07-25-2006, 08:23 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pioneer-25 July 2006
<b>For an office with profit</b>
Sandhya Jain
      It is a well-known maxim that the questions one asks determine the nature of the responses elicited. This is true of the conveniently coincidental ânation-wideâ survey organised by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies-Indian Express-CNN-IBN on two years of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. We learn, unsurprisingly, that ordinary citizens view Dr. Singh as honest, wise, trustworthy, and are satisfied with his performance despite discontent over his handling of the price rise, farmerâs suicides and terrorism, and do not regard him as a strong or charismatic leader.
    If you can accept 1,884 respondents across 18 states as representative of the national mood, you would have no problem with the real theme of the survey, which is to boost the âSonia for PMâ campaign launched by co-religionist Ajit Jogi immediately after the Rai Bareilly re-election. The key question in the survey is whether Ms. Gandhi should replace Dr. Singh; the response is 52% affirmative.
The survey timing corresponds with the UPA decision to ask the legislature to pass the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill 2006 unchanged, so that President APJ Kalam is forced to sign it. Two months ago, Dr. Kalam had refused to endorse the governmentâs attempt at wholesale retrospective exemption of certain posts from the purview of âoffice-of-profit,â thereby impeding Congress president Sonia Gandhi from resuming the chairmanship of the National Advisory Council (NAC), with cabinet rank.
Ms. Gandhi was in the news recently for a midnight trip to Mumbai after the serial blasts. She visited the victims in hospital, and mercifully refrained from announcing largesse on behalf of the state or central government. Perhaps gauging the bristling public resentment under the surface, she kept her mouth shut, as did âI-could-have- become-PM-at-25â son Rahul (recall the quickly denied Tehelka interview). Mumbaiâs victims and villains are a mere blip on their political trajectory; the priority is an Office-of-Profit. <b>Readers would recall Ms. Gandhiâs guiding presence in the scandal which gave countryman Ottavio Quattrochi the Bofors kickback millions while poor Dr. Singh took the flak. Similarly, Foreign Minister Natwar Singh got the sack in the oil-for-food bonanza, while the principal accused - the Congress party, headed by Ms. Gandhi - got clean away.</b>
Acolytes of the Italian-born supremo are determined to humiliate Dr. Kalam for failing (or refusing) to swear her in as Prime Minister in May 2004; hence the move to reintroduce the original Bill in defiance of Presidential sensitivities. Dr. Kalamâs suggestion that government prepare âcomprehensive and genericâ criteria that is âfair and reasonableâ and applicable in a âclear and transparentâ manner across all States and Union Territories has been rebuffed in contravention of constitutional and moral proprieties. This will prove counter-productive as the UPA has not been able to convince the nation that the Bill has any intrinsic merit, beyond catering to the whims of the UPA chairperson and the Left parties whose MPs are affected by the controversy, most notably Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
Still, MPs foolishly holding unprotected offices is one thing; the existence of the National Advisory Council another; and it is high time the nation debated the lattersâ validity. The NAC was created to give rank and status to Ms. Gandhi after Dr. Kalam allegedly questioned her nationality on the basis of legal issues raised by Dr. Subramaniam Swamy. Set up by an order of the Cabinet Secretariat and financed from PMO funds, it was given the task of monitoring the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the UPA coalition.
Thus it is really an apex body of UPA allies and supporting parties. As it is the Prime Ministerâs job to implement the CMP, the nation should be told why a mini-PMO has been set up with a separate secretariat and all-paid expense account. We should know what the NAC costs the public exchequer and why the PMO funding a body that has no constitutional basis, especially one that would not exist at all if Congress had come to power in its own right. NAC is a party platform; the taxpayer should not foot its bill.
At the risk of sounding unpleasant, it must be said that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is addicted to what the Supreme Court has memorably termed the âreceivablesâ of office.. When the NDA came to power we learnt that typists employed at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts were stationed at her residence. Senior IAS officers have been deputed to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation from the time of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; senior IAS officers were reverted to their parent ministries when she resigned as NAC chairperson.
When Ms. Gandhi resigned to avoid sacking by the Election Commission, the nation was told she had quit all NGOs and government bodies she was heading, but the complete list of organisations was concealed. So was information on the remunerations she received, and patronage she exercised through these bodies. As Parliament discusses the OoP issue, it would be in the fitness of things if the people of India were told which offices the Congress president intends to resume once they are exempted from the punitive provisions of the office-of-profit, and the nature of âreceivablesâ from the same.
It needs be said that the Election Commission has disappointed the people for submitting to Left Front bullying on the issue of MPs holding offices of profit. Given the long parliamentary recess and the Presidentâs return of the Bill, the Commission could have given West Bengal a firm deadline to furnish the details it required, failing which it should have presumed the MPs guilty and disqualified them. As things stand, the Commission has helped Comrades ideologically committed to the withering away of the state to stick to offices of profit like limpets, to borrow Rajiv Gandhiâs immortal _expression.
