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In these times of fractured mandates and coalition governments, all political leaders are playing the field. Sonia Gandhi too has plunged into the game. A couple of weeks ago, she created ripples of surprise in the Congress and the Samajwadi Party by playing host to BSP chief Mayawati over dinner at 10, Janpath. This happened just when her party leaders and the SP were expecting to bury the hatchet and join forces to take on the feisty Dalit empress of UP.

The tete-a-tete with Mayawati suggests that Gandhi is undecided which UP party she wants to tango with. Last week, she proved again that she’s keeping her political options wide open. Much to the chagrin of UPA ally and DMK boss M Karunanidhi, Gandhi granted an audience to his nephew-turned-foe, Dayanidhi Maran. The two branches of Tamil Nadu’s powerful political family are locked in a bitter feud to control the airwaves in their home state. The news of Maran’s late evening courtesy call at 10, Janpath sent waves of anger and concern coursing through the DMK.

The next morning, Karunanidhi’s elder son, Azhargiri, was on the phone to DMK union ministers, TR Baalu and A Raja, demanding an explanation. According to the story circulating in Delhi’s power corridors, Azhargiri roared and fumed at his ministers for letting Maran slip through the cracks into Gandhi’s drawing room. To rub salt into the DMK’s wounds, Maran made a rare appearance in Parliament last week and sat with Congress MPs, smiling gleefully and offering laudatory comments on the budget. So what’s cooking? Reports suggest that Congress leaders in Chennai are fishing for new partners. They have been hobnobbing openly with cine star-politician Vijaykanth and secretly with AIADMK members. It looks like the political sands are shifting in Tamil Nadu as the “partying’’ gathers momentum in preparation for the next general elections.

A different kind of party was happening at Udaipur where civil aviation minister Praful Patel showed us why our airports are such a mess. The entire list of the country’s rich and famous headed for this picturesque Rajasthani city last week to attend Patel’s daughter’s marriage and created one of the worst aviation gridlocks ever seen. There were as many as 129 operations in one night at an airport that normally handles just 20 in a day as top corporate barons flew down in their private planes for the wedding of the year.

One report put the number of business jets at 80 and chartered flights from the metros at 11. The traffic jam on the ground and in the air meant delays and diversions with planes being forced to land and take off immediately to free parking slots for other incoming flights. A plane from Delhi carrying several union ministers reached three hours late after being diverted to Ahmedabad. The guests just had time to greet the bridal couple before turning around for the return journey that brought them back to Delhi at 2am. It was a mind-boggling feat in traffic management. Despite the chaos, the Udaipur ATC kept its head and ensured a mishap-free night.

TAILPIECE
Hilary Clinton’s Indian connection, Sant Chhatwal, was spotted at the slew of wedding receptions last week, starting with the Patel marriage. His lengthy time-out from her campaign was the subject of several nasty cracks with fellow guests asking slyly whether his presence in India was a sign that Clinton was losing the race for the
Democratic nomination.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net