 | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | WARRIOR QUEEN: Sonia fights back a week after her resignation | | Renounce and be rearmed. It worked when Sonia Gandhi, in a moment of high drama, said no when the wailing legion of Congressmen pleaded for another dynastic coronation after the last general elections. The atmospherics might have been sacrificial; the act was a calculated political stroke, masterly. Sonia the uncrowned empress was born that day in the central hall of Parliament. Her power was unedited, unquestioned, and unofficial. On the afternoon of March 23, it was an altogether different Sonia who played out Renunciation Part Two. The power was challenged, and the Congress, being a party hardened by privileges, began to betray that familiar totalitarian temptation to save the maximum leader. Simulated martyrdom apart, her resignation from the office of profit as well as the Lok Sabha was a last minute attempt to turn explosive adversity into political advantage. Five days later, she drove to the inherited family fiefdom, Rae Bareli, to declare war-and to assert once more her indispensability in India's grand old party. She cried out: Jung jaari rahegi aur carvaan badta rahega. The sari was trademark crisp cotton but this was not the demure Sonia seen on the first row of the treasury benches, her hair pulled back in a girlish pony tail. Sonia in Rae Bareli was woman scorned, brandishing a sword, and fiery vermilion blazing her forehead. It was the tone of a lone woman wrongly condemned: "Today they are out to blame Sonia Gandhi for everything under the sun-even if it were thunder, rain or lightning-none other than Sonia Gandhi is to blame. Today every stone is being thrown at me, every arrow shot at me and every bullet fired at me." There she was, reducing the entire issue, whose parentage can't be disowned by the Congress, to her own size. The Congress' paranoia-and the politics of vengeance-started the crisis, whose ramification went beyond Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. It brought back the dark memories of the Emergency. At stake were more than the legislative careers of a few politicians. Once again, the dominant party in power became the arbiter of political morality. The persecuted and the pilloried-that was the role she wanted to play. In this respect, the aspiring Mrs G is nowhere near the original. For, Indira Gandhi-a mass leader of the first order-was so good at turning a personal crisis into a rallying national cry. | | THE LAW | | | A Bill Of Exemption | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | THE SCRIPTWRITER: Bhardwaj drafted the ill-fated ordinance | | Profit, said prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in a meeting with J.R.D. Tata, "Oh, how I despise that word." The Constitution bore the imprints of his socialist leanings and the overwhelming thinking of the times. None of the founding fathers deemed it necessary to even define the phrase "office of profit" used in Article 102. In a sovereign, secular, socialist, democratic republic, representatives were not expected to make profit from any office. That dream died young. By 1959 it was necessary to enact the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act to exclude certain offices from the purview of Article 102, which upholds disqualification on the grounds of an MP holding an office of profit but provides space for exemptions as well. A similar provision exists in Article 191 which allows states to legislate on the matter. As times changed, amendments followed. Several states have had more than a dozen amendments, while the Parliament last amended its Act in 1999. "The legislature should just legislate and make laws, it should not stray into executive function," says Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of the Lok Sabha. There can be some obvious exceptions like ministers, Speaker and leader of Opposition, but why should an MP or MLA be heading the co-operative body or an industries corporation at the same time? In an overwhelming majority of countries, being a law maker is a singular distinctive honour in itself. "It is nothing but avarice. Most legislators are not satisfied and want the red beacon as well," says lyricist-politician Vithalbhai Patel. Avarice and political compulsions. With a limitation on Cabinet size and an era of coalition in place, most MLAs who cannot be made ministers have to be satisfied with a chairmanship. Be that is as it may, courts have concluded that for an office to be considered of profit and therefore disqualification, three criteria should be satisfied. The appointment to the office should be made by the government, it should have the power to terminate and the office should entail some remuneration. The Supreme Court laid down the law as far back as 1958 in the case of Maulana Abdul Sakhur Vs Rikhab Chand and others. In 2001 Shibu Soren was disqualified from the Rajya Sabha because he received an honourarium of