 "Sarbananda Sonowal")
In the game of snakes and ladders that is politics, who went up and who came down? Who became famous and who earned notoriety? How did the stories of the newsmakers end: in smiles or in tears? Business Standard takes a look.
Anurag Thakur
In May, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) got its second-youngest president ever. Anurag Thakur, member of Parliament from Hamirpur, and widely seen as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s protégé, was also the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In Parliament, he serves as chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT and is a member of the Public Accounts Committee. Jaitley was to take over as BCCI chief in 2014 and rescue it from the morass of corruption it had fallen into after match-fixing allegations came to light.
Thakur took over amid extensive goodwill but is now finding that he is skating on thin ice, having had to bear the assault of the Lodha Committee set up by the Supreme Court to get the BCCI to clean up its act. Justice Lodha has made it clear that he will allow no deviations from the law, cricket or no cricket. Thakur is realising he may have bitten off more than he can chew.
“Prima facie Anurag Thakur committed perjury,” Chief Justice of India T S Thakur said and suggested he “ought to absolutely apologise”. “These kinds of things don’t help,” the Chief Justice said. “Please don’t force us. You go to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and ask for a letter so that you can return to say BCCI will be out of ICC. The objective was to stop the court. This seems to be a lucrative business and everyone wants it to go on.”
This year will decide whether Thakur falls a martyr to the law of the land.
Irom Sharmila
Irom Sharmila starved for 16 years to protest the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), after she was witness to a massacre in Manipur between paramilitary forces and militants. But when the activist announced in August that she was giving up her fast and called a press conference to float a new political party, the reactions were mixed.
The party, People’s Resurgence and Justice Alliance, will contest the Assembly polls in Manipur in 2017. Sharmila said she would contest from two constituencies, Thoubal and Khurai. While Khurai is her home constituency, Thoubal is the constituency of Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh.
Sharmila is the co-convenor of the party, which includes a number of activists and entrepreneurs.
What followed was baffling. She came to Delhi and met Arvind Kejriwal to seek his advice on how to defeat political parties. But she also announced her intention to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his advice on how to take India forward. Her statement was telling. She said: “I am not a goddess. I want to be a human being. I want to be the chief minister of Manipur.”
But within weeks of her announcement, factions of militant groups clashed with security forces, leading to a firefight on the streets of Manipur. The objective of repealing AFSPA has not been realised, though she has helped to question the legitimacy of the law. But is politics the answer? This year will tell us.
Mehbooba Mufti
Mehbooba Mufti was named leader of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after her father, also the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, died in harness in January. But Mehbooba Mufti took an unconscionably long time to assume office: She became the chief minister only in April. Even before she could be elected to the Legislative Assembly, came the first challenge to her authority: A T20 match where the West Indies defeated India, and Kashmiris who cheered the West Indies, not India.
This is par for the course: Mehbooba Mufti’s core constituency was asking her where she stood vis-a-vis Kashmir, and her alliance partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The time she spent cogitating over the wisdom of the alliance and holding extended discussions with her party colleagues was a wasted effort.
The situation deteriorated quickly. The peak came with the killing of 21-year-old Burhan Wani, a militant with a wide appeal but no significant following. He could have posed a leadership challenge for the gerontocracy in the Hurriyat. Instead, he became a martyr and a symbol of every grievance that young Kashmiris have against India.
Mehbooba Mufti was unable to grasp the nettle. For most of the year, Kashmir was shut down, people had to go through untold misery and alliance partner BJP suffered by association. Kashmir’s sobs were heard by all Indians but no one did anything about it, perhaps least of all Mehbooba Mufti.
If 2017 sees a repeat of 2016, Mehbooba Mufti will have proved that she might be a mass leader, but she needs to go back to school to learn statecraft.
Kanhaiya Kumar
On February 12, Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the students union of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), was arrested after the vice-chancellor of the university allowed the police to enter the campus.
Kumar was charged with sedition after he made a speech at an event held to mark the hanging of Afzal Guru, who was hanged after being convicted for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament.
Kumar was incarcerated for nearly a month. It was a testing time for the government, as it was attacked from all sides for its intolerance of dissent and freedom of speech. For the Bharatiya Janata Party, it was inconceivable why a person like Kumar, who thought it fit to challenge every notion and pillar on which society rests, should be allowed to go free. By the same token, liberal and left supporters roundly lambasted the government for subverting constitutional values and laws.
Finally, the Delhi High Court intervened. Kumar was released on bail from Tihar jail for six months and the court refused to quash the bail at the end of that period.
What will remain indelible is the song of slogans that Kumar launched into, amid a roar of “azaadi” (freedom). The song captured the imagination of India in the same way that the rape and murder of a woman in a moving bus had done earlier, bringing home to everyone that young Indians will be the moving force in politics in the years ahead.
Navjot Sidhu
That Navjot Sidhu, till the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, was a BJP loyalist, and in 2014 became a malcontent is the party’s worst-kept secret. He made it clear that he would be the one to contest the Amritsar Lok Sabha election. When Arun Jaitley was selected to represent the seat, he didn’t like it. In any case, he had been conducting such an open war on the Shiromani Akali Dal and politicians associated with it that it was becoming an embarrassment for the BJP.
The cricketer-turned-emcee-turned-embittered politician finally took matters in his own hands. When it became quite clear that it would be hard for him to continue in the BJP, within weeks of being nominated to the Upper House, he quit the seat and dithered over the political alternatives open to him: On the one hand, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), where he would have had to submit to the diktat of Arvind Kejriwal; and on the other, the Congress, where he would have had to operate under the thumb of Amarinder Singh, declared chief ministerial candidate of the party.
Sidhu has since joined the Congress. Presumably, he will be the party’s candidate for deputy chief minister if it comes to power. But the 2017 Punjab election will also decide Sidhu’s political future — or seal it.
