Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley at home in Delhi
In his Siachen photo-op on Diwali, Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked so natty in his shades and low-slung snow goggles, wearing a red muffler and patting a military dog, that it is no wonder his approval ratings have remained at stratospheric levels despite nearly six months of being in power. Back in the plains, Modi's closest aide for over a decade, BJP chief Amit Shah celebrated the victories in Maharashtra and Haryana, alongside his own birthday. And so it remained to Finance-Defence-cum-Company Affairs Minister, the urbane and sophisticated Arun Jaitley to carry on the dogged business of government, announcing the deregulation of diesel prices, reaffirming his desire to see lower interest rates, clearing defence projects worth Rs 80,000 crore-and over the last few days, being in the Supreme Court's crosshairs on the 627 Swiss bank accounts held by Indian citizens and NRIs.
Assuming a cross-mythological referencing is allowed in this age of Hindutva, if Modi is Ram, then Shah and Jaitley are his Lakshman and Arjun, two aides who seemingly complete him and he cannot do without. Much newsprint has been consumed on the importance of Gujarat's former home minister who has helped colour the country saffron-and is now eyeing Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where polls will be held in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
But the truth is that Ahmedabad is not Delhi-and certainly, Gujarat is not India-even if the recent party successes crafted by the inimitable Amit Shah are slowly making the Congress look like the Muslim League in 1947. Remember, too, that Shah was forced to flee Gujarat by none other than the Supreme Court in 2010 and came straight to the house of Jaitley; a BJP politician confirmed "there wasn't a day these past years that the two didn't share a meal together". Despite being party president, Shah remains chargesheeted in two cases of murder, on which he is said to be informally advised by Jaitley.
Fact is, Jaitley remains the ultimate insider in a city where both proximity and information is power and the quid pro quo remains an instrument of influence. Since the time he was a leader with the RSS' student wing, the ABVP, in the early 1970s, to throwing in his lot with Modi even before he became the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001-and holding his hand through the dark days of the riots in 2002 as well as the turbulent years that followed-Jaitley's unsurpassable network of contacts across the political, legal and social spectrum makes him uniquely qualified to sit on any side of the Prime Minister.
Certainly, a man with as sharp a sense of smell for power, Modi must know his spectacular haul of 282 seats in the Lok Sabha will be diminished if he cannot properly leverage it across the Capital's several columns of clout, such as the media, the corporate and the diplomatic world. That's why the post-Diwali Milan exercise, in which over 400 journalists were invited to break bread, is significant. Modi as well as several RSS pracharaks realise that in the BJP as well as across the political spectrum, few can match Jaitley's pre-eminently good relations across all these communities.
In fact, the Diwali Milan was also a coming out of sorts for Jaitley after his six-week-long hospitalisation and convalescence, after a gastric bypass procedure at Max hospital in early September developed complications and he had to be moved to the isolation ward at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). (One reason for the move was to separate him from the number of visitors who called on him daily-including Shah, who came to talk about impending assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.) Jaitley has returned to full-time work barely a week ago, 17 kg slimmer and considerably reduced on his diabetic medicine, which he has been taking for 31 years.
Under the scanner
So as the so-called "black money" issue hit the headlines recently, seriously embarrassing the Government for the first time since it came to power-as the man in charge, Finance Minister Jaitley seemed to be in a spot. The Supreme Court soon conceded that it would only give the list of offenders to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that had been charged with the matter when it was set up in late May even as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, also an old Jaitley friend, pointed out that the finance ministry had given the list to the SIT as long ago as late June.
Whether or not Jaitley's long absence from work created a vacuum of responsibility is a moot point. Certainly, his obvious ill-health could not have escaped the notice of the Prime Minister, as well as the rest of the country, when he was forced to take an unprecedented break in the middle of his Budget speech, just before the taxation proposals were announced. Days later, Modi called Jaitley's son and daughter, Rohan and Sonali, for breakfast at 7 Race Course Road, telling them that they urgently needed to persuade their father to go in for bariatric surgery "as he had several years of productive work ahead of him" and needed to be healthier than he was, a family source confirmed.
