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COVER STORY: NDA
JAYA JAITLY
Jhola To Purse
At first, she went
missing. Then she wanted to know why she should resign. What wrong could
she have possibly committed? So when she eventually stepped down-on the
third day after the Tehelka disclosures-it was not just from the post
of the Samata Party president but also from the carefully crafted pedestal
of self-worth and infallibility. If only Jaya Jaitly had resigned 24 hours
earlier, everyone seemed to be saying, the political crisis in the Atal
Bihari Vajpayee Government may have blown over.
A smooth operation had clearly gone awry. And
Defence Minister George Fernandes, the very person whom Jaitly sought
to
protect, had no choice but to quit, triggering a chain of ministerial
resignations.
To be fair to the trendy jholawali Jaitly, the
Tehelka spytapes in no way establish her making a link between the Rs
2-lakh donation she received on behalf of her party from the fictitious
West End International to subsequent discussions on the firm's chances
of getting shortlisted for the trial of binoculars. When the parcel containing
the money is offered to her, she merely passes it on with a request to
send it to "our minister".
 Often
in the past, Jaitly is known to have assured help-seekers that "if
things are not working favourably, we will take the matter to the sahib".
Where the glib lady comes under criticism now is the ease and authority
with which she invited an unknown arms dealer to the official residence
of the defence minister and repeatedly assured him that "we"
would step in. Just who did she mean by "we"? Was it the Samata
Party as a whole, or the defence minister and herself?
Jaitly's proximity to Fernandes is no secret.
Nor for that matter are their joint political manoeuvres. When Fernandes
foisted Jaitly as Samata president in a midnight operation in January
last year, it was a defiant party move. The duo did all they could to
resist the formal merger of the Samata with the JD(U)-on whose symbol
Samata leaders had fought the 1999 Lok Sabha elections-simply because
it would have negated any chances of Jaitly becoming party president.
Confident and articulate, the former Miss Miranda
House (1962) has always managed to have her way. The manner in which she
handled Income Tax officials at her Khirki home in Delhi more recently,
when they came looking for evidence to indict Ajay Jadeja in the cricket
controversy, proved yet again that Jaitly was an influential woman, not
to be trifled with. A couple of phone calls was all it took for her to
get the raids annulled, the whispers said.
Daughter of the famous Chettur family of Sir
C. Sankaran Nair, Jaitly has come a long way. As protege of cultural czarina
Pupul Jayakar in 1975-76, she displayed a "will to do something"
and though her relationship with Jayakar did not last long, it was enough
for her to become director of the Gujarat government's state handicrafts
emporium in Delhi. It was in 1977 that she met Fernandes, then industry
minister. Her then husband, Ashok Jaitly, was personal secretary to Fernandes
at the time. The friendship grew and Jaitly entered politics in 1984.
Since then, the partnership between the two has only grown stronger. Together
they swam and together they've been caught in a tide.
-Farzand
Ahmed, S. Kalidas and Sayantan Chakravarty
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