Can it be a case when the head overruling the heart ?

MoD’s hitch

The Election Commission’s recent directive to political parties on the Kargil issue had the Ministry of Defence in knots. Not only was the Minister of Defence, Mr George Fernandes irked with the directive but the officials went about meeting each other, the day after and preparing to send a reply to the Election Commission.

The reply was also to be released to the media but that is when the game came unstuck. The media contingent who were specially called for it, had to cool their heels for over two hours with helpful suggestions from officials that the reply to the Election Commission was being given final touches.

However after a long wait, with the media persons already on the edge, they were told there was nothing for them. Apparently, the Ministry or was the Minister, had decided not to send the reply, or even if give a reply, not to ‘‘leak it’’.

Was it that the MoD did not want to rake up another controversy, for what the irrepressible George is known for or was it that the summons from the Election Commission to the Samata Party to appear before it the following morning (Saturday in this case) on a petition filed by the Janata Dal (Secular), stopped it from coming out in the open?

Author Advani

It was a case when the Home Minister donned the role of an author to do his bit for the relief fund in honour of the soldiers who fought the battle in Kargil.

Proceeds from reprint of his book ‘‘A Prisoner’s Scrap Book” which he wrote during the internal emergency period 1975-77 which totalled to Rs 4 Lakh was handed over to the Prime Minister Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, by Ms Pratibha Advani, the daughter of the Union Home Minister.

It was largely due to her efforts that the book was reprinted and the money realised from its sales was contributed to the relief fund.

Incidentally, both Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani were detained simultaneously in Bangalore during the Emergency.

Tit for tat

Driven to the wall by the decision of the Ethics Committee of the AICC to deny him a ticket, the outgoing Congress MP from Assam’s Tezpur, Mani Kumar Subba, who is otherwise known as the “Lottery King” of the North-East, has decided to target his detractors with pertinent questions.

Subba, who was subjected to income tax raids recently as a result of a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India into the Nagaland lottery scam, has shot questions at Dr Manmohan Singh, who at present is the Rajya Sabha MP from his home state, Assam. (Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr A.K. Antony constitute the Ethics Committee of AICC.)

Subba’s questions to Dr Manmohan Singh are: Having initiated the cases against Ms Jayalalitha as Finance Minister, why did you go to her house in Poes Gardens, Chennai, to pose for photographs and negotiate the AIADMK-Congress pact? Subba points out that while Jayalalitha has been chargesheeted in the cases, in his case the government is yet to draft a formal chargesheet. Subba’s attack is also directed at Mr Antony, who along with Dr Manmohan Singh posed for photographs at Poes Gardens.

Subba is also training his guns at yet another Congress bigwig, Arjun Singh, who opposed his Lok Sabha ticket. With great alacrity, he points out that if he has been named in the Nagaland lottery scam, can the charges against Mr Arjun Singh concerning the Churhat Children Lottery be forgotten?

(Contributed by SB, T V Lakshminarayan, K V Prasad, Girja Shankar Kaura and P N Andley).

75 YEARS AGO
August 22, 1924
Rise in the price of foodgrains

CONSIDERABLE alarm and hardship have been caused by the sudden rise in the price of wheat, the staple food of the people, by nearly 40 per cent and of other foodgrains and seeds also to some extent. The cause of this rise is said to be the heavy purchases made by exporting firms owing to the reported shortage of foreign wheat stocks.

The situation is serious enough to engage the attention of the authorities who cannot justifiable expose the people to the sudden fluctuations caused by foreign market rates in the matter of food and other necessaries of life. If the government only imagines the effect of a sudden rise in the price of food by 40 per cent on the average poor family — the great majority of the population being poor — it will not hesitate to adopt preventive measures.

In an agricultural country like ours, where the staple food is grown in abundant quantities, the people have a right to purchase food at a fairly low and uniform rate, unless the production is inadequate, and it is the duty of a government, which has the welfare of the people at heart, to secure this condition.