The Hindu Business Line : The great Indian political circus

If the Congress party is going through troubled times amid the fallout of the Volcker report, the BJP has had its share of problems with the volatile Uma Bharti. A trying time for the country's two main parties.

IT IS bit of an irony that while the economy, and along with it the equity market, is doing so well, India's principal political parties — the Congress(I) and the BJP — are going through harrowing times. The Volcker report is a huge embarrassment that goes beyond the personal gain that Mr Natwar Singh and his family are supposed to have made from a friendly Saddam regime doling out lucrative oil coupons.

Despite having been stripped of his External Affairs portfolio, Mr Singh obdurately refused to resign from the Cabinet, even after receiving several polite hints.

Only when he was dropped from the Congress Steering Committee, the party's high-power body, and Congress leaders such as Mr Kapil Sibal went public with loud and clear `hints' on how Mr Singh was a senior and mature enough politician to do what was expected of him, did he convey his decision to the Congress(I) chief, Ms Sonia Gandhi, and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, that he is ready to resign from the Cabinet.

It is a shame that he hung around as a minister without a portfolio for nearly a month before being forced to quit the Cabinet. The course taken by the post-Volcker report developments and the Congress party's response to them are bizarre, to say the least.

The first and knee-jerk response of the Congress(I) to the allegations in the report was the grand announcement that the party would sue the United Nations for sullying its image! But over a month, and while announcing his decision to quit the Cabinet, with the claim that he was doing so "to save the party and the UPA government from further embarrassment caused by politically-motivated attacks", Mr Singh and his son took a curiously belligerent stand.

But with Mr Singh's one-time favourite, Aneil Mathrani spilling the beans in an interview to India Today, which left little to the imagination on the involvement of the Singh family in Saddam's oil largesse, his continuation in the Cabinet became untenable.

A word on Mr Mathrani's denials once the interview was published and the television channels had beamed his voice saying exactly what the print said.

First, he denied that he had said all that he did about his boss; in the next breath he said that the whole thing was an off-the-record interview! This is exactly the kind of stuff that would fox people with average intelligence. How can you say off the record what you claim you never said?!

Anyway, so low have our politicians and their underlings in the bureaucracy sunk in public esteem, that most people would have shrugged and moved on.

While the Opposition parties, particularly the BJP, caught up in its persisting internal troubles, are delighted at this invaluable opportunity to kick up a row, stall parliamentary proceedings and do exactly the kind of things Opposition parties are known for, the larger issue is the shocking shamelessness our politicians display when caught with their hands in the till.

Whether the Bangaru Laxman or Jaya Jaitley-George Fernandes combine of the past, or the Natwar Singh-Jagat Singh issue of today, where the net is clearly closing in on the father and son, or the innumerable cases of corrupt officials, what shocks is the belligerence with which those charged of corruption — sometimes with visual proof, as in recent sting operations — keep denying the charges and proclaim their innocence. While doing so, they firmly hold on to their kursis.

Watching them, one thinks back to a time when our politicians or bureaucrats charged of corruption, or heading the Railway Ministry when a major accident occurred, would offer to resign when a question mark was put against their integrity or efficiency.

But as the Natwar saga unfolds and he gives in his resignation once the Prime Minister returns from his Russia trip, one hopes that his son will make up his mind about his relationship with the mysterious Andaleeb Sehgal, Director of Hamdaan Exports, that has been named a "non-contractual beneficiary" of Iraq's controversial oil-for-food programme in the Volcker report.

So, while those within the Congress(I) baying for the former External Affairs Minister's blood have finally succeeded, so have the "second generation" leaders of the BJP, who have finally managed to throw out the fiery sanyasin Uma Bharti from the party.

Having failed to get back the chief ministership of Madhya Pradesh, Ms Bharti's wrath saw no bounds and she resorted to what she knows best — a tongue-lashing of the worst order.

This time, her verbal arsenal did not even spare the two senior BJP leaders — Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the party chief, Mr L.K. Advani. She ranted and raved, asking the BJP to take action against the latter for his "Jinnah-is-secular" comment during his Pakistan trip and urged the former to take action as the BJP was being hijacked by leaders such as Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan.

Uma Bharti blames the two younger leaders for her present miseries, but she has to turn the spotlight on her own persona to unearth the real reason for her crashing fall. Announcing the expulsion of a fellow general-secretary for "indiscipline", Mr Jaitley tersely observed: "The language used by her is not of dignified politics."

Ironically, Ms Bharti's tumultuous political career with the BJP came to an end on December 5, on the eve of the demolition of the Babri Majid in 1992.

So the Congress-led UPA has shaken off Natwar Singh; and the BJP has got rid of Uma Bharti. The former might find it easier than the latter to return if the Pathak Committee probing the Volcker charges fails to find evidence to pin him. But Ms Bharti seems to have shut the door irrevocably as far as the BJP is concerned.

She, however, has ample admirers in other parivar outfits such as the VHP, or even the parent organisation, RSS, to bounce back in a new and perhaps more powerful avatar in one of them. Call it mass appeal or the ability to get total loyalty from her supporters, it would be a mistake to write off Ms Uma Bharti's career in public life.

While the Congress and the BJP are concerned with unpleasant developments, the story at `Matoshree', the fortress of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai, is even more dismal.

What Chhagan Bhujbal couldn't do several years ago, Narayan Rane has done after quitting the Sena, joining the Congress and winning the Sena citadel of Malvan in the recent by-election. This has triggered a revolt against party supremo Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav, by nephew Raj Thackeray. Raj is yet to accept his uncle's invitation for talks.

The next instalment of the Sena, Uma, Natwar saga promises to be as stormy as interesting, ensuring that the great Indian political circus is never short of its exciting moments.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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