The Mayawati of India

By M J Akbar

The inner grapevine of Delhi- the one with the real grapes as distinct from hothouse plants- is bristling with the news that Sonia Gandhi is preparing for a late 2002 general election. That is one of the explanations' being offered for the selection of at least three candidates to the Rajya Sabha. Their rite of passage has apparently been purchased by a very reliable corporate house, a deal justified by this impending election.

It is in the nature of such stories that they cannot be verified. This does not necessarily make them untrue, but they remain suspect and must therefore be discounted. Moreover, Reliance now is accused of ever sin as well as virtue on earth. Again, this does not necessarily make the accusation untrue, but since there can never really be verification of suitcase-friendship we must not rush to any judgment. What is far more relevant, politically, is that Sonia Gandhi has given Rajya Sabha seats to two men who are convinced that she cannot win the next general elections.

Of the three ''grapevine'' candidates, one is a complete non-entity, Abrar Ahmad, Congress hopeful from Rajasthan. Sonia Gandhi has chosen to replace K K Birla with a non-entity, but that is her prerogative. This gentleman used to be a minor entity once, as some junior minister in finance, but apparently used the opportunity to make important corporate friends who know how to repay favours. His other qualification for Congress largesse is that he keeps his mouth shut, and obedience is always popular with any political leader, not just Sonia Gandhi.

The other two are more interesting. Subirami Reddy is an amazing personality, who thrives in the Congress despite huge, rather class five-star hotel parties; a guest list sprinkled with filmstars and brimming with starlets; and an obsessive itch for self-publicity. No one has a larger invitation card or more free photographs available to newspapers. Reddy lost from Vishakapatnam in the last general elections.

The second is the more traditional politician Murli Deora, whose public relations is infinitely more intelligent. He lost the last elections from south Mumbai. The last elections were also the first in which Sonia Gandhi was the undisputed leader of the Congress.

Both Reddy and Deora were surprised by their defeats. Both believed, with some justification, that they were more popular in their constituencies than their parties because of the work they had come for the voters. They believed that their individual goodwill would see them through even if the overall performance of the Congress was poor, as indeed it was, although less so in Maharashtra than in Andhra Pradesh.

Both were confident of pulling through till the last minute. Both were shocked by their defeat. Since neither could blame himself for losing they sought external reasons. The general defeat of the Congress was not sufficient as a reason. Reddy had won from Vishakapatnam despite a Telugu Desam wave earlier and had nursed his constituency lavishly. He had spent another fortune during the elections itself. Very few Congressmen have nurtured their constituencies as caringly as Murli Deora has nurtured south Mumbai. He has held the seat in the face of tidal waves, let alone waves.

Both Reddy and Deora realised, privately, that the decisive factor in their defeat was that Sonia Gandhi had become unacceptable to their largely urban constituencies. Obviously they would never say that publicly. But they knew that they could not handle what might be called the ''post-272'' electorate in a television-savvy region. Moreover Deora discovered that the Muslim vote, a critical element in his vote-accrual, had left him because of the Congress and that Sonia Gandhi had not been able to bring it back.

Reddy and Deora are practical politicians who cannot survive without membership of Parliament. The one thing that they are certain about is that Sonia Gandhi cannot bring them back to the Lok Sabha from Vishakapatnam and south Mumbai. They do not blame themselves for this situation. In their own eyes, they remain the best of nurses, and what better credentials can a candidate have for the Lok Sabha? They do not blame the overall political environment either. How could they? With the Central Government self-destructing on a daily basis, the mood is going to be fertile for anyone challenging the NDA in the next general elections. Moreover, there will be natural sympathy for both of them since they lost the last time. In that sense the next elections are ideal for them. But they have no confidence in Sonia Gandhi's ability to deliver an election that she should be able to pick up without an effort. If they had faith in her they would have waited. If a much-older Rajiv Gandhi had been leader of the Congress now, they would have waited; in any case he would have dismissed their suggestion for a Rajya Sabha seat with a characteristic smile and asked them who would come to the Lok Sabha if not them. Congressmen like Reddy and Deora would have been expected not only to finance their own campaigns to the Lok Sabha but also to help others by dipping into their moneybags.

But both Reddy and Deora preferred to grovel and slip into the Rajya Sabha rather than wait and fight for the Lok Sabha. Nor would they have had to wait much longer. The general elections may not come this year, but it will be difficult to prevent them from taking place next year. Reddy and Deora preferred humiliation and a seat today to Sonia Gandhi and uncertainty tomorrow.

Sonia Gandhi of course had no clue about the implications of sending two defeated Lok Sabha candidates from eminently winnable constituencies to the Rajya Sabha. In sum, she has rewarded two politicians who have no faith in her electoral abilities. Because, and this is beyond argument, if the Congress cannot win in places like Vishakapatnam and south Mumbai in the next elections, when urban anger against the BJP and its alalies will be at a peak, then the Congress cannot hope to come anywhere near power. These two are bell-weather constituencies, in the south and the west from which any reasonable Congress candidate should romp through. These seats will now go to comparatively inexperienced candidates while Reddy and Deora delight in their well-paid good fortune in Central Hall.