Modi would keep tabs on Jaitley's progress in hospital, even visiting him at Max on the eve of his departure to the United States. He would call him two-three times a day from New York and Washington, between speaking at the United Nations General Assembly and meeting US President Barack Obama. When an ulcer close to the food pipe became aggravated by two endoscopic invasions and the minister developed a lung infection that needed to be contained, Modi kept a close watch on his health indicators at AIIMS.
Master of many trades
Certainly, Jaitley is the first man in independent India's history to hold the finance and defence portfolios at the same time. Many finance ministers, such as Morarji Desai, Indira Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, have gone on to be prime ministers-and Pranab Mukherjee went on to become President- while some prime ministers, Rajiv Gandhi and V.P. Singh, have held the defence portfolio at the same time.
By giving Jaitley both these key ministries (and two out of four portfolios that comprise the Cabinet Committee on Security), apart from cutting to size his longtime political rival and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Modi was signalling the high esteem in which he held the man.
But Jaitley also got his own way, getting key portfolios for three proteges- Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry who handles key departments like WTO, Piyush Goyal, Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy, under whose charge the recent ordinance on revamping the coal sector was brought, and Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas-even as Rajya Sabha member Bhupender Yadav was recently made in charge of Bihar by Amit Shah. Only a few months ago, Yadav had replaced Varun Gandhi as party general secretary.
If his hospitalisation had put a comma in his work, the last few days have been witness to a series of bumper decisions. A BJP leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that Jaitley was the brain behind the coal ordinance, the deregulation of diesel prices as well as the increase in price of natural gas from domestic fields from the existing $4.2 per million British thermal unit (mbtu) to $5.6 per mbtu, "as if he was making up for lost time". Gas pricing had been a particularly hot-button issue, with Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party and Communist Party of India's Gurudas Dasgupta accusing the previous UPA government's C. Rangarajan committee of favouring Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) by recommending that the price be increased to $8.4 per mbtu.
And therein lies a story doing the rounds of Lutyens' Delhi these days: it seems that RIL's request for arbitration over the revision of the price of gas from its KG-D6 gas fields had not been received kindly by the Modi Government. RIL had served an arbitration notice to the government days before the Lok Sabha election results were announced. It also seems it was Jaitley who had recommended the name of former Supreme Court judge G.S. Singhvi to Pradhan to be appointed as arbitrator in the RIL case. Singhvi has a reputation for honesty and integrity-he, along with Justice A.K. Ganguly, had in 2012 quashed the 122 2G spectrum licences issued by former telecom minister A.Raja in 2008, thereby tolling the death knell for UPA 2.
But the importance of being Arun Jaitley can only be properly understood if he is seen in action in the Rajya Sabha, of which he is the leader and where the BJP is in a minority. What this means is that the Opposition, if it so wishes, can gang up to stall a key piece of legislation, which is what it did with Jaitley's beloved insurance bill in the recent monsoon session of Parliament, where he wanted to increase FDI stakes in insurance from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. The bill had to be referred to a select committee because the Congress opposed it.
As a Trinamool Congress (TMC) member in the Rajya Sabha put it, only half-seriously, "Jaitley should also have been parliamentary affairs minister, although Venkaiah Naidu is very good at his jobâ?¦The select committee meetings are so relaxed because Jaitley knows everyone on a first name basis. With people now on board, it is likely to be passed in the next session with minor modifications."
"With the cooperation of the Congress," Jaitley said in a recent interview, "I hope amendments to the Goods and Services Tax will also be passed in the winter session of Parliament. This is expected to add at least 1 per cent to the GDP." (Gujarat, until recently the spoiler, has now come on board.) Amendments to the recently passed Land Acquisition Act are also in the offing, for example to exempt land for the "defence of India", for affordable housing, industrial corridors and parks. "I am not opposed to higher compensation for land acquisition, but procedures need to be shortcircuited," Jaitley added. Analysts noted he was taking charge of a move that should properly belong to the domain of law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, an old friend and comrade.
