Obviously Sonia has left her options open. However, the mere fact that she took an exceptional interest in the controversy has worked to Kesri's disadvantage. In fact, it is the aicc president and his loyalists who have lost the most from Jain's indictment of the DMK and V.P. Singh. For one, it has destroyed the cosy relationship between Kesri and Gujral, a relationship based on the prime minister obliging the Congress president. Second, it has ruined Kesri's well-crafted strategy of entering the Government without changing the prime minister. Finally, and most important, the premature revelation of Jain's findings has destroyed the carefully evolved understanding between a section of the United Front (UF) and the Congress on "managing" the report.

Both the UF and Congress strategists were agreed that if Kesri installed his loyalists in the Government, it would make it that much easier to, first, delay the tabling of the report till the final days of the mandatory six months and, second, to contain any adverse fallout. If the Congress was in the Government, the exclusion of the DMK after the tabling of the report would involve relatively less complications. Certainly, Kesri and Gujral felt that the presentation of the Jain report at a time when the Congress was tasting power would prompt party MPs to be more restrained.

The two men who were entrusted with overseeing the Congress' induction into the Gujral Government before the tabling of the Jain report were Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and CWC member Madhavrao Scindia. The initial discussion took place over a dinner at the Longchamps restaurant in Delhi's Taj Mahal Hotel on October 18, just three days after Home Ministry officials first opened Jain's report. Thereafter Scindia and Chidambaram kept in touch with each other on the cellphone. Scindia also spoke to Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) leader G.K. Moopanar and had two discussions with Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. Together they sought to create an opportunity out of a situation of grave difficulty. In fact, Scindia persisted in his efforts to forge a compromise even after the UF firmly rebuffed Congress demands to exclude the DMK from the Government. The only encouraging note came on November 17 when Moopanar called on "old friend" Kesri. CWC sources hinted that the TMC leader gave an assurance that there would be no resistance from his party if the DMK ministers were shown the door.

But even Moopanar's willingness to oblige his erstwhile colleagues in the Congress came to nought after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi refused to bow out voluntarily. In fact, Karunanidhi seriously embarrassed the Congress and the Sonia loyalists by unearthing a section of the Jain report which, in effect, pinned the blame for ltte terrorism on the entire Tamil people. Fearing a xenophobic backlash, Moopanar discreetly abandoned hopes of reviving a third front in Tamil Nadu. Yet, last Friday, after the UF formally turned down the CWC demand to exclude the DMK, Moopanar endorsed Sharad Pawar's proposal for a judicial committee to assess Jain's interim report. It was even suggested that the idea enjoyed the backing of Sonia.

Nor was Moopanar alone in his vacillation. Seeing the crisis from the perspective of Uttar Pradesh, a harried Mulayam felt the UF should not stand on pride but readily sacrifice the DMK, not least because of the latter's special relationship with V.P. Singh. A snap election, he felt, would only help the BJP. The SP leader's contention was that the Jain Commission controversy had resulted in the UF shifting its focus from anti-BJPism to anti-Congressism. When the UF Core Committee met at the prime minister's residence on November 19, Mulayam pressed for the screening of a "secret film" on the ATRocities unleashed by the Kalyan Singh Government. The film turned out to be a recording of an Aaj Tak programme shown on Doordarshan. Mulayam was somewhat embarrassed when UF colleagues pointed out that the recording didn't exactly enhance the image of his party because it showed SP cadres torching a police jeep and pelting policemen.

Even the defence minister's suggestion that the UF should avoid embarrassing the Congress in any debate on the Jain report was greeted with hostility. A belligerent former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, backed by the Telugu Desam Party, DMK and the cpi, was vocal in insisting that opposing the BJP did not mean letting the Congress get away with levelling grave charges against Karunanidhi and V.P. Singh. Mulayam took out his frustration at a public meeting in Hardwar the next day, when he denounced the presumptuousness of those who accuse the Indian people of being corrupt -- a not-so-veiled reference to Gujral's Independence Day speech.

It is not that Mulayam was entirely isolated. Aware of the need to avoid losing a valuable ally in Uttar Pradesh, CPI(M) General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet favoured "persuading" the DMK to opt out for the sake of larger interests. This was, of course, music to Gujral's ears. However, the unlikely threesome were soon put in their place by a terse message from West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, who not only flayed Gujral publicly, but also told the UF to call the Congress bluff. "We will have little credibility left if we keep giving in. If the Congress is hell bent on polls, we shouldn't run scared." It was a view endorsed by V.P. Singh, the UF's patron saint who, a few months ago, was advocating a Congress-UF alliance to thwart the BJP. Complementing Basu, Deve Gowda telephoned Surjeet an hour before Wednesday's Core Committee meeting to inform him of "yet another conspiracy between Kesri and Gujral to get the resignation of three DMK ministers in return for giving them a clean chit in the Action Taken Report (ATR)". Deve Gowda wasn't imagining thing. The sections dealing with the DMK's involvement and V.P. Singh's lapses were completed at the last moment. Home Minister Indrajit Gupta hadn't even cared to read the original ATR that damned both the DMK and V.P. Singh.

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