Rs 1,750 as chairman of Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council along with other perks. "The power to exempt should not be unlimited because it goes against the spirit of the Article itself. Before we know it, any and every office will be exempted," says Lawyer J.K. Rawat. After the hurried exemption of 79 such posts through the latest ordinance in Uttar Pradesh, there needs to be a serious rethink on this subject. What, however, escapes comprehension is the blatant violation of existing Constitutional provisions. It has come to a stage where if the issue escapes notice or is not raised through a petition to the governor, President or Election Commission then it is considered okay to flout the provisions. Legal experts are also mystified as to how cases related to legislature are dealt by various courts. Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the BJP has been issued a notice by the Delhi High Court when the courts could easily have directed the matter to a suitable forum-in this case the President and the EC. The Left obviously is unfazed by the debate over office of profit. Its stand is unequivocal: when Parliament has the right to amend then it should, because there is legitimate need for legislators to occupy executive positions. It may be against the spirit of Nehru and others but is honest and reflective of the present mood. All parties perceive the need for a legislation which will finally settle the matter in their collective favour. After beating around the bush and creating and demolishing political deities, the political class has come round to the view expressed by parliamentary affairs minister in his report to the prime minister. "Every one is in favour of a bill exempting certain offices," he says. The easy way out seems another short session of Parliament to exempt a long list of present and future offices. The date of restrospective effect will be important though. If it is like January 2003 in UP, then Jaya's expulsion can be reverted, though all resignations will stand.
-By Neeraj Mishra | | Sonia is the Congress' first me-alone Gandhi. "Only the people of this country stood by me and our family. Indiraji and Rajivji were harassed for no reason. They gave up their lives for the country. The same people are doing the same thing to me," she said at Rae Bareli. Her media managers watched in awe as she deftly turned the tables on the Opposition even if she had to stage manage her victimhood to do so. "This is not the reluctant politician the media talks about. This is an aggressive Sonia fighting for her rights," said a Cabinet minister. What about the rights of over 44 other MPs also facing similar charges? The complaints against three other Congressmen and 11 Left MPs have been forwarded to the Election Commission. It's easy for a Sonia Gandhi to seek re-election. Not so easy for ordinary mortals like Gurudas Kamath (Congress), Mohammad Salim CPI(M), and Amitava Nundy CPI(M). Ironically at a Cabinet meeting, hours before Sonia announced her resignation, NCP Minister Sharad Pawar had wondered whether he too would have to resign on similar grounds. | | CONSENSUS ROUTE | THE BLAME GAME | | | | After Sonia's dramatic resignation, some of her party colleagues felt pressurised to offer similar sacrifices. Like their leader, they knew what mattered was the gesture more than the act. Like her, they too played the resignation card shrewdly. Karan Singh, Gurudas Kamath and Jairam Ramesh gave their letters to Sonia, not to the proper constitutional authority. These have not been forwarded further. They continue to be MPs. The only other resignation that has been accepted so far is that of Kapila Vatsayan, president, Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), since she was a presidential nominee to the Upper House. As various union ministers and loyalists called on her, the most pragmatic of them all was T. Subbarami Reddy, a minister of state and a Rajya Sabha member. According to Congress sources, despite being one of the four party MPs whose case has been forwarded to the Election Commission, Reddy is still to offer his resignation. He is not taking any chances as he knows that unlike his party president, his return to the House is not certain. Initially, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee refused to accept Sonia's resignation. It was only after she called on him, accompanied by her children Priyanka and Rahul, that he finally accepted the inevitable. It was not just the Congress but even the UPA allies were left bewildered at the sudden turn of events. "As far as the Left is concerned, the chairmanship of the NAC is not an office of profit," said Politburo member Sitaram Yechury. "There is a lacuna in the law that needs to be addressed. Until that is done, there is no need for anyone to resign," he said. Left leaders like Prakash Karat and D. Raja were not consulted, only informed, about the UPA chairperson's decision. With 11 of its MPs