The irony of course is that Reddy and Deora may be right in their scepticism about Sonia Gandhi's abilities. They have, with their actions, made explicit what others know implicity- that the results of the Assembly polls will not automatically convert into a victory in a national elections. There are many reasons for this, both subjective and objective. It is the Congress governments, for instance, who will be facing the anti-incumbency factor in the states where they are in power. In Punjab for instance the Akalis will do much better the next time than they did this time. In Uttaranchal, the Congress will be split leaving opportunity open for the BJP. In Madhya Pradesh even Digvijay Singh will not be able to pull off a miracle again.

But the big unspoken dread of course is about the impact that Sonia Gandhi's own personality makes on the vote. In the states the voters were not electing her; they were electing others as chief ministers. Congressmen like Reddy and Deora, and so many others less fortunate than them who cannot get into the Rajya Sabha, do not want to take a chance on the results of another clash between Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi. They are not ready to bet that ''strange-accent'' Sonia will be able to take on the homespun Atal when the struggle comes to the bone. Her enemies claim that Sonia Gandhi rewarded the Reddys and Deoras because of lucrative pressure from corporate power. I would prefer to believe that she was merely gullible, but that is not good news for the Congress either. The jury is still out, and more evidence will be available to decide whether the reason is corporate pressure or gullibility.

The Congress could, if handled correctly, win a simple majority in the next general elections: the central coalition government has done enough self-damage to ensure this. But if the Reddys and the Deoras are right, and Sonia Gandhi is incapable of winning in Vishakapatnam and south Mumbai, then Sonia Gandhi could end up as the Mayawati of India.

In other words, we will see a repetition of the Uttar Pradesh results at the national level, with Parliament divided three ways: the BJP, the Congress and the Third Front. Sonia Gandhi, like Mayawati, will lead a group of MPs searching for a bargain in the fourteenth Lok Sabha in order to prevent the constitution, very quickly, of a fifteenth Lok Sabha.

Here And There
Man bleeds his way into books

By B L Kak

Believed to be the world's most generous blood donor, a Ger-man man has, a few days ago, given blood for the 800th time. Media reports quoted the German Red Cross as saying that 58-year-old Frank Loose, farmer by profession, provided an estimated 480 litres of blood and blood plasma, enough to fill two bathtubs.

Frank loose started giving blood 33 yeas ago in East Germany. He initially did it for money but stopped charging in 1979 and paid back what he earned to the Red Cross. Bild newspaper quoted him as saying felt ashamed to have taken money."

According to the newspaper, loose donates every week, saying it is healthy and helps save lives. And loose is of firm view: Giving blood lowers the risk of heart attack, because it reduces the fart content of blood and the arteries do not clog up as quickly.

That was the story of a German man. Now, there is the story of a British woman. The woman has created history of sorts. She lived in a car for 26 years. Lately she has been given a new home in a neighbour's red Mercedes after the local authority towed away her rusting wreck.

Ms Ann Naysmith, former music teacher, moved into her 'beloved' Ford Consul in 1976 in protest at being evicted from her London flat, and had lived there ever since. The local council removed the hulk as a possible health hazard. But neighbours who had grown used to its 60-year-old owner stepper in to help, parking a red mercedes in the Ford's place with a sign in the window reading: "Welcome home Miss Naysmith."

Owner of the Mercedes termed the development as a "straightforward and sensible solution." It was so, as Ms Naysmith had threatened to set fire to herself as a protest.

British newspapers have, on the other hand, reported that a leading London chef, known for his love of offal dishes, is offering the capital's gourmets a new, bushy-tailed, eating experience. He offers grey squirrel "gently braised with wine, boletus mushrooms and wild garlic leaves."

The dish, he insists, is popular art his restaurant, where he also serves up lamb testicles, bacon and mash and smoked eel. He was reported to have told Britain's Daily Mail: "The (squirrels') flesh is rather like wild rabbit but slightly oilier and it cooks very well."

The chef, however, pointed out that he would not cook Britain's native, endangered, red squirrel, whose population has been largely supplemented by the bigger, more aggressive American species.

Some restaurants in Britain are forcing customers who like their meat rare to sign a disclaimer form before eating due to fears of the risk of E-coli and salmonella poisoning. The Sunday Times reported that restaurants were prepared to serve rare hamburgers, sausages or minced beef only if dinders complete form giving up rights to take legal action.

The newspaper said that people eating minced beef, which is pink in the middle, are much more likely to be poisoned by E-coli or salmonella. The new practice has been blamed on advice from the British Government's food safety watchdog saying that minced meat should only be served when it is well done. The warning does not apply to ordinary steaks, because they only carry bacteria on the outside and this is killed by cooking.