Column

It’s the time for fantasies in an election year that offers no certainties about the outcome. Will the cow jump over the moon? Or can the little dogfinally laugh to see the dish run away with the spoon? After Advani breached the fortified walls of 10 Janpath to present Sonia Gandhi with the story of his life, anything is possible. Political circles are agog with speculation that Amar Singh, another avowed antagonist of the First Family of Indian politics, is also headed for an audience in the sanctum sanctorum of the Congress party.

He doesn’t have a book to offer but he and his boss, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, are apparently ready to talk business, seat- sharing, pre-electoral alliance, anything, to contain Mayawati who has emerged as a big bugbear for established political formations. Gandhi hasn’t given the green signal yet, but interlocutors are hopeful that she will in the days to come.

One of the big cheerleaders for a Congress-SP patch-up is, hold your breath, Lalu Yadav. When Lalu decided to hitch his star to the Congress wagon some years ago, he and Mulayam had a very public falling out. They made up in a private meeting recently at Lalu’s house, both eager to forget the past to stabilise their uncertain future. It’s all very cosy now. Within days of the ice-breaker meeting, the two Yadavs flew off together in Amar Singh’s private plane for the ICL tournament in Chandigarh. With Lalu and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh on their side, Amar Singh and Mulayam have influential friends batting for them in the UPA.

Although Gandhi hasn’t responded yet to Lalu’s sales pitch for a patch-up with the SP, the ebullient railways minister graciously obliged her by holding out an olive branch to Ram Vilas Paswan in the recent Rajya Sabha elections. His party helped Paswan’s nominee Sabir Ali to win as a combined UPA candidate. The request to accommodate Paswan came from Gandhi herself and probably marks the beginning of a mend in the fractured relationship between the two partners of the Congress in Bihar. It’s curious how old friends rediscover each other at poll time. Watch this space for the incredible permutations and combinations that will emerge as political parties hunt for allies to fight a difficult election in these uncertain times.

TAILPIECE

The kiss-and-make-up frenzy has hit the saffron parivar too. Uma Bharati has redoubled her efforts for reconciliation with the BJP through her guru, the head of the Pejawar Mutt in Karnataka. When Narendra Modi called on the Mutt chief recently, he was reminded about Bharati’s gracious gesture of withdrawing her nominees from the Gujarat poll fray to help him win. This should be reciprocated by re-inducting Bharati into the BJP, Modi was told. Well, Modi has apparently passed on the message to Advani who has been blocking her re-entry to the party. The problem is how to accommodate the feisty sanyasin with the temperament of a lone wolf. One compromise formula suggested by Modi is to put her in charge of Madhya Pradesh with the understanding that she will not destabilise the chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan. Although this could prove trickier to pull off than getting Lalu and Paswan to smoke the peace pipe, Advani is in a mellow enough mood these days to give it a shot.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net