LIKE any other politician of the country, Finance Minister P Chidambaram wants to intro duce his son, Karthik Chidambaram, who is a Chennai based sharebroker operating from Hyderabad, into politics. The launch platform chosen for Chidambaram junior’s debut is the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress Committee.
Chidambaram knows that the youth wing of the Congress is almost defunct and there is not much for its president to do in the state. Nonetheless, the post will qualify his son as a political and organizational person and help his rise to the top. But the task is prov ing hardly as simple as he had thought it would be. As Finance Minister, he sails through the formi dable exercise of presenting the nation’s annual budget. Yet, when it comes to lobbying for a post in the Congress, he is virtually undergoing baptism by fire.
There are any number of quaint hurdles in the way. The president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, M Krishnasamy, is the father-in-law of the Union Minister of Health, Anbumani Ramadoss. Should Karthik be made Youth Congress chief, it will mean that the party’s leadership is limited to the kin of its central leaders.
While the national president of the party’s youth wing, Ashok Tanwar, is not opposing Karthik’s candidature for strategic reasons, the Rahul Gandhi brigade is apparently against the young man. No guesses on who will finally call the tune.
Advani nips Natwar
plans
WHY did LK Advani cold shoulder the attempt of suspended Congress leader K Natwar Singh to join the BJP? Singh owes his political career to the Nehru dynasty and enjoyed its trust until his name figured in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam.However,it was reportedly his threat to expose 10 Janpath rather than the scam that brought about his suspension from the party in 2006.
The embittered Singh then started rediscovering his Jat roots and evidencing prox imity to the BJP.Last month,at a BJP-sponsored Jat rally in Rajasthan,he announced his resignation from the Congress and praised the saffron Chief Minister of the state,Vasundhara Raje Scindia.
Singh’s obvious calculation was that the BJP,desperately in need of a Jat leader to fill the void created by Sahib Singh Verma’s death,would readily admit him to the party and give him a Lok Sabha seat from his home district,Bharatpur.
He forgot that Advani is very conscious about his political moves since becom ing the party nominee for the Prime Minister’s post after the next Lok Sabha polls.The BJP had a tough time justifying the admission of the tainted former Congress Minister,Sukhram.And Singh’s entry would further embarrass the party.
Hence,Advani turned down Singh,declaring that the BJP is not a dumping ground for tainted Congress leaders.Now Singh is reportedly threatening to reveal the truth behind Sonia Gandhi’s refusal of the PM’s post.And the Congress is responding by expediting investigations into the scam.Watch this space.
Hobson’s choice for
Pachauri
THEloyalists of 10 Janpath are continu ously reminded that beggars can’t be choosers. Suresh Pachauri, a four-term Rajya Sabha member and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Personnel, recently had a taste of it when the Congress high command appointed him president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee last month.
The Central and state Brahmin leaders worked on a multi-pronged strategy to untie Pachuri from the apron strings of the Congress president and then launch a coup de graceagainst him.
First, they convinced the party president that his appointment would woo Brahmin voters and contain Mayawati’s inroads in the state ahead of elections. Now, the same group is mounting moral pressure on the central leadership to apply the principle of “one man, one post” and tell Pachauri to put in his papers as Minister.
The beleaguered man knows he has been cleverly trapped and has no option but to concede defeat on his home turf, from his own caste who are ready to prove him a failure in the next polls.
Rejoicing silently at the internecine war of the Brahmins and the Godsend in the form of this development in the state is the pow erful feudal Thakur lobby in the state Congress, the Union Cabinet and the party’s central organization.
Pachauri, unwilling to forgo the creature comforts of Delhi, is also aware that, once out of the Centre, it is next to impossible to regain footing — such is Congress culture
Lost in translation
AT the headquarters of the Indian National Congress at 24 Akbar Road,New Delhi,it seems there is scant value attached to regional languages in organizational matters. The party does not provide secretariat staff conversant in regional languages to the General Secretaries.
Veteran Mohsina Kidwai is a General Secretary and is also in charge of the party organization in Kerala.She has been given the services of a small time secretary.But,when Kidwai is on tour,the secretary complains of being without work.
Kidwai’s office gets correspondence from party workers in Malayalam and also receives visitors from the state who can speak only their mother tongue. Confronted with such a situation, the helpless staff sends the letters and visitors to Malayalam-speaking Tom Vaddakan,Secretary, Media Cell, or PP Madhawan, Officer on Special Duty in the PMO, or Vincent George at 10 Janpath.
Already overburdened with work,these people cannot help. So the office staff forwards the correspondence to the secretary. By the time the latter is able to get translation into English done outside the party office, another bundle of letters arrives for translation.
