India This Week

The Brothers Reddy and Their Swaraj; CPM Stops in its Tracks; US Bars Indian Spooks; MNS-Azmi Fracas; and By-Poll Mayhem for CPM

A decade ago, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj took on Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha electoral battle at Bellary in Karnataka. The Bellary seat was always a Congress citadel, but Swaraj gave her best shot. She lost the election but in the course of campaigning, won important friends. The influence of her friends, the mining barons from Bellary—the Reddy brothers—has only grown since then. The crisis in Karnataka orchestrated by the brothers is evidence of this. Since 1999, the ties between Sushma Swaraj and the three brothers—G Janardhana Reddy, Somasekhara Reddy and Karunakara Reddy—have only grown stronger. They call her thaayi (mother) and she performs pooja at their ancestral home.

It was no surprise then that the solution to the crisis came after the warring factions, led by Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and the eldest Reddy, Janardhana, respectively held meetings at Swaraj’s house in Delhi. “The crisis has been resolved amicably and both Mr Yeddyurappa and Mr Reddy will go back to Bangalore and start working for the betterment of the state from tomorrow. It is a happy coincidence that a solution has been found on the birthday of Mr Advani which I consider a birthday gift,” Swaraj told journalists after successfully thrashing out the compromise formula, which is heavily loaded in favour of the rebels.

As part of the deal, the Chief Minister gets to stay but he has been made to eject his confidante, former rural affairs minister Shobha Karandlaje, from the Cabinet. He has also moved out his principal secretary and rescinded transfer orders of several officials he had allegedly moved to discomfit the Reddys. His own government’s functioning will now be subject to scrutiny by a co-ordination committee. Not only is Janardhana Reddy a part of the committee, but Swaraj is heading it. Karnataka is the first south Indian state where the BJP has formed a government and the buzz in the corridors of power is the compromise worked out by Swaraj could play an important role in deciding the next party president. Rajnath Singh’s term ends in December and the BJP’s big brother the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has already spelt out that Advani must go after a new president takes over. Swaraj is looking at a bigger return gift than what she has gifted the party for his birthday.

‘Can the safety of Indian Railways, one of the most important instruments of our country’s unity and integrity, be jeopardised at the altar of crass political opportunism?’ asks an editorial in the latest issue of the CPM organ People’s Democracy. The reference was to Maoists’ holding the Bhubaneswar-Delhi Rajdhani hostage recently to demand Chhatradhar Mahto’s release.

Yet it was BT Ranadive, one of the CPM’s icons and general secretary of the undivided CPI, who first sought to use the railways to bring down the Nehru Government. The 1949 strike call failed to halt a single train. In 1974, socialists, led by George Fernandes, sought to bring down the Indira Gandhi Government by stopping the railways. The CPM, which had come into existence after splitting the CPI in 1964, was on the side of the Socialists. The ’74 strike also fizzled out but the party has, ever since, remained mum on using railway trains for ‘political opportunism’. So what’s this U-turn about? 

A team of Indian Intelligence officials which flew down to the US for interrogating American national David Coleman Headley, arrested by the FBI on charges of plotting a major terror attack in India, has been denied access to question him. The team had arrived in Washington on 1 November. But after waiting for more than a week, the team had to return after being snubbed by US authorities. Headley, 49, is accused of being an operative of the Pakistan-based terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), who had been given the task of targeting prime targets in India, including the National Defence College in New Delhi. The Indian Government is trying to downplay the snub, citing ‘procedural’ delays as the reason for being denied access. This, even though India has allowed the FBI to question, among others, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the Mumbai terror attack.

On the day the world was celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, Raj Thackeray, a candid admirer of Adolf Hitler, was in rampage mode in Mumbai. His brigade of goons did what they do best—indulge in violence. They beat up Samajwadi Party legislator Abu Asim Azmi in the Maharashtra Assembly for taking oath in Hindi, and ensured that their leader made it to national headlines.

These two men—Raj and Abu— seem made for each other. The constitution of Maharashtra’s legislature allows members to take oath in Hindi, Marathi, English, Urdu and Sanskrit. After the 2004 Assembly polls in the state, some 22 members took oath in Hindi and everyone shook hands and greeted each other. But Azmi had to provoke Thackeray, so this time he spelt out his intentions to a belligerent media.

Neither is Thackeray a die-hard fan of Marathi nor Azmi a staunch supporter of Hindi. Both just happen to speak either language as it is their mother-tongue. Thackeray’s son chose German over Marathi because the former is a high-scoring subject. The Azmi children too are more inclined towards English than Hindi. Yet, both have assumed the role of saviours and are fighting it out. Actually, they are hiding behind their security cover and telling their empty-headed lieutenants to ‘continue the battle of pride’.

Both Thackeray and Azmi seem much satisfied with all the media attention that the incident has brought them. Both may claim to be different but really are very similar. Both love media attention and suffer withdrawal symptoms if they do not get their regular dose of publicity. Why did Thackeray’s goons not take on legislators who had taken oath in other languages? They knew that singling out Azmi would get Amar Singh angry and thereby a strong reaction from the North Indian population. It would then be a stone for a stone. Had the MNS reacted to Congressman Baba Siddique taking oath in English, the reaction may not have been media worthy. The elected goons of MNS have started quoting the Maharashtra Assembly constitution but if they had bothered to read it, they would not be fighting over a non-issue. The MNS will be more of a destructive force than a constructive opposition party. What took place on 9 November will become a routine part of the proceedings of the state Assembly. But Raj Thackeray will not be contained. The state will let him off with mild warnings as votes are at stake. Just as the Shiv Sena flourished under Congress rule, so will the MNS. Raj Thackeray helped the Congress and NCP retain power in Maharashtra and now he is demanding his pound of flesh. Neither the Congress nor the NCP has the guts to take on Raj Thackeray, and those who emulate him.

With not a single seat in its twin bastions of West Bengal and Kerala, the CPM could not have expected worse in the November by-poll. In West Bengal, even the last ditch bid by the Alimuddin Street bosses—pressing the 97-year-old Jyoti Basu into service—could not yield any results. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) sweeped all the seven seats it contested, while all of CPM’s candidates lost—even from their traditional seats of Rajganj and Belgachia (East). The Belgachia (E) had been held by CPM’s Subhas Chakravarty for years, who had passed away recently. Trinamool won the seat despite the sympathy  factor, showing that there seems to be an anti-CPM wave in the state. What is more interesting is that the popular anger in Bengal is more against the CPM than its other Left allies. Forward Bloc won the Goalpokhar seat, which was earlier held by Deepa Dasmunsi, wife of Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, former Union Cabinet minister. No better seems to be the fate of the Left in Kerala, where it lost all three seats. What is worse for the CPM in the state is that it no longer has sway even over politically sensitive Kannur, the home district of party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Congress candidate Abdulla Kutty, who was expelled from the CPM a few months back following serious differences with the CPM leadership, registered a convincing victory over Vijayan’s close aide and CPM candidate MV Jayarajan. Indeed, the Trinamool-Congress alliance in West Bengal and UDF in Kerala have decisively been able to consolidate their Lok Sabha performances in the two states. 

Abu AzmiCPMMNSSushma Swaraj