Indeed, Jaitley has several good friends across the political spectrum- from the Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) Sharad Pawar to Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Mayawati to Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) Parkash Singh Badal to Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) Chandrababu Naidu to the Congress's P. Chidambaram, Anand Sharma and Rajeev Shukla to the Samajwadi Party's (SP) Ram Gopal Yadav-and equally important, each of them return the compliment.
For example, when Modi wanted Nripendra Misra as his principal secretary and an ordinance was issued, Jaitley worked the ropes. Soon the NCP had broken with its erstwhile ally, the Congress, to support the Government. It would do so again, supporting Jaitley's insurance bill. And when the BJP became the single-largest party in the wake of the recent Maharashtra polls, the NCP took little time in offering unstinted support to it.
Jaitley and Pawar go back a long way, their friendship cemented by their mutual love for cricket. In fact, when Pawar wanted to become BCCI president in 2005, naturally he counted on Jaitley to bring in the requisite support.
Deputy BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra, also a lawyer, is said to count on Jaitley quite a bit in the Rajya Sabha. When Mayawati wants to speak in a major debate, Jaitley obliges with allocation, even if the party shouldn't get as much time. When SP leader Amar Singh filed a case against a Delhi journalist some years ago, Jaitley is said to have asked Mishra to help out in Lucknow. A Rajya Sabha leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Jaitley's informal conversations with Mishra are also believed to include advice on how to handle the various corruption scams against Mayawati.
Jaitley's ground floor office in Parliament is a nerve centre, with politicians of all hues dropping by, much to the delight of waiting journalists. Here, as well as in the more exclusive Central Hall, he is the consummate political artist, reaching across the political aisle to call in old friendships that deliver political results and helping new politicians find their feet.
Pavan K. Varma, a member of the Janata Dal (United) (JD-U) in the Rajya Sabha, points out that Jaitley goes out of his way to find solutions, behind the scenes. When the unhappy JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav requested that the party office not be moved to the third floor from the ground floor, Jaitley immediately offered to speak to the deputy chairman of the House.
Jaitley's links with the JD(U) go back to a close friendship with former Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar during his 17-year alliance with the BJP. But after Nitish broke over Modi last year, the two don't meet that much any more, even though Jaitley is believed to say to both sides: Aisi bhi karvahat nahin honi chahiye (The big picture should not be forgotten because of personal bitterness).
"In a new Lok Sabha which is full of new voices and in which several BJP members owe their seats to the RSS which backed Modi in this General Election, Jaitley is important because he predates Modi," Varma says, adding, "But don't make the mistake of thinking that anyone can moderate Modi. Not Arun Jaitley, nor anyone else. Modi is his own man. He is supreme."
Troubleshooter-in-chief
Certainly, a key responsibility for Jaitley is to smoothen the running of the NDA for Modi. For example, when the previous Haryana government wanted a piece of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), SAD leader and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal got very perturbed, SAD leader Naresh Gujral said. "Jaitley first advised caution, pointing out that a friendly BJP Government at the Centre would not allow any harm to be done to him or to the Akali Dal." But when the then chief minister Bhupinder Hooda's government persisted in trying to divide the SGPC, Jaitley requested Attorney General Rohatgi to take the matter to the Supreme Court. "We obtained a stay on the matter," Gujral added.
Rohatgi, in fact, is not Jaitley's only friend in the Supreme Court. Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar as well as all four Additional Solicitors General- Pinky Anand, Maninder Singh, Neeraj Kishan Kaul and P.S. Narasimha-are Jaitley acolytes, while Supreme Court judge Rohinton Nariman and the finance minister go back to the time they studied together at Delhi's premier Shri Ram College of Commerce.
The NCP's D.P. Tripathi points out that several of Jaitley's political friendships stem from the time Jayaprakash Narayan made him the convenor of the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, a 21-member organisation of student leaders nationwide on the eve of the Emergency. "Jaitley was one of the first to be arrested when Emergency was declared in June 1975, and when I was arrested in November and brought to Tihar Jail at 4 a.m., Jaitley greeted me like an old friend. Jail ki dosti kabhi bhulayi nahin ja sakti (One can never forget the friendships forged in jail)," Tripathi admitted.
