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Why have Ananth Kumar and Mahajan hit terra firma with a thud?

The first coalition government in four years with a very good chance of spending more months in office than the number of allies who make up its ranks, stands out for many reasons.

To start with there is its size (70). Then there is all that bifurcation and trifurcation of ministries. Then there is the rather abnormal number of MPs from Bihar (11) who find a place. And then, there is the decision to keep out Sikander Bhakt and Ramakrishna Hegde.

However, to my mind, the third ministry Atal Bihari Vajpayee has formed in three years is remarkable not for who has been taken in or who has been left out, but for what's happened to the two Bright Young Things of the BJP.

Namely, Pramod Mahajan and Ananth Kumar.

Meanwhile: • With General Pervez Musharraf who was involved in Kargil, with the Taliban and the fundamentalist right now in charge in Pakistan, will nuclear deterrence have a better chance of working? • The allies won 40 per cent of the NDA's 305 seats, but have got only 33 per cent of the ministerial berths. Has the BJP given its 23 allies, barring the JD-U, a raw deal? • Following the installation in office of a Congress-NCP government, does Sharad Pawar now believe Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin is no longer an issue, or has the Congress chief realised it was a legitimate question? • A study by the Centre for Study of Developing Societies says four-fifths of our one billion population are unaware of any economic reform. Is liberalisation meant to benefit only 200 crore Indians? • With Doordarshan winning the cricket telecast rights and TWI producing the pictures, has the last been heard of Sunil Gavaskar, the commentator? Or will cricket-loving Arun Jaitley find him the space?

Till last Wednesday, these were the great white hopes of the BJP. Or at least were projected to be. They were said to be the eyes and ears of their masters and mentors, Vajpayee and L K Advani, respectively. They were said to represent the youthful face of the party. And they were supposed to be going places.

Since October 13, though, the only place they have gone, in the eyes of the public, is down.

Mobile-phone Mahajan, 48, a paid-up member of the flaunt-it-if-you-have-it school of power politics -- who was defence minister on debut in the 13-day government and was information and broadcasting minister in the 13-month one -- is now a lowly minister for water resources and parliamentary affairs.

Chela-in-chief Kumar, 40 -- whose only qualification till he was sworn in as civil aviation minister last year, was his ability to translate Advaniji's Hindi speeches into Kannada besides his genius in finding emotive issues for the BJP to sneak into Karnataka -- is now minister for culture, youth affairs and sports.

It sure doesn't take a rocket scientist to say that what goes up comes down. But, hey, what happened to the unstoppables? Why have they hit terra firma with a thud?

And whodunnit?

Of course, no one in the BJP will even remotely consider the idea -- on the record at least -- that Mahajan and Kumar have been demoted/sidelined/ marginalised. Or that they've fallen out of favour. And certainly the ministers themselves will not admit that their wings have been clipped.

But, if Advani could remain home minister, if Yashwant Sinha would remain finance minister, if George Fernandes could remain defence minister, if Murli Manohar Joshi could remain HRD minister, why couldn't Pramod Mahajan remain I&B minister? And why couldn't Ananth Kumar remain civil aviation minister?

Why, indeed?

In any profession, a sack/ demotion/ redesignation comes because of one or a combination of the following reasons: a. if the boss doesn't like you or doesn't trust you, b. if the boss thinks you're getting too big for your boots, c. if he thinks you're inept, d. if he thinks you're corrupt, e. if he thinks there's somebody more deserving of your post than you, and f. if he thinks your services are required elsewhere in the organisation.

Which of these factors contributed to the fall of Mahajan and Kumar? And was it the same factor that felled both of them?

The two ministers will, of course, insist that it was the last of the six reasons that contributed to the similar and simultaneous change in their job description. In fact, you can almost imagine Mahajan, with that supercilious grin of his, claim that he wanted the change in portfolio himself because, "you know, change is the spice of life."

Is it?

The NDA's strength is a comfortable 305. Surely, it can't be the BJP's claim that it needs the kind of parliamentary (and not-so-parliamentary) skills that Mahajan has become famous for, to keep its flock together. Moreover, the 24-party NDA is effectively now a 15-party coalition, of which five parties together constitute six members. So, what price parliamentary affairs?

What of Mahajan's other portfolio, water resources? The one non-stop water wrangle that has plagued the country is the Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. But didn't the NDA claim in its election manifesto and advertisements that the issue had been successfully resolved by the prime minister? Or does the BJP have a different gameplan since a non-NDA member is now in charge in Karnataka, and has hence deputed Mahajan?

Mahajan's band-masters within the BJP and the media are now putting out the line that the minister is tipped to get the new information technology ministry that is in the offing. But will Chandrababu Naidu, the NDA's biggest "outside supporter", skip this one chance of installing one of his own now that Vajpayee has ignored his bid for Dr C Rangarajan? And will the "seniors" stomach a third ministry for someone so "young"?

