Arun Jaitely
Arun Jaitely
By Our Correspondent
With the Lok Sabha elections approaching, a fierce internecine battle seems to have broken out within the opposition BJP. While the tussle among the older lot – Atal Behari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi – which has been a subject of much discussion, was always subtle, the party’s younger lot has taken the battle to a baser level.
It is no secret that the prominent leaders of what is called the generation next in the BJP, meaning Rajnath Singh, Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Narendra Modi do not see eye to eye and are always busy trying to run each other down, for the first time a 12-page pamphlet called ‘white paper’ has been released against Arun Jaitley and his secretary Om Prakash Sharma, who is known in party circles as OP or Omi.
The pamphlet contains all kinds of defamatory charges against Jaitley and his secretary. This unsigned ‘white paper’ tries to explain the rags-to-riches story of OP, and tries to link his rise with Jaitley’s rise in stature and power in the BJP.
The pamphlet says that OP’s family used to sell Kachauri (deep fried Indian snack) and sweet shop near Nigam Bodh Ghat in Delhi. OP himself has been a mere secretary of Jaitley for the last ten years. But as his boss started rising in the BJP hierarchy, OP’s fortune took the same trajectory, says the pamphlet. According to it OP today owns a string of Reebok outlets and has purchased expensive property in an upscale east Delhi residential locality. With the change of economic status, Omi’s life-style has suddenly changed. He has a new visiting card to flash in which ‘PA’ has been changed to ‘political Advisor to Arun Jaitley’.
Sharma has now been fielded by the BJP from Delhi’s Vishwas Nagar assembly constituency. OP had earlier got the BJP ticket for his wife in the 2002 MCD elections. According to the pamphlet, she had lost that election by a margin of about 10,000 votes. The BJP candidate in the same constituency had lost in the previous election by 800 votes and in 2007 by a margin of 700 votes. If the pamphlet is to be believed, similar fate awaits OP in Vishwas Nagar.
There is much more about Jaitley and his PA in the ‘white paper’. But it’s all unprintable. But don’t be disappointed. Now that this pamphleteering has been started by one group, you can be sure that there will soon be some reading material provided by the other. So keep watching this space.
Congress jumps the gun
In an interesting case of counting the chickens before they are hatched, the Congress party’s central leadership has convinced itself of its victory in Rajasthan and has gotten busy debating as to who would make the best chief minister. Party leaders cite “BJP’s internal surveys that have shown that the ruling party of Rajasthan would not get more that 65-70 seats” in the 200-member state legislature. So the next question is: Who should be the next chief minister? For many the answer is simple: Ashok Gehlot. But if AICC insiders are to be believed, Gehlot will not be the next CM. The CM’s chair will go either to state party chief C P Joshi or Union minister Sis Ram Ola. AICC wants to give the CM’s chair to a person who can help the party do well in the next Lok Sabha election which are a few months away. This can happen only if a Brahmin (C P Joshi) or a Jat (Sis Ram Ola) heads the state government. It is said that in an unlikely scenario of the Congress winning Madhya Pradesh and PCC chief Suresh Pachauri becoming chief minister, the party will have to make Ola the Rajasthan CM as it can not have Brahmin CMs in both the states. But if Congress does not win MP, then C P Joshi will be the next CM. Phew! That’s some forward thinking.