Atal bihari vajpayee Former telecom secy drags Vajpayee into 2G mess Probe sought into road construction work 2011

The name of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was today dragged into the 2G Spectrum allocation scam as a former Telecom Secretary during the NDA regime told the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) that the BJP statesman was holding the charge

The caretaker NDA government took major policy decisions in 1999 including implementation of the migration package for telecom operators despite the then cabinet secretary asking departments not to do so, JPC chairman PC Chacko said on Tuesday.

Anil Kumar, the telecom secretary between August, 1998 and February, 2000, appeared before the JPC for the third time on Tuesday and said the decisions were taken after "due deliberations."

When the committee members drew his attention to a letter written by then President KR Narayanan to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in which the former said he was "not persuaded" that New Telecom Policy-1999 and the Migration package qualified to be "absolutely necessary" as it had significant financial implications, Kumar said the communication was not brought to his notice.

Chacko told reporters the then Cabinet Secretary had written to all secretaries they should not take major policy decisions or implement decision with significant financial implications as the government was caretaker.

But Kumar justified the decisions and said it was taken after "due deliberations."

"There were wide consultations, including financial institutions, service providers and stakeholder before a decision was taken for the implementation of the migration package," Chacko quoted Kumar as saying.

Kumar said without addressing the problems being faced by the existing service providers, NTP-99 would not have been successful and the telecom sector would not have come out of the "web of litigation."

He said the NTP-99 helped in the growth of subscriber base and increased tele-density

When the committee members drew his attention to a letter written by then President KR Narayanan to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in which the former said he was "not persuaded" that New Telecom Policy-1999 and the Migration package

Judging by even our modest standards, governance at the top has taken a nosedive during the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) rule. Some of this can perhaps be blamed on the specific actors involved. But there is a deeper structural explanation for it: the vesting of true power to govern outside the government, in the Congress high command. UPA rule has been the longest in our history that this phenomenon has played out. In all previous such episodes, either the executive successfully wrested power back from the external authority or it fell.

Thus, the first time the organisational wing of the Congress seized effective power was immediately following the death of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Known as the Syndicate, the organisational wing successfully kept the heavyweight Morarji Desai at bay and installed the more amicable Lal Bahadur Shastri as prime minister. But once the victory in the 1965 India-Pakistan war had turned him into a natio-nal hero, Shastri began to assert his independence. The battle between him and the Syndicate was already brewing when he unexpectedly died in January 1966.

Following Shastri, the Syndicate once again opted for the lightweight Indira Gandhi in preference to Desai. For almost four years, while the Syndicate and Indira remained locked in an unannounced battle for authority, policymaking suffered. In the end, soon after the July 1969 All India Congress Committee session, Indira broke loose of the "bosses" and went on to launch an era of true hyperactivity in both domestic and foreign policy arenas.

The country witnessed seve-ral episodes of outside entities exercising effective power in the decade from 1989 to 1998. In each case, the executive tried to assert its authority and lost power. Thus, Prime Minister V P Singh, who came to the helm in 1989, was dependent on the Bharatiya Janata Party for his survival. When he asserted his authority on the Mandal-Ayodhya issues, the BJP pulled the rug from under his feet. Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar succeeded Singh and suffered the same fate at the hands of the Congress. Subsequently, from 1996 to 1998, the governments of H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral fell victim to the same phenomenon.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who succeeded Gujral, broke the trend. Early in his tenure, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) tried to restrain him from pursuing a reformist agenda. As a seasoned politician, Vajpayee knew that being the only moderate BJP leader accep-table to all coalition partners, he was in a unique position. Therefore, he offered to resign. The SJM quickly folded and Vajpayee went on to implement major reforms leading to the growth acceleration we currently enjoy.

The experience under the UPA has been altogether different. With the power centre residing outside, it has managed to survive a full seven years. Sonia Gandhi's decision to place a technocrat and former bureaucrat has proved masterly: lacking both a power base and political ambition, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has worked amicably with her while she retains the ultimate power.

But this has not been without cost. At her National Advisory Council (NAC), Sonia has been an easy target of NGO capture. While with their "on-the-ground" knowledge, these latter can be very effective at bringing to notice issues of importance, drafting legislative Bills is neither their mandate nor their expertise. Yet, that is what they now do at the NAC. For her part, Sonia is at ease with the quick fixes for the poor they propose, often invol-ving ever-rising expenditures.

But this is a slippery slope. On the one hand, the taste of drafting the country's laws has whetted civil society's appetite leading it to ask for more and more, culminating recently in something even Sonia cannot deliver: a Lokpal with the autho-rity to investigate all including her! On the other hand, the government has lost the moral authority to question the legitimacy of the NGOs to write legislation. Thus, when the prime minister accused Anna Hazare of shortchanging the parliamentary process by drafting the Jan Lokpal Bill, opposition leader Arun Jaitley was quick to point out that the NAC, which wrote Bills for the government, too had civil society activists in it.

But the greatest harm from this power structure has come from the prime minister losing the authority to govern while remaining answerable for the lapses of his government as well as the party. Because the Cong-ress high command cuts the deals with coalition partners and effectively makes decisions on cabinet appointments, it remains the object of the latter's loyalty. As a result, we have seen ministers getting away without reprimand even after criticising government policies in a foreign country. And since fund-raising for the party too is done at the behest of the high command, ministers often bypass the prime minister on major decisions, further weakening the institution.

Ironically, when scandals break out or civil society groups begin clamouring for more than what the government can deliver, it is the prime minister rather than the Congress high command that must answer! While the prime minister struggles, few have asked where the Cong-ress high command stands on the Lokpal issue. What the endgame of this agitation is going to be is anybody's guess.

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