The Importance Of Being Brajesh
The Opposition and the Sangh Parivar launch an attack on the Prime Minister's Office by targeting the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra. The Vajpayee camp finds itself fighting a grim political battle to retain credibility even as the Establishment tries to discredit the Tehelka allegations. An analysis.

Supercrat In His Labyrinth
There are 240 secretaries to the Government, but N. K. Singh is always a cut above-in style, networking, and power. The economic policy wizard gets defensive.

The Ways And Means Of Ranjan
Ranjan Bhattacharya's role as nursemaid to Atal Bihari Vajpayee gives the fun-loving foster son-in-law
the image of one who dabbles in government decisions.

Congress' Coalition Flight Grounded
With sceptic constituents, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's
plan to form an alliance just before the assembly elections in five states, may backfire.

Desperately Seeking loopholes
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Samata Party find discrepancies
in the charges levelled against them by Tehelka. But it's just details.

Nursery Of Hate
The week-long violence in Kanpur has cooled down, but the spectre of the Students Islamic Movement of India still looms large. A look at the reach of India's in-house Taliban.

Vroom Service
The four-stroke motorcycle overtakes middle-class India's greatest icon since the valve radio set, as sales of the doughty old scooter stagnate in spite of a spirited fightback.

George Cross
The FIR against Sonia Gandhi's private secretary is a plain corruption issue says the CBI. But, an embarrassed Congress complains of vendetta.

Nothing Official About It
The payment crisis is temporarily stemmed, but clandestine financing ticks like a time bomb.

COVER STORY: PM'S HOUSEHOLD

The Ways And Means Of Ranjan Bhattacharya

His role as nursemaid to Vajpayee gives the fun-loving foster son-in-law the image of one who dabbles in government decisions

The BJP may be a traditional party with a deeply conservative soul but you would hardly deduce that looking at the families of its top leadership. Urbane, suave and deeply cosmopolitan, they sit uncomfortably with the stereotype of the trishul-wielding Hindu fanatic. As the affluent classes rush headlong into a global lifestyle, partying their way as if there is no tomorrow, there is one couple that is sought after, wooed and cultivated by Delhi's incestuous power network.

In normal circumstances, Ranjan Kishore Bhattacharya, the 42-year-old foster son-in-law of A.B. Vajpayee, would perhaps not have been a permanent fixture in a charmed circle whose membership extends from industrialists and fixers to the plain frivolous. Before Vajpayee returned to political favour in 1996, Bhattacharya was a relatively unknown commodity, known only to a few in the hotel trade. Married to Namita, Vajpayee's foster daughter, in 1983, he kept his distance from the hurly burly of both politics and the party circuit.

In May 1996, Bhattacharya's life was transformed. Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister, an office he held for just 13 days. During this brief stint, Vajpayee made few appointments. The only significant one was the selection of Bhattacharya as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Prime Minister's Office. It raised a few eyebrows in a BJP unused to familial preferences in politics. But the matter was quickly forgotten amid the drama of the government's fall.

In any case, Bhattacharya had till then never attracted any notice. The scion of a distinguished Bengali family of Patna-there are roads in that city named after his great-grandfather and grandfather-his career graph followed a conventional middle-class route. After a bout of peripatetic schooling in Shimla, Delhi and Patna and college in Delhi's Shri Ram College of Commerce. Bhattacharya joined the Oberoi Group in 1979. He rose fast and, at 25, became the youngest general manager of the Oberoi hotel in Srinagar.

In 1987, Bhattacharya moved from being employee to becoming an entrepreneur. He first built and ran a hotel in Manali under the banner of Orchid Resorts Private Limited. Five years later, he sold the property to Raj Chopra of Competent Motors in Delhi, although he continued managing the property till 1996. In 1997, Bhattacharya set up Talent Marketing, which provides reservations service to all brands of the US-based Carlson Hospitality Worldwide (1999 global turnover: $31.4 billion). Subsequently, he was appointed managing director of Country Development and Management Services, a joint venture involving Carlson and Chanakya Hotels, promoting budget hotels in eight locations.

With his sharp suits and smart office in south Delhi's Masjid Moth, the smooth talking and affable Bhattacharya could well have passed off as a successful businessman. A complete misfit in the BJP's rather austere social milieu, he hardly seems a candidate to be blessed with the grand title "extra-constitutional authority". But he has acquired a reputation of being a deal maker who former BJP president Bangaru Laxman believed is involved in "this and that".

