Powerful Doval, unhappy ministers

Now that Najma Heptulla has been appointed governor of Manipur, there is a mad scramble in the Bharatiya Janata Party for the Rajya Sabha seat, vacated by the former minister. Although the list of hopeful contenders is long, the party grapevine says former Union minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya are among the frontrunners. Mr Hussain is undoubtedly a strong and worthy candidate but even before the leadership can take a final view, there are murmurs in the party’s Madhya Pradesh unit that outsiders are being given preference while the rightful claims local leaders are being ignored. However, Mr Vijayvargiya’s candidature has put Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a fix. On one hand, he cannot openly oppose his name as Mr Vijayvargiya belongs to the state. On the other hand, it will be difficult for the chief minister to endorse him as it is well known that there is no love lost between the two leaders. In fact, Mr Vijayvargiya loses no opportunity to target Mr Chouhan. Only recently, Mr Vijayvargiya had tweeted: “We had promised residents of Indore a metro but the state government’s speed suggests we will get a bullock cart, not metro.” He followed it up with a fresh attack on Mr Chouhan when he declared that the “ills that come with power are slowly becoming apparent if we are not careful, we may find the going tough in the next elections.” Given their relationship, Mr Chouhan is unlikely to be happy if Mr Vijayvargiya is rewarded with a Rajya Sabha berth.

As relations between New Delhi and Islamabad continue to deteriorate, it is highly unlikely that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the forthcoming Saarc summit in Pakistan. From all indications, it appears that India will not directly call off its trip. It will instead persuade Bangladesh and Afghanistan to cancel their participation in the summit. According to the Saarc charter, a summit has to be cancelled even if one member country decides to stay away from the meeting. Both Dhaka and Kabul have their problems with Islamabad and are apparently not averse to staying away from the summit. Both countries have supported India’s efforts to isolate Pakistan following the recent Uri attacks. While Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal hit out at Pakistan for supporting terrorism, Afghanistan’s second vice-president Sarwar Danish slammed Islamabad at the UN General Assembly for its failure to act against terrorists. After this combined attack, if Bangladesh and Afghanistan go a step further and decide not to participate in the Saarc summit, New Delhi will get yet another opportunity to tell the international community that it is but other neighbouring countries are equally unhappy with Islamabad’s use of terror as an instrument of foreign policy.

Past experience shows that each time chief ministers are locked in an inter-state river waters dispute, the Prime Minister usually calls them for a meeting to resolve the deadlock. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted a hands-off approach to the ongoing Cauvery waters dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has sought an appointment with Mr Modi but he is yet to hear from the Prime Minister’s Office. Mr Modi obviously does not want to upset Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, who is considered a good friend and a sympathetic partner. At the same time, he cannot take a stand which goes against Karnataka’s interests as the BJP has its eye on the 2018 Assembly elections in the southern state. The BJP believes it has an opportunity to win back Karnataka as the ruling Congress has been thoroughly discredited for its inability to contain the violence on the streets. The BJP’s state unit, therefore, boycotted the all-party meeting called by the chief minister while its leaders met Union water resources minister Uma Bharti separately.

A lengthy profile of national security adviser Ajit Doval by an international news agency recently maintained that he held more sway than the ministers of defence and foreign affairs and that he is the most powerful person in the present dispensation after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Such laudatory write-ups on Mr Doval usually surface whenever there is a terrorist attack or there is a major foreign policy development as he is credited with shaping the country’s policies on both internal security and international affairs.

However, this high praise for Mr Doval has not gone down well with Mr Modi’s Cabinet colleagues who are clearly unhappy with the NSA’s larger-than-life projection. As it happens, defence minister Manohar Parrikar, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and home minister Rajnath Singh are reduced to mere spectators whenever there is a major crisis. It appears that this time even the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is said to have disapproved of the unnecessary attention which Mr Doval is grabbing even though it is known that the NSA keeps a low profile and does not seek publicity.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist