The histrionics during last week?s debate in Parliament over sports minister Ajay Maken?s defence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Commonwealth Games (CWG) imbroglio made for riveting television. The sight of the normally calm and affable Maken dramatically taking off his ear phones in anger as senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha taunted and chided him was, to say the least, eyeball grabbing.
What it hides, however, is just as dramatic a side story. In the immortal words of an anonymous marketer of Bollywood flicks, is kahani mein emotion hai, drama hai, tragedy hai, and has as its dramatis personae the young prot?g? Maken, and his estranged Svengali, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit. The CWG capers have ironically forced the two on the same side, with dramatic consequences.
It all begins, as all good yarns do, at the very beginning. When Sheila Dikshit, newly elected as chief minister in 1998, was surrounded by the cabal of Delhi Congress leaders all ready to usurp her throne. This cabal had some support in the AICC as well. Among the new lot of leadership in the newly created state, she picked on Maken, as her parliamentary secretary, and a key aide in her campaign to get a grip on the Delhi unit of the Congress.
Over the years, Maken and Dikshit provided a good fight-back not just to detractors in the city?s party unit, but also in shaping government policy. As power minister, Maken was the key player in the unbundling of the Delhi Vidyut Board and getting private companies into transmission in Delhi. As transport minister, he stared down powerful transport unions and managed a transition to CNG-run public transport in the city. Things appeared fine till 2003, when the next set of elections to the Assembly took place. It was during this period that Maken found himself out in the cold. Instead of being made minister, he found himself one of the youngest Speakers of the Delhi Assembly or, indeed, anywhere in India, an honour he assumed very reluctantly.
In 2004, things just got worse. General elections were announced, and Dikshit made it clear that she wanted her son Sandeep Dikshit to fight from her old seat, East Delhi. East Delhi, a seat made up of migrants from eastern India and upper caste Brahmins, had elected BJP twice in a row, and it was assumed that this time round, a Congressman could not lose. The Congress high command had plenty of contenders for the East Delhi seat, but none for the tough New Delhi constituency represented by Jagmohan and the BJP. Jagmohan was a popular figure in the government-employee dominated seat, and there were not many Congressmen keen to take him on.
In a series of meetings to decide tickets for Delhi, Dikshit was asked again and again to suggest a good candidate for New Delhi, only after that would East Delhi be decided.
In one such late running meeting, Maken?s name was put forward. Sonia Gandhi was a little taken aback but was enthusiastic about the candidate. Nevertheless, aware of Maken?s state politics-related ambitions, she demanded to speak to him herself. Gandhi?s call put Maken in a quandary. To refuse was not an option, and yet to be one of 545 MPs in Delhi was hardly a fate he desired?if he won, that is. He was sure of one thing, though, that his days as the Dikshit government?s poster boy were over. Maken assented, and defying predictions, won the elections.
In the first two years of his term as MP, his name was associated with some dissident activity against Dikshit. When this appeared to be making no headway, Maken resolved to fight another day. This brings us to last week and the delicious irony of Maken having to defend the government?s record on the CWG. In his statement in Parliament, Maken said nothing on Dikshit or her government, he made it clear to party apparatchtiks that his services were available only to the Prime Minister, not to Dikshit. His silence, unlike his active opposition in the past, has been more damning.
It is a quietly dramatic face off, in the works for the last seven years. Will it end in the hallowed halls of the Lok Sabha? Not by a long shot. But it will make riveting viewing as long as it lasts.