The reputation is entirely a consequence of the frenetic social life of the Bhattacharyas since Vajpayee came to power in 1998. At one time Bhattacharya stuck to his small circle of friends in the hotel trade, particularly Shiv Jatiya of the Hyatt and Rajiv Tyagi of the Radisson, with old college mate and tv personality Rajat Sharma putting in a guest appearance. And Namita, a popular teacher in Shiv Niketan, stepped out of the Vajpayee residence only infrequently.

The turning point was the dinner the couple hosted on the birthday of daughter Niharika in mid-1998 on the lawns of Pramod Mahajan's Safdarjung Road residence. It was a sort of coming out party. Thereafter, the Bhattacharyas moved into Delhi's upper crust, being wooed and flattered by the who's who. Their social circle began expanding to embrace the likes of hotelier Lalit Suri, industrialist Nusli Wadia, journalist Vir Sanghvi, newspaper owner Shobhna Bhartiya. In short, people who mattered and who liked the idea of putting a modern face on power. Politicians were only peripherally in the reckoning, the exceptions being Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh and Arun Jaitley, Vasundhara Raje and Mahajan from the BJP.

The movement of the Bhattacharyas to the world of the beautiful wasn't entirely prompted by fun. As an informal feedback point of the prime minister, they used society events to tap into the bush telegraph and network. But it wasn't one-sided. The chatterati, groomed by decades of Congress rule, was instinctively hostile to the outlander BJP. At the same time, they needed connections with the Government, not least to protect and promote themselves and their enterprise. The Bhattacharyas became reference points and social exhibits.

The importance of the son-in-law grew even more following the departure of Vajpayee's OSD Shakti Sinha to a World Bank assignment in Washington last year. Sinha, an IAS officer, who joined Vajpayee's staff in 1996, is married to Namita's first cousin. He was a part of the family which could be expected to act in Vajpayee's best interests. After Sinha left, his role as gatekeeper wasn't filled. Those wishing to get a word in the shy Vajpayee's ear were left with two choices- Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra or Bhattacharya. For most officials, petitioners and politicians, Mishra was too formidable and from another generation. They preferred Bhattacharya.

However, what began as an exercise in expediency turned into something more structured. Just as the Bhattacharyas influenced the chatterati to be better disposed towards Vajpayee, they in turn were influenced by the socialite disdain for the "chaddiwalas", a euphemism for the RSS and BJP. This led to the Vajpayee-good, Sangh Parivar-bad syndrome becoming a byword in the prime minister's household.

It was Namita who is said to have egged on the process. A sharp-tongued individual who doesn't believe in concealing her views on what is good for her "Baapji", she sought to transform Race Course Road into an autonomous power centre, quite distinct and separate from the NDA Government. The household's cultivation of the media led to the conscious projection of Vajpayee as the man standing between sanity and fanaticism. More ominously, it triggered a rupture with the traditional BJP power centre in the Pandara Park residence of Home Minister L.K. Advani. The Sangh's fulminations against Vajpayee's heresies were identified with Advani, and by way of retaliation anti-Advani stories found their way into the media. Today, the Race Course Road-Pandara Park divide has become an irritant for the BJP, with the Bhattacharyas seen as the villains by the faithful, and the Vajpayee household feeling the same way about chaddiwalas.

So far the exchanges have been political but over the past few months, particularly after the Government inexplicably modified its telecom policy to favour some operators, the whispers have centred on Bhattacharya's ability to influence big government decisions and key appointments. Namita, on the other hand, was the dominant figure in the dining table, influencing Vajpayee's perception of people. So far, no one has produced evidence to link Bhattacharya to any deal. But the image of a fun-loving son-in-law dabbling in government decisions and "this and that" has stuck. There is a very serious image problem that Tehelka sought to exploit. The Great Indian Family Disease which infected the Nehrus, the Gandhis, the Raos, Laloo, Mulayam and even the obstinately upright Morarji Desai has come home to haunt Vajpayee.

After Tehelka, Bhattacharya is certain to be less visible, even as his wife dominates the household, having given up her job to nurse her mother. He will continue accompanying Vajpayee on his tours, playing nursemaid. Life will go on as usual, but a lot more discreetly.

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