by Sree Iyer
In light of these insinuations and to settle the matter for good, the Prime Minister said he would seek a vote of confidence for his government in the Lok Sabha. Taken aback by this new twist, the ministers began to fall over one another to impress upon the Prime Minister that they had complete faith in him and that their loyalty was beyond question. Jagat smiled inwardly at the hypocrisy. He said, “I am a politician by accident and a Prime Minister too. You have been very supportive of me so far. Please indulge me one more time.”
The Speaker of the Lok Sabha was informed of the cabinet’s decision that the Dhillon government would take a trust vote in three days’ time. Dipika learnt of it when the news broke on TV and wondered what this new drama was all about now. But then Jagat had just a few days to go and he might as well indulge himself. For the record, a statement was issued welcoming the Prime Minister’s decision, which further said that the party was certain he would gain the vote of confidence and provide his sagacious leadership to the country till the end of his term.
For Madam, the announcement on the trust vote came as a golden opportunity to get rid of the now increasingly assertive (and therefore inconvenient) Jagat Dhillon. With a snap of her fingers she could ensure that her party MPs voted against their own government. But she also understood that it would offer the outgoing Prime Minister a martyrdom status and ruin the party’s image even further in the public eye. It would be far better to out-manoeuvre him within the walls of the party. She decided to stick to her original plan.
Meanwhile, Gulab was developing cold feet. It was one thing to work under the shadow of his mother and pull the levers of power, and quite another to actually be in the driver’s seat and lead from the front. He loved the concept of power without accountability. He was also worried that his own failings would become obvious once he assumed prime ministership. Since he could not admit to these fears in the open, he tried to persuade his mother to change her mind. He reasoned that he could be more useful managing a puppet Prime Minister than the country. “That puppet had outlived its purpose,” Dipika said firmly. Yet another puppet, this close to an election, was not a good idea. “It’s time you grew up Gulab! What are you so afraid of, really?”
He fretted, fumed and sulked, but it seemed he could not escape. He had no choice but to bite the bullet. Secretly, he wished for something to happen that would torpedo the plans his mother had for him.
There was an air of excitement in parliament on D-Day. The Prime Minister had arrived early and taken his seat. His ministerial colleagues in the Lok Sabha and other MPs trooped in, with the opposition members wondering what was really going on.
The 24X7 electronic media was reeling out various possible situations that could emerge — the most interesting of them being: What would happen in case the government lost the vote of confidence? The possibility could not be ruled out, said political experts on TV talk shows, because Madam seemed upset with the Prime Minister. The other point of discussion was: In case the Dhillon government secured the trust vote, would it embolden the Prime Minister to go for the jugular and fix his colleagues, both in the government and those supporting the party from outside? Especially those that had been named in the media exposes in a variety of scandals? Can a victorious Prime Minister cut his party president to size?
At precisely 11 AM, the Speaker called the House to order and asked the Prime Minister to introduce his resolution for a vote of confidence. The resolution was moved, and discussion began. Jagat made a brief introductory speech, which was followed by speeches from other MPs, both from the opposition and the treasury benches. At the end of a seven-hour long debate, during which Gulab remained conspicuously silent, the trust motion was put to vote.
But before that, the Prime Minister took the opportunity to indulge in yet another of his long monologues and this time about the importance of honouring the faith that the people had reposed in him and his regime. He expressed his commitment to probity in public life and said his government had taken decisions in the past few weeks to live up to the highest ideals that the founding fathers of the Indian constitution had set. The government sailed through comfortably and several MPs rushed to congratulate the Prime Minister.
Four days after the vote of confidence had been successfully taken, Jagat was summoned to the party president’s residence. It was time to deliver the blow. He arrived to find Madam’s cabal in full presence. Dipika asked him to consider resigning because she wanted Gulab to take charge as Prime Minister. Jagat said he would be pleased to do so, but requested for a couple of days’ time.
As he settled in his car, the Prime Minister called Fali and was already on his way to meet him. Jagat was in the mood for a conversation over a late lunch with his old friend.
CHAPTER 19.
The Most Unexpected Masterstroke
After the plates were cleared and dessert served, Fali asked: “So, what next?”
Jagat did not have to update him on the developments so far; the supposedly retired politician was so well connected, he knew everything that was worth knowing in Lutyens’ Delhi. He had his sources everywhere.
He knew, for instance, that Madam had asked Jagat to resign. He also knew that Jagat had been the man to initiate the recent spate of investigations at breakneck speed. More than anything else, Fali was aware that the Prime Minister, having come this far, could not possibly retreat. But even with his vast understanding of Indian politics and his sharp intellect, he could not outguess Jagat’s next move.
The Prime Minister had come here with a purpose. He wanted to get Fali’s reactions to various scenarios.
“You must be aware that I was asked to quit?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I have to decide in the next couple of days.”
“To say that you don’t have all the time in the world, would be an understatement.”
“Should I go?”
“What does your heart say? More importantly, your head?”
