Column

Meanwhile in Delhi

We know about Pranab Mukherjee and Ahmed Patel. They’ve been troubleshooting for the UPA government since its inception. Now, a third crisis manager has emerged —Kapil Sibal. Last week, Patel called in this lawyer turned union minister for science and technology and directed him to hold a press conference to douse the nuclear fire threatening to consume the government. Interestingly, this was done at the behest of 10 Janpath which seems to have decided that it’s time for the party to intervene and have its say.

So, while Mukherjee and Patel continued to battle with Sitaram Yechury behind closed doors, Sibal was fielded before the media to soft pedal the issue by stressing on dialogue and debate rather than confrontation. According to Congress circles, the plan was also conveyed to the PM and he was asked to make available experts and officials to give Sibal a crash course on the intricacies of the deal. Sibal is now all over television and in newspapers. He defends the deal but talks the language of conciliation. The party has also mooted a plan to send him to state capitals to spread the message.

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Gandhi seems to have decided that it’s high time Sibal’s gift of the gab was put to good use. It all began early this year when she decided to use him to defend the move to dismiss Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in Lucknow and impose President’s Rule. The plan fell flat because of a Left veto but there was no impact on Sibal’s fortunes. A few weeks later, he was appointed media manager for the party’s UP election campaign. He’s now been drafted for a similar role in Gujarat where he will be pitted against old foe Arun Jaitley. They’re adept at trading charges on behalf of their parties, having done it through two general elections, in 1998 and 1999.

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While Sibal is playing the external firefighter for the nuclear standoff, it’s Mukherjee and Patel who are battling at Ground Zero. Mukherjee has held at least 10 closed-door meetings with Sitaram Yechury in the span of as many days. Two of them lasted well beyond midnight, which says a lot about Mukherjee’s stamina, given his age.

Nothing is sweeter than success, however. Having managed to forge a truce after so many hours of hard negotiations, the government’s chief crisis manager has taken time off for a tryst with faith. He’s flown to Tirupati this weekend for Lord Balaji’s blessings.

This was something he had planned to do when he miraculously survived a terrible road accident in his constituency earlier this year. But crisis after crisis kept him busy in the Capital, starting with Left trouble over the presidential poll. As a wag commented, he will definitely need divine intervention to manage the increasingly fractious relationship with the Left.

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TAILPIECE
Now we know why the CPI(M) central committee meeting on the nuclear issue lasted two full days. Each one of its 80 members asked to speak and was allowed to do so! Is that inner party democracy or sheer verbiage amounting to a waste of time? The interesting thing was that the Bengal lobby gave full vent to its anger over the prospect of a mid-term poll. But the deeply divided Kerala lobby skirted the election question although privately, it too fears an early poll, probably even more than the comrades from Bengal.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net