Pema Khandu
Politics in the Northeast is notorious for the way leaders change loyalties. At 37, Pema Khandu became the youngest chief minister of an independent party, the People’s Party of Arunachal Pradesh, which is supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
That was in September 2016. In July 2016, he was still with the Congress. And there hangs a story.
The son of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorji Khandu of the Congress, Pema Khandu belongs to Tawang, the district that borders China.
Dorji Khandu was killed in a helicopter crash, leaving a sudden and unexpected void that was filled by Nabam Tuki, who became the chief minister in 2014, with 47 MLAs in a House of 60. Pema Khandu was in the Congress then.
With so many MLAs, it was not possible to make everybody a minister. Tuki tried but he could not contain a rebellion. One of his lieutenants, Kalikho Pul, led a band of rebels and formed a breakaway group that staked claim to form the government with the help of an obliging governor, J P Rajkhowa, and a clutch of BJP members of the Assembly.
But the Supreme Court issued sharp strictures against Rajkhowa and ordered the restoration of the Tuki government. Tuki bowed out and the Congress made Pema Khandu the CM.
Within two months, Pema Khandu had engineered a rebellion against his own government and crossed over to the BJP. Eventually, he became the chief minister of a crucial northeastern state heading a BJP government.
How he keeps his flock together will be his biggest challenge in 2017.
Raghuram Rajan
Never before has the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) got as much press and public attention as Raghuram Rajan. He announced almost casually one Saturday in June to his colleagues, in an email, that he would not be seeking a second term as RBI governor when his tenure ends on September 4. However, he left a window open — that he would continue to serve India. It is now almost certain that Rajan’s advice was neither sought nor offered on demonetisation. It is another matter that he had made his views on the issue quite clear in 2014.
But why did Rajan have to go? He became the subject of a bitter, contentious and heated debate on his role, after an open attack on his priorities and loyalties to India by Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Subramanian Swamy. No one in the government stood up for him.
He was seen as being a nominee of the previous government, but the successive government kept him on. What goaded his critics were his publicly stated political views on intolerance, which had little to do with his role as governor of India’s central bank. For the BJP, already drawing flak over attacks on minorities, the RBI governor joining the debate was the last straw.
But, Rajan has not kept his promise, either. He has said absolutely nothing on India’s demonetisation mess, though 2017 might see him speak up.
Sarbananda Sonowal
Exactly a year ago, in a departure from tradition, the BJP named Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs Sarbananda Sonowal the party’s chief ministerial candidate for Assam and dispatched him to prepare the state for elections that were to be held in May.
Sonowal’s appointment was unusual for several reasons: He was not a traditional BJP supporter, having joined the party only in 2011 from the Asom Gana Parishad, over differences with that party on the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983. Assam’s ethnic profile was changing because of migration from both Bangladesh and West Bengal. This had become a subject of heated debate. Apart from that, Sonowal was the first CM to be designated as such by the BJP. The party had refused to name anyone for Delhi until the last minute; and in Bihar, the only other state to see an election in 2015, the BJP lost miserably.
Sonowal has tried to put his imprint on the administration of the state. But it is his deputy, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is more in the news. He is credited, much more than Sonowal, for leading the party to victory as he left the Congress where he was a poll strategist and the right-hand man of previous CM Tarun Gogoi, months before the election to join the BJP.
Those watching Assam predict that Biswa Sarma will elbow Sonowal out by the end of 2017. Sonowal is making the right noises, as Assam endeared itself to the Centre by being one of the first states to ratify the GST Constitution Amendment Bill.
Sasikala Natarajan
For 30 years, she stood a step behind the most powerful woman in Tamil Nadu, head bent submissively; now she is emerging as a power centre herself. After former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s death, several quarters of the party pushed Sasikala Natarajan to become the general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the party that has 50 members in Parliament and 136 in the 234-member state Assembly. Ultimately, she did clinch the post. Sasikala has never addressed a public meeting; indeed, even a party meeting. She has never contested an election. But as 2017 dawns, it could be her year — and that of her family’s.
There is hardly any doubt that following an outcry from the party, Jayalalithaa barred members of Sasikala’s family from entering Poes Garden, her home, in 2012. Many in the party are asking how the very same people now seem to be running matters in Chennai. In Tamil Nadu politics, timing is everything. Sasikala badly wants to become heir to Jayalalithaa: The constant movement of her eyes as she stood at the head of Jayalalithaa’s body taking note of the visitors, betrayed that. But without Jayalalithaa’s protection and tutelage, will she achieve her ambition? This year will see great tumult in one of India’s most urbanised states.
Vijay Rupani
When Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel turned 75 in 2016, speculation gripped Ahmedabad: Who would be her successor? Or, would she be allowed to continue, disregarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s directive that those above 75 should consider retiring from public office to give others a chance?
Amid suggestions that BJP President Amit Shah couldn’t wait to get rid of Patel, following her ham-fisted handling of the Hardik Patel-led agitation for justice to the powerful Patel community of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani was appointed CM in August.
Rupani’s appointment was important for it was the first time an in-saddle CM was replaced by the Modi-led government and the Shah-led BJP. It is clear he was appointed because he was seen as “Mr Neutral” – in caste terms as well as in terms of balancing factions within the BJP in Gujarat.
Rupani has proved to be a steady, if unimaginative, hand at the helm. In the first few months, Gujarat was relegated to third spot on the “Ease of Doing Business Reforms Ranking 2015-16”. Under Patel, it had ranked first. With the eighth edition of its flagship biennial Vibrant Gujarat Summit due in January, Rupani has been having discussions with bureaucrats on how to improve the single-window clearance system. But there’s no denying that caste tempers have been tamped and the state is more calm today than it was when the year began.
