The De-Greening of Rajiv Gandhi

...Although Hegde and Rao represent regional forces and cannot command nationwide support, they are powerful within their home states...

...Mindful of the threat posed by these developments, Rajiv has endeavored to pull the rug out from under his opponents wherever possible...

...Yet Rajiv had his way...

...An anti-government rally held in Delhi by the "Left and democratic forces" (as India's two major Communist parties collectively refer to themselves), prompted better than a million people to trek to the capital from surrounding states...

...The first, taken in 1984 after Gandhi was elected Prime Minister with an unprecedented majority, shows a confident countenance exuding boyish charm...

...Ramachandran died unexpectedly...

...Gandhi's five-year term of office expires next year...

...Tripura has for some time been roiled by tribal insurrection, and shortly before the balloting a massacre was perpetrated by rebel elements...

...Caste calculations have begun to influence appointments again, too...

...Indeed, his behavior in office has become arrogant and occasionally authoritarian...

...Rama Rao, the Chief Ministers of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, respectively-are already moving to forge an anti-Congress-I alliance...

...Once conciliatory and collégial toward his critics to the point of disarming them, he now has neither the time nor the inclination to take the opposition into confidence on important deliberations...

...In short, Rajiv seems to be reverting to the same brand of politics his mother used to revel in-one of truculence and distrust...

...Increasingly Gandhi is falling back on the very power brokers he castigated near the beginning of his term in a 1985 speech celebrating the centenary of the Congress Party...

...It is not Gandhi's physical appearance that has aroused concern here, though, it is his manner of governing...

...After a period of confusion, Ramachandran's widow was installed in office with Congress-I blessings...

...Yet aware of the instability of Tamil Nadu, because sympathy with the Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka runs high, the Gandhi leadership has made clear that it expects her unwavering allegiance at national balloting time...

...In the circumstances, particularly with no other all-India leader in sight, Rajiv is believed to feel a surprise election will give him a new lease on life...

...The Constitution permits him to call an election before then, however, and despite his denials there is reason to believe he will act before his opponents have achancetocloseranks...

...Inevitably, voters saw the restitution of law and order as the crucial issue: The Marxists were narrowly defeated, and a Congress-I coalition took office...

...Thus in his latest government reshuffle (the 23rd in 37 months) he replaced two state chief ministers who had made a hash of regional administration-Bindeshwari Dubey of Bihar and Motilal Vora of Madhya Pradesh-but handed them portfolios in his Cabinet in Delhi...

...She was one of the people about to take the oath...

...Typical of his present tactics is the way his high command manipulated the elections in the tiny northeastern state of Tripura, controlled for the last few years by the independent Communist Party of IndiaMarxist...

...Less than a year ago, when the Prime Minister was reeling from opposition attacks over alleged kickbacks on arms contracts with Swedish and West German companies, he displayed signs of being flustered and unsure of himself...

...The Prime Minister is currently trying to establish himself in the politically pivotal " Hindi heartland" of the North, consisting of Uttar Pradesh (India's most populous state), Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh...

...One of these has been proposed by Sam Pitroda, an Indian communications wizard returned from the United States who was originally going to modernize this country's decrepit telephone system...

...After all, it is argued in defense of the dubious scheme, the Left parties together command the services of around lOOjournals, including dailies in several languages...

...This was vehemently deplored on the grounds that holding such a conclave outside New Delhi would be enormously expensive, especially given the rising threat of terrorism...

...Opposition leaders-notably Ramakrishna Hegde and N.T...

...With the scandal receding-at least temporarily, pending further revelations -he has more than regained his composure...

...Clean" image he came to office with...

...Many opposition parties are so angry about Bachchan's alleged misdeeds that they have publicly burned posters of him in a newly released blockbuster movie...

...Vishwanath Pratap Singh resigned last year when he was not allowed to investigate the arms-kickback allegations as thoroughly as he wished...

