Septuagenarian Congress leader Arjun Singh was unexpectedly cautioned, maybe reflecting a divide between the old and young guard.But his father was the first minister (of Rajputana government) to have been caught redhanded for taking bribes and was jailed. That was due to Jawaharlal Nehru who was worried of corruption, In 1954, at an international meeting in Peking he told the noted physicist and a communist, J D Bernal: "" Most of my ministers are reactionary and scoundrels but as long as they are my ministers I can keep some check on them. If I were to resign they would be the Government and they would unloose forces that I have tried since I came power to hold in cheek"
Here goes a comment on Congress High Command's rebuke of Arjun Singh
Chief of sycophants is caught out news analysis By Harish Khare (http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/16/stories/2008041660801200.htm)
New Delhi: For once the Congress party has erred on the side of correctness. It has disassociated itself post-haste from Union Minister Arjun Singh's 'make Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister' campaign. Given Mr. Singh's past record of over-protestation of loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family, many in and outside the party perceived his pitch as a Sonia Gandhi-inspired move.
On Tuesday evening, the Congress spokesperson distanced the party from the Arjun Singh line and, for the first time, disapprovingly used the word "sycophancy," which is common political currency among virtually all opponents of the Congress. Ms. Jayanthi Natrajan's formulation was public confirmation of the most open secret within the Congress: Mr. Singh neither speaks for the Congress president nor enjoys her confidence.
But so enduring is his posture as family loyalist that even seasoned political leaders outside the Congress fold have been misled into echoing the 'Rahul-for-Prime Minister' line. Within the party, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, a seasoned war-horse, found himself half-heartedly following Mr. Singh, with embarrassing consequences.
The Natarajan formulation became necessary because what Mr. Singh did amounted to undermining the image Ms. Gandhi has assiduously built as party chief: that she does not crowd the Prime Minister out of his constitutional domain. Cabinet ministers who tried to talk down to Dr. Manmohan Singh on the strength of their presumed proximity to 10 Janpath were made to eat crow, although in private.
But Mr. Singh, who is not one to take hints, becomes the first political heavyweight to be administered a public rebuke. It was absolutely necessary. Had the Congress leadership allowed his sycophantic line to go uncontested, it would have rendered the Prime Minister's position untenable. As long as Mr. Singh chooses to remain a member of the Union Cabinet headed by Dr. Singh, he cannot possibly be seen as lacking in respect towards the head of government. Had the Congress spokesperson not clarified the matter, Mr. Singh might have had to resign from the Cabinet or be relieved of his charge. Neither the country nor the Congress can afford to create doubts about the durability of the Prime Minister.
The public rebuke by the party spokesperson also suggests that perhaps Ms. Sonia Gandhi has at last become wise to Mr. Singh's gift for political mischief. The Tuesday message was clear : he will not be allowed to repeat his 1993-1994 game plan. As a senior Minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao dispensation, Mr. Singh waged an internal war of subversion, all in the name of "the family." The Congress lost the 1996 general election and Gandhi family loyalists made out that it was just as well that 'PV' had been made to bite the dust.
Then, in 1997, Mr. Singh orchestrated a move to topple the Gujral government on the plea that the Congress party could not support a regime that was seen to be "protecting" Rajiv Gandhi's assassins. It was again Mr. Arjun Singh who unilaterally declared in 1999 (after the fall of the first Vajpayee government) that "Sonia Gandhi will be the next Prime Minister." No one had authorised him to make the statement. In practical terms, it doomed whatever chances Ms. Gandhi had of becoming Prime Minister.
Although the first family may have finally seen through Mr. Singh's ways, there has been an inexplicable reluctance to ask him to leave the Union Cabinet despite his deteriorating health. But that was not all. Within the party, Mr. Singh has been seen as pursuing an unhelpful unilateral line on the OBC quota, and especially creamy layer, controversy. He was seen as exploiting the precarious equations within the United Progressive Alliance.
Yet Ms. Gandhi resisted numerous suggestions from friends and well-wishers alike that Mr. Singh had become an embarrassment for the Manmohan Singh government. Around the time of the last minor ministerial reshuffle, some thought was given to asking him to take up a gubernatorial assignment but the idea was not pursued to its logical conclusion.
As long as the Congress 'high command' remains in awe of someone's capacity to create trouble, it can only act defensively. The public rebuke to unalloyed sycophancy seems to send out a new kind of political message.
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