So when the finance minister came home from hospital to his official residence at 2, Krishna Menon Marg in mid-October, it was as if large parts of Delhi were heaving a huge sigh of relief. A top industrialist came to call, as did Telugu Desam Party leader and Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, asking for advice on "how to set Air India right". Tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi dropped in. Suresh Soni, RSS joint general secretary, came to say goodbye before returning to the parent cadre after 10 years of being with the BJP, while the RSS pointperson in charge of north India, Rameshwar ji, came to say hello.
Soni and Jaitley have shared a good equation these past years, the RSS leader commiserating with Jaitley after he lost his election in Amritsar and reassuring him that that would not reduce his importance in the BJP. But the fact remains that the RSS is still somewhat circumspect about Jaitley's total commitment to Hindutva values, a point on which Home Minister Rajnath Singh scores much better. When Sangh leaders, for example, supported the so-called "love jihad" exercise in Uttar Pradesh, neither Jaitley nor Modi made any public comments, although one RSS leader conceded in private that Jaitley believed that "nobody should do anything to detract from the Government's focus on good governance and development".
According to a BJP leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "Jaitley knows that you can't confront the RSS. Which means you have to go around them to either persuade them, or then drop the matter."
Even those who don't owe direct allegiance to him often count on Jaitley to bail them out in their times of trouble. Such as HRD Minister Smriti Irani "who called him almost hourly", said a BJP leader, to ask how she should deal with a media asking searching questions on her educational qualifications, or lack thereof. He advised her to tell the journalists to judge her for her work and not whether or where she went to college. When food prices shot through the roof in July, the finance minister worked with Ram Vilas Paswan, Lok Janshakti Party ally and minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution, to put 100 lakh tonnes of wheat and 50 lakh tonnes of rice into the domestic market, thereby bringing down the price of both commodities. Despite the reservations of the BJP's traditional trader support base, the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act was relaxed in Delhi.
Certainly, it has been as Modi's eyes and ears in Delhi that Jaitley has functioned these past few months. Mornings are devoted to the finance ministry, while post-noon finds him at the defence ministry. The armed forces, considerably shaken by the controversy over former army chief General V.K. Singh's age as well as his indirect challenge to the political masters of the time, were said to have been quite nervous when he became a part of the Government. A senior BJP leader confirmed, on the condition of anonymity, that Singh was kept out of the defence ministry-and put into the relatively harmless DONER and Overseas Indian Affairs ministries- because the "delicate relationship between the political and civilian supremacy over the military had to be re-established." So Modi gave Jaitley the job.
First of all, the defence minister gave his own party as well as the armed forces to understand that the Modi Government would not interfere in the succession controversy of the army chief, that the previous UPA government had named General Dalbir Singh and he would abide by that decision. "The forces need to be kept away from political crosscurrents," the senior BJP leader added.
But as the dust settles on the black money controversy, preparations for the next Budget, with his chosen Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on board, have begun. The exercise to disinvest in public sector undertakings such as the Steel Authority of India, Coal India Ltd, NHPC and rural electricity corporations, so as to achieve the Rs 50,000 crore target, has been started; although several anomalies, including the power to retrospectively amend laws, bringing clarity to the company law, improving stock market regulation, financial sector regulation, bank recapitalisation and reducing interest rates, remain.
But as an editor of a national daily, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, put it, "In the Budget, Jaitley resisted the temptation of running down the flaky numbers on tax collections that the previous government had put out. He had the political opportunity to run down P. Chidambaram but he put the credibility of the economy and the country above that of the party, realising that it would impact market sentiment."
As the seasons change and Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir prepare for polls under Shah's direction, the Prime Minister has made it clear that Arun Jaitley remains the go-to man in the Government as well as in the NDA alliance. The first of several home truths-that Delhi is much bigger than Ahmedabad and Gujarat is certainly smaller than India- seems to have finally begun to dawn, even in the BJP.
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