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		Virendra Kapoor

	Folks, we know you are sick and tired of the lady from Madras. We sympathise, we really do -- but you got to bear with one more tale 'bout her. A little mynah that flew in all the way from Poes Garden tells us that J Jayalalitha, she of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, was desperately looking for a face-saving formula till the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government blocked all chances of rapprochement. "She sent an SOS to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah to try for a compromise," sings the bird, "Dr Abdullah wasn't enthusiastic; he said she had made a nuisance of herself from day one." We feed the bird a few crumbs and it sings some more. "Dr Abdullah really shocked Jaya -- he told her emissary that his party's three Lok Sabha members would vote with the Vajpayee government!" Evidence that Jaya had cried wolf once too often is available from the two AIADMK ministers who resigned. R Janardanan and M Thambidurai confided to friends that even after she created the crisis by her Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat -related demands, they were told to return to their jobs in Delhi. "Only when the Vajpayee Cabinet formally rejected her demands did she take it as a personal affront. That was the last straw... Otherwise she was ready for a compromise," Janardanan said. Kalyan and friend The Sangh Parivar is fed up with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh. It would like to discipline him once things settle down. Singh's increasing dependence on his friend Kusum Rai, and the latter's hold on him is now a public secret. Despite warnings from RSS bigwigs to distance the ambitious young woman, Singh recently granted her the rank of a Cabinet minister. The RSS bosses have taken it as a personal affront. Stories of Rai's influence are legion. But this one exemplifies her clout: It seems the state BJP chief Rajnath Singh forwarded a petition to transfer an executive engineer to the CM. A few days later, the CM regretted his inability. The engineer in question did not enjoy "very good reputation" was the ostensible reason. A couple of days later, the said engineer approached Rajnath Singh again, this time to plead that he had found someone who knows Rai well. Would he mind if he tried to get his work done through her? "Why should I object if you can get your work done by her?" was Rajnath Singh's response. And sure enough, the engineer got the plum job he had set his heart on within a few days! Everyone's a scamster here Let's get a bit moralistic. Let's examine why our politicians manage to get away with all sorts of filthy things. The reason is, support. Support from accomplices in other fields. Hot-shot industrialists, five-star businessmen, builders, lawyers, bureaucrats, journalists, et al are stock, barrel and dirty fingers with them. Being public men, politicians take the rap, that's all. And the others go on to found huge empires. A case in point is that of a well-known Delhi land developer and builder. Thanks to the collusion of successive generations of Delhi and Haryana politicians, our friend presides over a multi-million empire. Aside from the usual tricks that builders everywhere resort to, our friend has perfected the art of reneging on his commitments on building plans once the authorities sanction them. The ploy is pretty simple. Sanction can be procured only if the plans include requisite space for roads, public parks, schools, community centres, public conveniences etc. Plots of land are sold on the basis of sanctioned plans, which provide for such facilities. Once sold, our builder quietly uses the land originally meant for common facilities to construct bungalows and commercial structures. Right now in the heart of an upmarket South Delhi colony, our friend is building a block of plush flats -- on land that was originally earmarked for a public park! It is not hard to fathom why the authorities are a party to the fraud. But the real surprise is that the residents' associations too are helpless before the money and muscle power of the builder. Not surprisingly, the original plans of most colonies developed by the builder are missing from the records of the civic authority! *sigh* Guruswamy again! There's a gent called Mohan Guruswamy. Yes, the sacked adviser to Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. He has now recycled his old charges into a page-long article in a multi-edition newspaper. While much of it is old hat, there is a small nugget of information. Talking of his midnight meeting with Information and Broadcasting Pramod Mahajan, Guruswamy writes: "Now, we live in a town where the distinction between journalism and political activism is blurred. Many who masquerade as journalists are in fact political operatives. I went in the journalist's car and we entered Mahajan's residence from the Safdarjang lane entrance so that no one would see us. We all know that Mahajan keeps late hours and the hour of the day is never a consideration for journalist friends. The ostensible reason we were meeting was to see if a cease-fire could be worked out..." Well, the cease-fire wasn't possible. But what should interest you is the identity of the journalist who tried to broker peace. And it is none other than the popular Janata Ki Adalat host on Star channel, Rajat Sharma. Playing such a role behind the cameras is nothing new to Sharma. He has reportedly been a backroom operative for a host of politicians from Arif Mohammed Khan and Jagdish Tytler to Kalyan Singh et al. Capital Buzz
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