“If I refuse, my cabinet will rebel against me. My party will not back me either.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Anything you are unsure of?”
“Your next move!”
“Can you not guess?”
“I could have, some months ago. But I see you have changed of late. I’m unable to read you anymore.”
“You are to blame for that.”
“You should be giving me credit rather than blaming me.”
The light-hearted banter continued for some more time. It was getting late. The Prime Minister had plans to return to his South Block office for a couple more hours before calling it a day. He had important work to do. Fali saw him to the door and his parting advice was, “Whatever you do, make sure you outsmart them.”
As always, the Prime Minister felt at ease after a conversation with Fali. Not that he needed validation for his next move, but he was surer of what he was about to do, nevertheless.
His staff was surprised to see him back into his office. There was hearsay floating already that their boss was on his way out, following Madam’s diktat. He cleared the routine files on his desk, but kept decisions on the more important ones pending. He noted just one word on those files: “Discuss” and passed it on to his principal advisor, from where they would commence their onward journey to the various secretaries concerned. Around eight in the night, he called his staff, from the principal secretary down to the peon, thanked them for their support, and wished them luck. It was clearly a farewell. The Prime Minister then drove back home.
Around the same time, Dipika was closeted with her political secretary, Javed Patel, working out the would-be Prime Minister Gulab’s new ministerial team. Gulab joined them an hour later. Nearly 40 candidates had been provisionally finalised. Gulab insisted on a few other names, young MPs who were close to him, and his mother relented on all but two. She pointed out that the grandmother of one of them had been a prominent leader of the main opposition party, the People’s Voice. Moreover, the MP’s
late father, who had been in the Freedom Party, had turned rebel. She feared the MP shared his father’s brash streak.
Dipika’s objection to the other MP was that he had shown scant regard for veterans and could turn out to be unmanageable. On his part, Gulab objected to the names of some senior leaders who were on the wrong side of seventy. He complained that they had never taken him seriously. A compromise was eventually reached, with the list containing a mix of youth and experience. Javed Patel too was rooting for some of his own candidates and managed to get three in the final list. It was past midnight when he left Dipika’s residence.
The following day was frenetic as expected. The Prime Minister reached his office around eleven and asked his principal secretary to organise a cabinet meeting for five that evening. The ministers were not surprised. It was a formality; he would thank his colleagues and wish them well. The party chief came to know of this as well and was happy that everything was proceeding as planned. She expected Jagat to announce his resignation at the cabinet meeting and proceed to meet the President of India to submit his resignation. She had also come to know that the Prime Minister’s Office had sought an appointment with the President for seven that evening.
The cabinet meeting got off to a start on the dot at five. Prime Minister Dhillon delivered a brief speech, during which he thanked his colleagues for their cooperation all through his tenure and said his government had worked to the best of its ability. He also expressed praise for the party chief who had ably guided the government in times of crisis. Jagat then delved into his own past, the circumstances that had led to his becoming the Prime Minister, and the challenges he had faced in managing a disparate coalition. There were suitable nods from everywhere in the group. The atmosphere too turned expectedly somber, with a couple of ministers in the fringes beginning to get bored already.
The Prime Minister paused for a long moment and took a deep breath. And then this:
“We have come a long way together. So, as I stand before you, I would like to ask you. Do you still hold trust in me?”
People started to sit up straighter now, and everybody said ‘yes’ finally. Thanking them profusely (hand on heart), Jagat said he had decided to submit his resignation and recommend the dissolution of the House. He requested his colleagues to endorse the move. They were properly shocked by now.
This was a clear deviation from the script. The Prime Minister explained that an early election could be beneficial to the party and their prospects, since each day seemed to bring a new blotch to the party’s image for a variety of reasons, many of which were not in his control.
Maida was the first to recover. “Sir, but what about Madam…”
Jagat told him that he had already discussed the matter with her. He was being economical with the truth. He had indeed discussed his resignation but not the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.
By the time Dipika was told about this, it was too late for her to intervene. Prime Minister Dhillon was already on his way to Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet the President, submit his resignation and call for the dissolution. The President was equally taken aback, and he had no option but to accept the recommendation of a government that enjoyed a majority in the House.
The electronic media had a field day, reporting with urgency on every sensational detail of the developing story. Soon, experts began to see a pattern in Jagat Dhillon’s actions of the past few days. His vote of confidence was deemed a master stroke, the perfect foundation to his decision to propose dissolving the House. In one deft move, he had contained the ambitions of the party’s first family and its cohorts. The man who had torn the government’s ordinance unceremoniously in public would no longer become the Prime Minister.
Unlike people like Gulab and Maida, Jagat had no political ambitions. He was bidding goodbye to politics, in any case.
All of Dipika’s loyalists, including senior ministers, had gathered at her residence. Everyone seemed clueless on how to address the situation. The party chief was livid, turning her rage towards Maida and the Home Minister for failing to checkmate Jagat Dhillon at the “blasted” cabinet meeting. They defended themselves saying the Prime Minister had clearly stated that he had discussed the issue with her.