...Although these are minor episodes in themselves, they are symbolic of Rajiv's retreat from the "Mr...

...To start things off, the Congress-I organization will prop up the sagging National Herald, founded by the Nehru family during India's struggle for freedom...

...ELECTION MANEUVERS The De-Greening of Rajiv Gandhi BY DARRYL D'MONTE Bombay According to a story making the political rounds in New Delhi these days, during a recent swearing-in of new ministers Rajiv Gandhi asked his Minister of Human Resources, Narasimha Rao, why a certain lady was present...

...More recently, a one-day nationwide strike called by a coalition of Communist and centrist parties to press for the resignation of the Gandhi government disrupted services throughout the country and led to the detention of over 3,000 people...

...He also invited along his friend and confidant, film idol Amitabh Bachchan, even though this former member of Parliament was forced to resign last year because of his role in the armskickback scheme...

...If all goes as planned, it will now become the lead mouthpiece of the ruling party...

...To counter the growing popularity of former Finance Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Gandhi has finally filled his position with a member of the same Rajput caste, Dinesh Singh, who had been out of office for several years...

...Public opinion polls show that some voters in this vast country have not even heard of Singh's movement, and that many others are confused by the endless permutations and combinations of opposition forces...

...Notwithstanding their dismal performances at the state level, Dubey and Vora are still deemed capable of delivering support for the Congress-I Party...

...Meanwhile, there are reports that Gandhi's "New Deal," which was supposed to set India on a technocratic march into the 21st century, is being scrapped in favor of more immediate stratagems for bolstering the Prime Minister's image...

...Rao, somewhat taken aback, reminded the Prime Minister that he had just appointed her Deputy Minister for Social Welfare...

...Even if apocryphal, the story illustrates how Rajiv-initially hailed for being refreshingly accessible-has increasingly distanced himself from his own colleagues...

...the last is of a haggard, puffy, balding politician camouflaging himself behind dark glasses...

...on the contrary, taking place as it did in the state hardest hit by India's most crippling drought in a century, it seemed to make a mockery of the government's austerity measures...

...Slightly more delicacy was shown by Gandhi in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where charismatic Chief Minister M.G...

...Gandhi's fellow Congress-I (for Indira) members are frequently being kept in the dark as well about key decisions-sometimes when their own portfolios are involved...

...Consider Gandhi's recent decision to convene a Cabinet meeting at Sariska, a wildlife sanctuary in Rajasthan...

...Since then he has campaigned steadfastly against official corruption, and he has formed the Jana Morcha (People's Movement) with dissident Congress-I elements and others in Uttar Pradesh...

...The cozy chats aboard his plane with selected newsmen are similarly being dropped, as are his televised press conferences...

...New Delhi seized this as a pretext for ousting the state's constitutionally-elected ruling party and imposing "Governor's Rule...

...The portents of late cannot but have alarmed the Prime Minister and his close aides...

...In another much criticized incident, Gandhi chose to take an ostentatious vacation in Lakshadweep, a group of tiny coral islands off India's west coast, and insisted that the Navy ferry over his Italian in-laws in open defiance of an official rule barring foreigners from setting foot on naval vessels...

...His unhappy idea is to create a chain of newspapers that will toe the Gandhi leadership's line...

...He has lost close aides like his cousin Arun Nehru and former Defense Minister Arun Singh (a casualty of the kickbacks scandal), yet he is confident he can crank the old Congress Party machine and make it produce votes...

...Oddly, the gimmick served no imaginable political purpose...

...Darryl D'Monte frequently writes on Indian affairs for The New Leader...

...This is bound to result in a greater toleration of corruption and incompetence, not to mention further procrastination in dealing with the deteriorating situation in Punjab and the Sri Lanka imbroglio...

...As for his once vaunted " new look, " a cover piece last month in the country's top news magazine, India Today, entitled "The Changing Face of Rajiv Gandhi," featured a revealing series of five photographs...