Quid pro quo

Mulayam Singh Yadav owed the government around Rs 18 crore for the non official trips he made on IAF aircraft while he was defence minister. The bills are pending for over five years and periodically the SP leader’s name figures in the list of major defaulters. Last week, the Vajpayee government quietly withdrew the case against Mulayam. The additional solicitor general K.K. Sood did not contest Mulayam’s lawyer’s claim in court that the pending dues should be waived since the private trips Mulayam had been billed for were actually for his official purpose.

As minister, Mulayam utilised the defence planes practically every other day to shuttle back and forth from Delhi to UP for his political activities. Considering that there were no defence installations or Army offices located in most of his ports of call in the UP hinterland, it is curious that the government is willing to accept his explanation so readily. As a sop for public consumption, Mulayam has agreed to cough up a small amount as the fare for his family and party workers who travelled with him on his frequent air hops.

The government’s bail out out of Mulayam is a clear case of quid pro quo. After all the SP has come to be known as Vajpayee’s loyal opposition in New Delhi’s political circles!

Role reversal

For a legal luminary and former law minister of India, it was a depressing role reversal to be grilled in the witness box like a common criminal. Particularly when the man cross-examining him was his old political foe Subramaniam Swamy, who was unsparing in his interrogation and not concerned about the courtroom etiquette expected of a professional lawyer.

The 75-year old Ram Jethmalani had filed a Rs 50-lakh defamation suit against Swamy for having stated before the Jain Commission that the LTTE had paid $50,000 into Jethmalani’s son’s bank account abroad and Swamy as the accused claimed his right to be his own advocate. Examined by Swamy in the Delhi high court last week, Jethmalani explained that the $50,000 had been paid by Chandraswamy’s disciple Ernie Miller, as part of an effort by some well-meaning citizens to discover the recipients of the Bofors payments.

Ex-MPs want more

Inspired by the example of the sitting MPs who have voted themselves a pay and perks hike, former MPs are now keen to increase their post retirement benefits. Former MPs like Baliram Bhagat, K K Tewari, Wasim Ahmed and Chinnaswamy are lobbying for this cause and they claim the support of 1250 erstwhile members.

The plan is to hold a convention in Delhi of ex-MPs shortly. Chinnaswamy points out that a hike in their pensions would cost the exchequer a mere Rs 50 crore extra. But most of the former MPs are more interested in enhancing their perks. While they are entitled to free travel by train, they are more interested in air journeys and a liberal telephone allowance.

Comrades sees red

‘‘What are you doing here?’’ several guests asked CPM MP Bratin Sengupta at the dinner the PM hosted for NDA MPs last week. Sengupta looked abashed and tried unsuccessfully to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. Sengupta should have known no one, least of all his disciplinarian party, would buy his feeble excuse that he had simply strayed by mistake into the dinner along with some TMC MPs.

Relations between Sengupta and the party ’s polit bureau has been sour for quite awhile. Perhaps the last straw was when the party forced Sengupta to relinquish his allotment for a coveted three-bedroom MP’s flat in the newly built Swaran Jayanti apartments. He was ordered to continue in his simple two-roomed Vithalbhai Patel House. Sengupta has been a trifle indiscreet in expressing his irritation over the rather hypocritical fiat, considering that CPM doyen Jyoti Basu is permitted to stay on in a palatial government bungalow at Salt Lake in Calcutta and live in style at the expense of the West Bengal tax -payers.

Green acres

Former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar believes that he is being unfairly targeted and maligned at the behest of the Home Ministry. The courts decreed that he return 500 acres of panchayat land in Bhondsi which was gifted to a trust controlled by him. Shekhar’s point is that he took over the land only to plant trees and protect vegetation. Even after the court judgement no one from the state government has come to take possession of the land. Shekhar’s five chowkidars continue to protect the area, since otherwise the villagers would cut down the trees he had planted and only the spindly kabuli kikar would survive.

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