Maida started to get a tad too passionate, if not dramatic. “I never imagined that puppet would indulge in this kind of Machiavellian tactics!”
Consumed with silent rage, Dipika started to see a conspiracy by some of her loyalists to prevent her son from becoming Prime Minister. Boom Banerjee remained silent, and Dipika wondered what was cooking in his shrewd mind. She looked at him enquiringly, and he said that the deed had been done and could not be undone now. The party should start preparing for elections.
The newspapers of the following day were replete with detailed stories of this sudden political tsunami. The Times of India noted that Jagat Dhillon’s parting blow had shattered the family’s dream and pushed the Freedom Party into an early election for which it was not prepared. “Dipika Sharma has no one to blame but herself for pushing the Prime Minister into this daring act. With the party’s image at an all-time low, it will be a Herculean task for her to revive the fortunes in the coming polls.” The Indian Express remarked that the mild-mannered Dhillon had, for once outsmarted Dipika and her supporters. “Beware of the wrath of a righteous sardarji!”
Hindustan Times wondered if the development would help tighten the enforcement agencies’ noose around the likes of Maida Damodaran. “With state patronage gone, Damodaran and his likes can expect a fresh onslaught from the CBI; many skeletons can tumble out of the cupboard.” The Hindu lamented that Jagat Dhillon had, by his decision, helped the main Right-wing opposition party stand against a secular combination which the Freedom Party headed. “Prime Minister Dhillon may have been an unhappy man, but he ought to have considered the consequences of his decision more deeply. Unwittingly perhaps, he has placed a communal party currently in the opposition, in the pole position.”
The country’s leading Hindi daily, Dainik Jagran, commented that bad karma had finally caught up with the first family and its party. “It has been said in our sacred scriptures that you cannot escape the consequences of your deeds. Let’s hope that the new government that comes in will bear this in mind.”
Jagat Dhillon was asked by the President to continue in his post until a new regime took over, but he declined. President’s Rule was then imposed. He would vacate his sprawling official residence in the next few days and shift to a three-bedroom flat he had purchased on loan a decade ago. Meanwhile, the official process for fresh polls had already been set in motion. Two weeks thereon, the Election Commission of India would announce the dates for the general elections - a mammoth phenomenon in the world’s largest democracy.
Political analysts had already started to comment that the Freedom Party was not in great shape. Seniors like Fali blogged openly that the slew of scandals had cost the Freedom Party dearly and it would take an enormous miracle to save it now. One that didn’t seem anywhere around in the near future.
Policy paralysis had set in. The morale of ground-level workers was low. There was also the prospect of senior party leaders leaving. They had no qualms to go where the wind blew stronger. Dipika noted with concern that while the public response to the exit of the government had been welcoming, the blame for undermining the Prime Minister’s authority had been laid at her doorstep.
There were slim chances of the Freedom Party making a comeback. Besides its own internal weaknesses, it faced an external threat. The emergence of a new leader on the national canvas of the principal opposition, the People’s Voice, was more than a cause for concern. For over a decade, he had been serving as the Chief Minister of an industrialised state in the West of India and had proved his mettle as a capable leader and visionary politician. A string of achievements only added to his already growing popularity. His muscular brand of politics coupled with an unapologetically aggressive approach to national issues had endeared him to the public.
The People’s Voice too was on the lookout for a leader who could effectively exploit the Freedom Party’s misery. There were enough veterans in People’s Voice with far richer experience, but they no longer enthused the masses. Springing rapidly to action, People’s Voice declared the incumbent Chief Minister as its new prime ministerial candidate. There were some murmurs of dissent, with those loyal to the veteran leadership expressing concerns, but they were papered over. People’s Voice had felt the pulse of the people, and realised that the time to strike was now.
The year was 2014 and the People’s Voice party rose as one to present its prime ministerial candidate as a charismatic and bold contender. The Freedom Party had, on the other hand, no face to present. In the wake of the flak that surrounded the family post the Dhillon government’s resignation, it was only prudent to avoid projecting Gulab as its prime ministerial candidate.
Most analysts commented that the Freedom Party had lost the battle even before it had begun.
CHAPTER 20.
The Tables Turned
One of the last calls that Jagat had made as Prime Minister was to Mike. “There will be some developments. However, I expect you to go ahead with your work as planned. Tell the CBI chief to continue with his work as well. Also, informally, meet the heads of the Central Vigilance Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General and brief them on the new developments. They are already on the job, but it will help if you continue providing them with moral and material support.”
Mike knew what the Prime Minister had referred to. After his resignation and the dissolution of the House, everybody reported to the President, who had set up a committee of advisors to help him govern in the interim period before the elected government could take over. Now that the fetters were fully removed, the probe agencies stepped up their investigations. Both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate zeroed in on Maida Damodaran and Dalda Dalvi.