Ironically, the bells for Ms. Gandhi are tolling in distant Chennai, where PMKâs infamous âtree-cutterâ S Ramadoss is furious at the UPA failure to protect âbabyâ Ambumani, who is now likely to be dismissed from Parliament. The Governmentâs decision not to modify the Office-of-Profit Bill has compromised the Health Minister who is under High Court and Election Commission scrutiny for holding an office-of-profit as President of the governing body of All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Ms. Gandhiâs inability to look beyond her narrow self-interest may prove her undoing.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>For an office with profit</b>
Sandhya Jain
      It is a well-known maxim that the questions one asks determine the nature of the responses elicited. This is true of the conveniently coincidental ânation-wideâ survey organised by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies-Indian Express-CNN-IBN on two years of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. We learn, unsurprisingly, that ordinary citizens view Dr. Singh as honest, wise, trustworthy, and are satisfied with his performance despite discontent over his handling of the price rise, farmerâs suicides and terrorism, and do not regard him as a strong or charismatic leader.
    If you can accept 1,884 respondents across 18 states as representative of the national mood, you would have no problem with the real theme of the survey, which is to boost the âSonia for PMâ campaign launched by co-religionist Ajit Jogi immediately after the Rai Bareilly re-election. The key question in the survey is whether Ms. Gandhi should replace Dr. Singh; the response is 52% affirmative.
The survey timing corresponds with the UPA decision to ask the legislature to pass the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill 2006 unchanged, so that President APJ Kalam is forced to sign it. Two months ago, Dr. Kalam had refused to endorse the governmentâs attempt at wholesale retrospective exemption of certain posts from the purview of âoffice-of-profit,â thereby impeding Congress president Sonia Gandhi from resuming the chairmanship of the National Advisory Council (NAC), with cabinet rank.
Ms. Gandhi was in the news recently for a midnight trip to Mumbai after the serial blasts. She visited the victims in hospital, and mercifully refrained from announcing largesse on behalf of the state or central government. Perhaps gauging the bristling public resentment under the surface, she kept her mouth shut, as did âI-could-have- become-PM-at-25â son Rahul (recall the quickly denied Tehelka interview). Mumbaiâs victims and villains are a mere blip on their political trajectory; the priority is an Office-of-Profit. <b>Readers would recall Ms. Gandhiâs guiding presence in the scandal which gave countryman Ottavio Quattrochi the Bofors kickback millions while poor Dr. Singh took the flak. Similarly, Foreign Minister Natwar Singh got the sack in the oil-for-food bonanza, while the principal accused - the Congress party, headed by Ms. Gandhi - got clean away.</b>
Acolytes of the Italian-born supremo are determined to humiliate Dr. Kalam for failing (or refusing) to swear her in as Prime Minister in May 2004; hence the move to reintroduce the original Bill in defiance of Presidential sensitivities. Dr. Kalamâs suggestion that government prepare âcomprehensive and genericâ criteria that is âfair and reasonableâ and applicable in a âclear and transparentâ manner across all States and Union Territories has been rebuffed in contravention of constitutional and moral proprieties. This will prove counter-productive as the UPA has not been able to convince the nation that the Bill has any intrinsic merit, beyond catering to the whims of the UPA chairperson and the Left parties whose MPs are affected by the controversy, most notably Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
Still, MPs foolishly holding unprotected offices is one thing; the existence of the National Advisory Council another; and it is high time the nation debated the lattersâ validity. The NAC was created to give rank and status to Ms. Gandhi after Dr. Kalam allegedly questioned her nationality on the basis of legal issues raised by Dr. Subramaniam Swamy. Set up by an order of the Cabinet Secretariat and financed from PMO funds, it was given the task of monitoring the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the UPA coalition.
Thus it is really an apex body of UPA allies and supporting parties. As it is the Prime Ministerâs job to implement the CMP, the nation should be told why a mini-PMO has been set up with a separate secretariat and all-paid expense account. We should know what the NAC costs the public exchequer and why the PMO funding a body that has no constitutional basis, especially one that would not exist at all if Congress had come to power in its own right. NAC is a party platform; the taxpayer should not foot its bill.
At the risk of sounding unpleasant, it must be said that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is addicted to what the Supreme Court has memorably termed the âreceivablesâ of office.. When the NDA came to power we learnt that typists employed at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts were stationed at her residence. Senior IAS officers have been deputed to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation from the time of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; senior IAS officers were reverted to their parent ministries when she resigned as NAC chairperson.
When Ms. Gandhi resigned to avoid sacking by the Election Commission, the nation was told she had quit all NGOs and government bodies she was heading, but the complete list of organisations was concealed. So was information on the remunerations she received, and patronage she exercised through these bodies. As Parliament discusses the OoP issue, it would be in the fitness of things if the people of India were told which offices the Congress president intends to resume once they are exempted from the punitive provisions of the office-of-profit, and the nature of âreceivablesâ from the same.
It needs be said that the Election Commission has disappointed the people for submitting to Left Front bullying on the issue of MPs holding offices of profit. Given the long parliamentary recess and the Presidentâs return of the Bill, the Commission could have given West Bengal a firm deadline to furnish the details it required, failing which it should have presumed the MPs guilty and disqualified them. As things stand, the Commission has helped Comrades ideologically committed to the withering away of the state to stick to offices of profit like limpets, to borrow Rajiv Gandhiâs immortal _expression.
Ironically, the bells for Ms. Gandhi are tolling in distant Chennai, where PMKâs infamous âtree-cutterâ S Ramadoss is furious at the UPA failure to protect âbabyâ Ambumani, who is now likely to be dismissed from Parliament. The Governmentâs decision not to modify the Office-of-Profit Bill has compromised the Health Minister who is under High Court and Election Commission scrutiny for holding an office-of-profit as President of the governing body of All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Ms. Gandhiâs inability to look beyond her narrow self-interest may prove her undoing.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->