being targeted for a similar office of profit offence, Sonia's move put the Left in a very awkward position. More so considering the fact that a complaint against Chatterjee has been forwarded to the Election Commission. Sonia's resignation suddenly made the Communist parties look rather hungry for power and profit. The Speaker's office, which had so far kept silent on the controversy, issued a statement to the media the very next day saying that "it should be remembered that any and every office under the Government is not and cannot be an office of profit". For the Congress, though, the facts of the case go no further than the Gandhi family self interest. The minute Sonia's membership of Parliament was in danger, the party's crisis managers went into a huddle and came up with the ordinance strategy. Senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee, Hansraj Bharadwaj, Shivraj Patil and Priyaranjan Dasmunshi bargained with the Samajwadi Party and the Left to draft a please-all ordinance. The sp bargained for a trade-off. A similar Bill passed by the Uttar Pradesh assembly on March 9 this year was pending with the state governor T.V. Rajeshwar. If that was allowed to be passed then the sp indicated that it would co-operate with the Centre. Rajeshwar was given the go-ahead by the Home Ministry to pass the Bill. In return, the sp was expected not to raise the issue of Sonia and NAC in Parliament along with the NDA. The proposed ordinance would also ensure that both Amar Singh and Jaya Bachchan benefit along with Sonia. | | STATES UNDER THREAT | | | Payback Time | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | PRIME TARGETS: (From left) Mulayam, Raman and Munda | | If there is confusion and name calling at the Centre, the states are in turmoil. The BJP wants the Congress Government in Uttaranchal to go, the Congress wants BJP to give up Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, while the Tripura governor has also forwarded a complaint against 13 CPI(M) MLAs for holding offices of profit. Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have cleverly passed protective legislations. It is no surprise that difficulties have arisen in the newest states. Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand had inherited most boards, corporations and civic bodies as well as laws governing them from respective parent states. The new states also passed resolutions in their assemblies adopting existing inherited laws, and where they failed to do so the States Reorganisation Acts themselves had a provision making them applicable after two years. The problem arises where these states made new bodies and did not put an enabling clause to save them from disqualification. Chief ministers Raman Singh and Arjun Munda are prime targets because they head organisations which fall under the office of profit category. Jharkhand Governor Sibte Rizvi has already forwarded names of 19 MLAs (13 of them from the ruling party) to the Election Commission causing a crisis and near shut down of the Government in Ranchi. Munda is back on a bus touring Rajasthan with his team of 41 MLAs. At least four MLAs including former Union minister Karia Munda may be on shaky ground. For Arjun Munda it's a tough call. He has 43 MLAs now in a house of 82 and disqualification of four may leave him short of majority. The way to go is perhaps that chosen by chief minister Mulayam in the nick of time. The Bachchan case alerted him to the need for pushing a Bill in time to save his 30 MLAs from getting expelled. The Bill, which was passed by Governor T.V. Rajeshwar, will take retrospective effect from January 1, 2003. Though most states now want to legislate retrospectively, the process itself may prove to be difficult and may not be completed without stiff bargaining all around. Ironically, Narendra Modi is turning out to be a shining example in this mess. He has steadfastly refused to give in to pressures of making chairmen out of his MLAs. And that may be an example to follow. | | The plan had to be scuttled because the Law Ministry bungled and the draft ordinance was leaked to the media a day before the House was adjourned sine die. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dasmunshi claimed that the only ordinance on the agenda was that of amending the Criminal Procedure Code. The Opposition accused the Government of breaking all rules to pander to Sonia's needs. Stung by what she saw as a deeply personal attack, Sonia turned to the only political advisers she relied upon: her children. Late that night the resignation strategy was decided upon. Next morning, it was only after she sent her resignation to the Speaker that Sonia called the prime minister, who was attending a Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) meeting at his residence. Manmohan Singh asked her to reconsider her decision but she was adamant. He rushed to 10, Janpath along with Cabinet ministers Pranab Mukherjee and Shivraj Patil. Political