To understand how Mahajan has been slighted all you've got to do is look at his replacement. Not someone of equal "stature" or glamour; not even a giantkilling Lok Sabha MP; not some hardworking party leader who tore his ass off campaigning in the heat and dust but an Arun Jaitley, who got all his insights into the working of the I&B ministry by spending two months in the airconditioned studios of NDTV.

Jaitley, in fact, has been made a minister of state with independent charge. Does that mean Mr Vajpayee feels Mahajan occupied a portfolio not commensurate with its requirements?

In using Doordarshan to tom-tom His Master's Voice, Mahajan was the man who did to Vajpayee what H K L Bhagat did to Rajiv Gandhi. It was he who started the 24-hour news channel, DD News. It was he who started the 24-hour sports channel, DD sports. It was he who swung the cricket telecast rights DD's way. If he should suddenly find himself in the doghouse, there must be a good reason.

What is it? Could it be that decent Mr Vajpayee was put off by Mahajan's "Monica Lewinsky" slur on Sonia Gandhi? Or the neoptic television deals Mahajan swung his son's way in the closing days of the caretaker government?

Correspondents on the BJP beat say Vajpayee was miffed at the fact that Mahajan was making too much of song and dance of his proximity to the prime minister. That's too simplistic. Which employee close to his boss won't capitalise on it (unless he's an idiot) and which boss howsoever great doesn't like a fawning colleague?

Likewise, Ananth Kumar's patron in the BJP, Venkaiah Naidu, says the civil aviation minister wasn't "unloaded" (his words). Kumar was moved to the youth affairs, sports and culture ministry because, "the BJP has big plans for the youth. It is visualising programmes in which cadres could be involved in a big way to leave its mark on the "youth" of the country."

On his part, Kumar says his new portfolio will provide "new scope and vistas in dealing with real potential". Admittedly, there is some truth in this. Over 65 per cent of the voters in this election were between 18 and 35 years of age, and there is a captive votebank waiting to be encashed by the BJP if someone can diligently work at it. Posting a minister who is all of 38 years old seems one of a piece.

In other words, Kumar is saying that he wanted the portfolio. Then why are correspondents who covered the swearing-in ceremony on October 13 claiming that he was livid when he was told about his portfolio?

It is possible that Kumar was moved out of the civil aviation ministry to accommodate Sharad Yadav to help the Janata Dal-United do some hectic "resource mobilisation" before the assembly election in Bihar due in March 2000. But, like in Mahajan's case, Kumar has been shown his place. He has been moved out of a high-profile portfolio into a ministry which was upgraded only because Uma Bharti couldn't get along with Murli Manohar Joshi.

Aviation correspondents say Kumar's own abysmal record as minister (policy was the last of his priorities) and his lack of interest in anything not involving Karnataka (even there he failed in roping in the Tatas to build Bangalore's new airport) must have contributed to his "demotion". But if it was ineptitude that caused his fall, the BJP sure is living in hope that he will now carry off his latest responsibility to its satisfaction.

The only reason, in the end, which binds Mahajan and Kumar in their plight is the BJP's poor performance in states they were in charge: Maharashtra and Karnataka, respectively.

In one state, the BJP is out of power; in the other, it has squandered what little chance it had of getting into it. In the Lok Sabha poll, Maharashtra has got more seats (12) than it did last year (4), but it is still behind the 1996 tally of 18. In Karnataka, the BJP tally is down from 13 last time to 7.

But even that is too fanciful considering that Kalyan Singh is still in office in spite of the Uttar Pradesh debacle. So what really is the "real" reason for the fading away of the BYTs?

Remember, before he became a Vajpayee groupie, Mahajan was Advani's alter-ego as was/is Ananth Kumar. In demoting Advani cronies -- past and present -- at the same time, is the prime minister sending out a clear signal to "Ram-bhakt", the only BJP leader in a position to make a serious grab for his chair?

But even there we run into rough weather. Some political commentators (Hari Shankar Vyas, The Pioneer, October 17) say that Advani (along with BJP chief Kushabhau Thakre) played a key role in the constitution of the Vajpayee ministry, especially in picking pracharaks.

Both Pramod Mahajan and Ananth Kumar have done their time as pracharaks. So was the move to show them their places the collision of interests between the prime minister and the home minister?

Much as secular sourpusses would like to believe that to be true and take delight in the plight of Messrs Mahajan & Kumar, it is also painfully obvious that, while subtlety is not their strongpoint, neither the party nor the Parivar is daft enough to spike its stars of the future in so obvious a manner as to set tongues wagging.

So, why?

Krishna Prasad