Mulayam goes around winning friends and influencing people for the ultimate job
Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
Whether one likes it or not, Samajwadi Party chief and
Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is in a belligerent mood. Significantly, much of his anger is directed against
Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and the Janata
Dal. Sure enough, a shrewd politician like Mulayam Singh can
foresee the dwindling fate of the Janata Dal, and evidently
has made up his mind to have nothing whatsoever to do with a sinking
ship.
How to ease himself out of the UF bond without getting blamed
for tearing the coalition apart is Mulayam Singh's immediate
worry. His second concern is to keep the doors open for a dialogue
with the Congress, despite the growing antipathy between it and the UF.
It is a tightrope walk, but with the
PM's chair as Mulayam Singh's ultimate target, even this does not seem
insurmountable.
Thus, the dark, dimunitive man who until a few years ago could not
comprehend anything beyond his hometown, Etawah, has begun to
look beyond his horizons. And as a pragmatic politician,
he is trying to do away with every hurdle in his path.
Though he had first found reason to criticise Gujral when the latter resisted UP Governor Romesh Bhandari's recommendation (evidently
on Mulayam Singh's advice) for imposition of President's rule in the
state, after the BSP broke out of its alliance with the BJP, the cause
for the Raksha Mantri's chagrin has worsened now.
And that arises out of Gujral's decision to contest the Jalandhar
Lok Sabha seat -- with the support of the Akali Dal, an ally of Mulayam Singh's
worst political foe, the BJP.
"Now tell me, can I go to campaign from Jalandhar?" he asked partymen in Lucknow last week, "would you all want me to go to Jalandhar?"
Predictably, the reply was a loud chorus, ''No, no.'' Inspired
by the expected reply, he went on to make further digs at Gujral,
commenting, "Just imagine, someone without ten votes behind
him becoming the country's prime minister."
Applause followed by cries of "desh ka pradhan mantri kaisa ho,
Mulayam Singh jaisa ho" (We need a prime minister
like Mulayam Singh).
Such rhetoric has been audible at several of Mulayam Singh's recent
rallies. At a recent meeting
in Lakhimpuri Kheri, about 250 km from Lucknow, while kicking off
his election campaign, Mulayam Singh told the crowd: "We
have been humiliated, not once but a number of times by leaders
of the United Front. They are all liars
who seek to impress upon all and sundry that they have sacrificed
more than the Samajwadi Party for the cause of secularism."
While he consciously refrains from making any direct
claim to the prime minister's chair, he makes it a
point to tell people how he sacrificed the prime ministership that
could have been his for the asking after Deve Gowda's ouster last April.
"I could have easily become prime minister if I wanted, but I sacrificed
that chair to maintain the unity and integrity of the United Front,
and those very people are blaming me for causing harm to
the UF," he said.
Mulayam Singh was referring to former prime minister
Deve Gowda's remarks against him. According to Deve Gowda, "Mulayam
has done everything to destabilise the Janata Dal in UP," adding,
"if Mulayam Singh thinks he can fight the BJP by demolishing the Janata
Dal let him go ahead."
Every time Mulayam Singh persuades a big fish to plunge into his
party pool, he ensures that his claim to the country's
top chair is put forth by one of his deputies.
Mulayam Singh's Man Friday Amar Singh or his cousin Ram Gopal Yadav never miss
an opportunity to tell their audiences, "By increasing the tally
of the Samajwadi Party, we can ensure the United Front's return
to power, and remember that Mulayam Singh alone would be in a position
to lead the United Front this time."
Mulayam Singh makes no bones about why he is concentrating much
of his energies in UP. "Some parties may have managed to get recognition
as national parties simply because they have been formalised by
the Election Commission in a couple of smaller states like Kashmir
or Tripura, etc. But for me, national level recognition can
come in real terms only if one is able to establish one's party
in UP and in Bihar."
That is why he is in no mood to give
away more than 10 seats to the Janata Dal in UP from where he
could send 16 members to the dissolved Lok Sabha, while he has
signed off a deal with Jagannath Mishra's breakaway Congress
in Bihar.
The shrewd political juggler that he is, Mulayam Singh is aware that he
can build up his party's score only by adding a couple of more
seats from these two states. While he is targeting 50 per cent
of the 85 Lok Sabha seats from UP, he is hoping to grab 20 per
cent of Bihar's 54 seats together with Mishra.
"If we end up with a figure
around 40, the SP would have every chance of leading the UF government
in an expected hung Parliament once again," party leaders say.
Besides UP and Bihar, Mulayam Singh is also hopeful of cornering a few
seats from far-off states. He has hopes particularly from Bombay,
from where he has already announced the candidature of Tushar
Gandhi, the Mahatma's great grandson. Thanks to Raj
Babbar, the cinestar and SP member of Rajya Sabha who won Tushar over,
Mulayam Singh can now boast of offering a political
platform to the "most neglected family of this country."
Having struck a rapprochement with his old political
foe, Congress leader Balram Singh Yadav, who crossed over to
the SP, Mulayam Singh is busy building a wider base for himself . And with Balram Singh beside
him, he has nothing to worry about in his home region of Etawah
Mainpuri, where the traditional feud between the two Yadav titans
has remained a constant source of tension for him. Earlier, he
managed to win over Rita Bahuguna Joshi -- the daughter
of the late political wizard Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna -- who is currently
mayor of Allahabad.
Amar Singh was understood to be actively engaged in bringing
in yet another big name under the SP banner -- and that too for
the prestigious Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency from where former
prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will seek re-election.
That personage was none other than actress Jaya Bachchan,
who was understood to have been nearly convinced to take on the
BJP bigwig. But it was her husband, megastar Amitabh Bachchan
who was the main stumbling block, as he was thoroughly
against politics, having tasted its pangs once himself.
In fact, with Babbar having refused to face the BJP titan
in Lucknow for the second time, Mulayam Singh was desperately looking
for a high profile name to replace him. Amar Singh even managed
to bring Jaya over to Lucknow for a cursory assessment, under the
guise of a premiere for her comeback film Hazaar Chaurasi ki
Maa.
Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh's close friend Subrata Roy --
the helmsman of the multi-billion rupee Sahara group, who had also cultivated Amitabh over the years -- came in handy to take
care of the logistics. Mulayam Singh's aim was much larger than just
having Jaya as a candidate against the mighty Vajpayee. She could
have been a major asset to him in drawing crowds at elections meetings
not only in UP and Bihar but also other states.
Mulayam Singh also planned to use the Bachchan connection to
establish contact with the power centre in the Congress -- 10,
Janpath. As it is, no sooner had Sonia Gandhi announced her decision to campaign
for the Congress, Mulayam Singh was among the first to welcome it.
And he emphasised that, "The fight against
communal forces is not possible without the support of the Congress."
And now with Sonia raising the Ayodhya issue,
Mulayam Singh has a word of caution for her. "She must
not allow herself to be misled into talking about the Ayodhya
issue," adding, "I have a lot of regard for her
and feel that her being a novice in politics could land her into
trouble."
Mulayam Singh does not wish to shut his
doors on Sitaram Kesri either. Thus it was no surprise when this
correspondent overheard him whispering to Balram Singh on the day
that the latter was inducted into the Samajwadi Party, "Please
don't say anything against Kesri." After all who knows which
way the wind may blow tomorrow in the Congress. Mulayam Singh
would like to keep his finger in both pies.
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