Column

Meanwhile in Delhi

And you thought the Patil versus Shekhawat battle is dirty. Rewind to 1969, when Indira Gandhi fielded VV Giri by proxy against her party’s official candidate, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, in an audacious challenge to the power of a ‘syndicate’ of regional satraps who were proving to be a thorn in her flesh. That contest was as dirty as dirty gets, full of the lowest kind of skullduggery and nasty tricks. The booklet penned by Arun Shourie against Patil, for instance, is almost staid compared to the viciously colourful pamphlet circulated about Reddy.

The Reddy pamphlet was the worst kind of yellow writing, replete with lascivious details about his alleged affairs with various women, names and places included. To top it all, it was anonymous. Yet, it was distributed in Parliament House and other haunts of politicians to spook them into a rethink on Reddy. Patil is merely “tainted”. Reddy was torn apart as “debauched”. At least Shourie owned up his penmanship by putting his name to the booklet.

Needless to say, the Reddy pamphlet raised a real stink. It became the subject of a Supreme Court case after the poll and was produced as evidence to prove that the election had been vitiated by a dirty campaign. The suspected author of the pamphlet, Shashi Bushan, was one of the 20 witnesses summoned by the court but he stoutly denied any hand in its publication. Giri too appeared in the case, although he was, by then, President of India. A special chair was placed for him in deference to protocol because as the first citizen of the country, he was senior to the judges on the bench.

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There were other dramatic moments in the ‘69 presidential race. The election was forced by the sudden death of Zakir Hussain. Giri, as vice president, was acting president. When he was chosen as Indira Gandhi’s secret weapon against the ‘syndicate’, he and his backers were faced with the unprecedented prospect of a sitting president hitting the campaign trail. They decided that he should resign. But how can a president hand over his resignation letter to himself? Giri hit on a wily method. He put his letter on the president’s official table and walked out of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The government had to hurriedly swear in the then Chief Justice, M Hidayatullah, as the next acting president!

Instead of getting all hot and bothered by the BJP’s dirty tricks, the Congress would do well to remember the shenanigans of Indira Gandhi and her aides in the fight to defeat Reddy and teach the ‘syndicate’ a lesson. Ah, the ironies of history! The very leaders who plotted with Gandhi against Reddy were struck by guilt later and in 1977, they had him elected to Rashtrapati Bhavan as a nominee of the Janata Party government. They included veteran socialists like Madhu Limaye and Chandrashekhar, who had fallen out with Gandhi by then. Politics has always been dirty. We’ve just
forgotten how dirty.

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Tailpiece

US Ambassador David Mulford’s recent meeting with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala was a surprise present for his 70th birthday. Mulford was bundled into a car by his staff officers and wife, driven to the airport and put on a plane without anyone breathing a word to him about his destination. He was, of course, overjoyed when he found out because it was exactly what he wanted. And what better way to celebrate a milestone birthday than with an audience with the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net