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Meanwhile in Delhi

The politics of the nuclear deal simply won’t go away. They popped up again on the way back from China aboard the prime minister’s special plane. Just when we had finished breathing a sigh of relief that the deal was now a matter of detail
between Pranab Mukherjee and the Left, the PM stirred the pot to confound nuke watchers. He told the accompanying media team that he had indeed asked the Chinese to support India’s case at the Nuclear Suppliers Group but did not get a firm assurance.

The babus gagged. The PM had overturned the official line without batting an eyelid. Foreign secretary Shankar Menon and the PM’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru didn’t know where to look. They had been told to give a positive spin about a Chinese nod for India’s entry into the elite nuclear club. So why did the PM say exactly the opposite? Journos buzzed around trying to make sense of the confusion. Was the PM simply making an honest admission, whatever the diplomatic cost with China? Or was his statement a coded message for Prakash Karat in their ongoing tussle over the nuclear deal? The
aides were blank. They just spent the rest of the flight giving embarrassed explanations.

The Chinese, too, were left wondering what makes Manmohan Singh tick. Unlike other visiting VIPs, the Indian PM spent just two-and-a-half days in China. He flew into Beijing, finished the business at hand, and flew back, avoiding the mandatory hops to Shanghai and at least one tourist attraction. Sonia Gandhi’s five-day China sojourn last year included Xi’an, the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, renowned for the Terracotta Army from the Qin dynasty.

Vajpayee spent six days in the Middle Kingdom in 2003 and went to Luoyang to see its famous carved Buddha statues. But Singh didn’t even do the usual tourist thing in Beijing of visiting the Great Wall. Forget about going to another city. According to his aides, this is Singh’s style. All work and no play. The Chinese were certainly mystified and perhaps a bit miffed. One of their media commentators made a note of it by contrasting Singh’s one-stop visit to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s 2005 India trip. Wen had taken time out to fly to India’s IT capital Bangalore, he wrote.

It turns out that there is a pretty prosaic explanation for the arm Wen wrapped around the PM during the ceremonial welcome at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. While the media gushed about body language, witnesses to the event say that actually, Wen put out his arm to support the PM when he lost his footing as he stepped off the dais. What’s an arm between friends anyway? Wen’s big gesture, a departure from protocol, was to host a private dinner for the PM on the evening of his arrival.

TAILPIECE
Mayawati had an unexpected visitor at her Delhi residence on her birthday. Former BJP leader and Delhi satrap Madan Lal Khurana walked in with a huge bouquet of flowers, good wishes and a political feeler. Ever since he quit the BJP to join Uma Bharati’s fading party, Khurana has been like a lost soul. He’s in talks with the BJP to rejoin. But in the meantime, he’s revived an old connection to check out a possible slot in the BSP. In 1982, before the BSP was formed, Mayawati had approached Khurana for a BJP ticket to contest the Delhi municipal polls. It looks like the shoe is on the other foot now!

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net