secretary Ahmad Patel and general secretary cum Sonia's favourite speech writer Janardhan Dwivedi were already at her residence. Their pleas went unheard. The decision had already been made. "It was a personal decision," said a Congress spokesperson. The BJP claims that it was not Sonia who made the sacrifice but her political managers who sacrificed her because of their own bungling. "The move boomeranged and it was the Government's incompetence that sacrificed Sonia Gandhi," said a gleeful Venkaiah Naidu. Naidu is not the only one who feels that the situation was ineptly handled. Congressmen too are veering around the same view. Karan Singh, while sending in his resignation blamed those who advise the Congress president for the current crisis, while disagreeing with the very idea of an ordinance. Dasmunshi tried to make light of the statement by calling him a "philosopher". Sonia's advisers had misled her into believing that an ordinance would solve all the problems. When that strategy bounced back, Sonia decided to take matters in her own hands, and exploited it to her own advantage. Some Congressmen, though, compare the situation to June 1975 when an Allahabad High Court judgement set aside Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha on technical grounds. "As her political opponents capitalised on the situation, subsequent events forced her to impose the Emergency. If only she had resigned her seat and contested the election again, perhaps history would have been different," said a party general secretary. What Indira Gandhi did in effect, was to convert a personal problem into a national one. Sonia prefers to play the personally persecuted. "This is an analysis of warped minds," retorted Margaret Alva, Congress general secretary, who, after all, belongs to a party that still regards Sonia as the Congress Parliamentary Party leader, despite the fact that she is no longer an MP. | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | DIFFERENT STROKES: Fernandes Vajpayee and Advani | | The headless National Advisory Council (NAC) too is in a limbo until the Disqualification Act is amended, exempting it as an office of profit. Facts tell a different story: the NAC is funded by the PMO, it functions out of a Lutyen's bungalow in Delhi, just opposite Sonia's residence, and in the current Budget, Rs 16.06 crore was allocated to the PMO for both itself and the NAC. Yet the Congress would have us believe that this is not an office of profit. To suggest an alternative chairperson, however, would be sacrilege. Suddenly, the council, which claims credit for suggesting the Right to Information Bill and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, has no solution for its own existential crisis. The crisis goes all the way back to May 31, 2004 when, through an order of Cabinet Secretariat, the NAC was formed. The order itself could have stated that the chairperson's office is not an office of profit. Ironically, Mukherjee was part of the core think-tank which conceived and executed the idea of NAC. He should have known better because in 1993 an amendment to Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959 had specifically been enacted to include deputy chairman of Planning Commission in the list of exclusions from office of profit. R.K. Hegde had been disqualified from Rajya Sabha for holding that office before Mukherjee. "The Congress party suffers from short-sightedness and poor crisis management," gloats BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley. Regardless NDA leaders George Fernandes, L.K. Advani and A.B. Vajpayee were caught off-guard by Sonia's announcement.
Congress strategists, however, hope that Sonia's resignation would help them electorally, beginning with the Uttar Pradesh elections next year. The party has only 16 MLAs in a House of 404. Buoyed by the response of the crowd, not just in Rae Bareli but all throughout her 85 km journey, UPCC spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh said, "Since ancient times people in India have honoured those who sacrifice." Says a general secretary, "The BJP has taken a month in preparing for its yatras, while our leader's roadshow has already begun." Sonia's act, regardless of its personal agenda, has neutralised the Opposition's attack. As BJP governments in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh face an uncertain future, Sonia looks triumphant. "'After Sonia's resignation, everyone's tone had changed. Now there is no talk of political morality," she told the crowd in Rae Bareli. In the end, it is a personal triumph, nothing more. The internal rumblings within the party and allies have already made this victory a politically expensive one in the long run. -With Subhash Mishra in Lucknow, Kisalay in Ranchi and Ambreesh Mishra in Bhopal
Index
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PRANAB MUKHERJEE
SHIVRAJ PATIL
PRIYARANJAN DASMUNSHI
HANSRAJ BHARDWAJ
AMBIKA SONI
SURESH PACHOURI
AHMAD PATEL
