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K N Rao

Every act of the Congress will hasten the process of disintegration

I remember an archaeologist telling me that a chauvinist Hindu had visited China where a Chinese archaeologist starting excavating and found a piece of wire. The jubilant Chinese announced his finding that ancient Chinese knew all about electricity. On a visit to India, the Chinese watched the Indian excavating. Finding nothing, the Indian declared that ancient Indians knew all about wireless.

In February 1998, Indians could declare with pride that a former officer of the Indian Foreign Service, son of a judge and educated at Oxford in history (hons), can clone faster than any scientist. Romesh Bhandari, the governor of UP, decided on the afternoon of February 21 to clone a chief minister.

At 10 pm he administered the oath of secrecy to the biological miracle of his and won admiration of his political godfathers, but aroused revulsion in the hearts of many. Newspapers attacked this cloning but the Communist Harkishan Surjeet and others liked it very much and they would have awarded Bhandari a Nobel prize, if they could, for political constitutional-biological cloning, the first of its type in the world.

Do not treat it as a joke. Romesh Bhandari has been given too much credit for creating thrills in Indian politics in the third week of February when he removed Kalyan Singh, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and installed Jagadambika Prasad who by becoming a chief minister for only 40 hours, may have entitled himself to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. Then there was the enigmatic role of Naresh Agarwal of the Loktantrik Congress who seemed to belong to both the BJP and the anti-BJP group simultaneously. UP had two chief ministers for 40 hours.

It is Bhandari magic which he had performed in Tripura earlier. But the explanation lies elsewhere, in astrology. A greater confusion created by the Supreme Court has been attacked by lawyer P N Lekhi who said the Constitution does not recognise 'contending claimants'. This observation deserves serious notice as in the future governors can install a puppet chief minister in their chambers and force a legislature to have similar composite floor testing.

Let me digress a little. I heard a good debate on defections in Indian politics in which Shanti Bhushan, a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, participated along with Ajit Singh the political leader. What should be done to prevent defections was the question put to them. Shanti Bhushan suggested that no law could prevent defections. There should be strong public opinion against it. This sounded very impractical to me. Ajit Singh suggested that the speaker, being a member of a political party, should decide it along with two or other figures who should be associated for a decision on any question of defection.

I do not know why we ourselves cannot act in the matter. Let us decide to describe a politician who crosses the floor as a defective politician. Suppose we were to say that Kalyan Singh was running his government in UP with the help of 30 odd defective politicians, what would be its effect? It was perhaps Bernard Shaw who suggested that the discipline of a school would improve if a gold medal was given to the worst behaved boy of the year.

Saturn is in Meena these days. This great planet confers boons on you with as sure a touch as he can cause deep anguish. It is when he causes anguish that you are forced into self-introspection which creates real vairagya (detachment). Saturn is the greatest planet of spiritual progress. Your attention is drawn to a malaise you were not aware of or which you, even if aware of, did not take seriously. It is what Saturn is doing. In a way, if you look at it all with a comical eye you enjoy the thrills or jokes of Saturn. I will tell you that story later.

I will not narrate the entire history except that in 1969 when Saturn was in Meena, he chose Indira Gandhi to create thrills in Indian politics. She first split the Congress and later created the greatest thrill when she put up V V Giri as her candidate for the post of President against Sanjeeva Reddy.

Romesh Bhandari, an unacknowledged sub-junior-assistant-minor disciple of Indira Gandhi, has been chosen by Saturn in the year of our lord 1998 to create thrills. Is it the Bhandari magic which made many people re-read the Constitution? No, it is Saturn creating agony to make us all see the lacunae in the Constitution which needs a drastic amendment through honest self-introspection. It is Saturn which will force us to adopt a saner attitude to Bhandari mutilations of the Constitution.

What Bhandari did is what Ram Lal had done in 1984 to N T Rama Rao, then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. I had then predicted that in spite of Indira Gandhi (whose confidantes were Rajiv Gandhi and Arun Nehru) there would be a reinstatement of N T Rama Rao. I had the advantage of having NTR's correct horoscope. I do not have Kalyan Singh's horoscope.

Bhandari remembers history well. His career will now take a different turn now. His health will worry him and he will get busy with the activities of some ashram or temple activity. His Sun sub-period is to start soon as soon the Venus sub-period, the lord of money in his horoscope, is over. He will remain in the news still.

But Saturn is in Meena which is the lagna of the Republican horoscope of India. It is the Mahadasha of Rahu and the antardasha of Saturn which from July will force Parliament to issue a major constitutional amendment including what may be resemble a financial emergency. It will also be aimed at making it an anti-constitutional cloning of chief ministers, perhaps. The President will find himself in a much more difficult situation when it comes to taking constitutionally correct and proper decisions. The Congress is in an absolute neurotic condition in its own Rahu-Saturn period. Every act of this party will hasten the process of further disintegration and splits or defections.

Elections '98

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