Some thing to cheer for Mulayam, Maya

By Rao Malladi
New Delhi ( Surya March 1, 2007): With Supreme Court ordering a CBI probe into the assets of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi party leader and his betenoire Mayawati of Bahujan Samaj Party have now some thing in common. Mayawati is already under the CBI scanner in the multi-crore Taj corridor case on the orders of the Allahabad High Court. Quirk of circumstances!

For Mulayam, it is sheer bad luck, if you go by what his Man Friday Amar Singh says. But he too cannot deny that the allegations that Mulayam had amassed ‘huge’ assets as defence minister in the United Front Government and later as chief minister have been haunting him for a while.

Whether the PIL in the apex court was filed by a Congress man as the Samajwadi party alleges or Congress sympathizer as some tend to believe is not germane to the plight Mulayam finds himself in. He is gasping for breath as caretaker chief minister.

The Marxist Comrades – are squirming with unease. They concede, though informally, that they cannot offer any longer a protective shield to Mulayam. Nor do they like to go with him at the time of elections.

The CPI is not enamoured of the erstwhile wrestler. It has scores to settle. Mulayam in his previous stint as chief minister had split the CPI and took away two of its three MLAs.

The Congress doesn’t want to strike at him. Not after the fiasco it faced with the very thought of invoking Art 356 to pack off Mulayam That doesn’t stop the party from demanding his exit on what else but moral grounds.

Mayawati is making the same pitch. What about her own CBI case in a Special Court in Lucknow. Well, she is silent. Mulayam and his co., are not. They are questioning her ‘moral’ right to bay for the Samajwadi’s blood. But then the question is does moral turpitude exist in the political lexicon of Uttar Pradesh. Observers are unanimous that Mayawati will find it difficult to exploit the Mulayam probe. The verdict in her case might come some time around the polls.

By default, the BJP, the third major force in UP should stand to benefit from the discomfiture of the two ‘M’s. The Punjab and Uttrakhand results also should act as the elixir for the saffronites and propel them to put their best foot forward in the march to conquer the Lucknow Sachivalaya. But party insiders here concede that luck may be in short supply for them too. Reason? Parivar is a divided house.

The Congress is not a major player as yet in Uttar Pradesh. Ask any Congress activist in the state. They blame the one and only PV for their plight. “He neglected us, propped up local parties, and orphaned the Congress. Not for one year but for five long years. Five years is a long period in politics”, a party senior with stakes in Lucknow told this correspondent. “There is no magic wand to rebuild the party overnight. We are in for a long haul….”, say several leaders

To what extent the revived ‘Bofors Bhoot’ with the arrest of Italian businessman Quattrocchi in Argentina and his extradition expected any time will have a bearing on the Congress fortunes is a moot point.

One thing is certain. The BJP finds in the Q-case a potent weapon to stymie the Congress not only in UP but also in Gujarat and Rajasthan where the BJP will be facing assembly elections next year with ‘anti-incumbency’ factor as its albatross.

Interestingly, there appears a new determination in the Congress to get rid of the ‘Bofors stigma’ and thus clear the fair name of Nehru- Gandhi family. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh echoed this resolve when he told Parliament on Thursday “We will allow the CBI to pursue the Quattrocchi case with full freedom”.

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