New Chidambaram-Pranab power tussle erupts

In a move that could further rock the United Progressive Alliance and create fresh fissures at the highest level in the government, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has fired a salvo against Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the issue of price rise saying that inflation is the biggest tax, which the people have to face.

Sources in the government say that Chidambaram's attack on the finance minister comes after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi virtually took away the political management of the Telangana issue from PC's hands and given charge to Pranab. With the Srikrishna report being made public on Thursday, the government had called its party MLAs and ministers from Andhra Pradesh to Delhi to hold meetings and discuss the response to the report.

In the morning when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy met Sonia, she asked him to meet Pranab to discuss the Telangana issue. A meeting of the party leaders from Andhra was held with the finance minister late on Wednesday evening.

The fact that Pranab is handling the political fallout in the party and will devise a response on how to deal with the situation is clearly seen as a snub to Chidambaram, who as the home minister has called a meeting of all parties from Andhra Pradesh on Thursday to discuss the issue. Despite the home minister writing to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti twice, they have refused to attend on the grounds that only the creation of Telangana would satisfy them and that is their only demand.

What has sent shock waves through the government and the party is the manner in which Chidambaram has taken on Pranab over price rise issue. Congress leaders see this as an ominous sign in the manner in which a virtual free for all has erupted at the highest level in the government with no one to exercise

It may be recalled that it was Chidambaram who precipitated the Telanagana crisis by issuing a statement favouring the creation of a separate state and since then Andhra Pradesh has been on the boil. The statement was issued at a time when the TRS leader Chandrashekhar Rao was on a fast and had become critical leading to the home minister giving a nervous reaction, which was seen to be counter productive.

Seasoned and experienced Pranab was known to have been upset at that time with Chidambaram's statement and sources close to him said he felt it was not a well thought out political reaction as the issue should have been deferred rather than give an assurance of a separate state of Telangana.

In another interesting development, All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijaya Singh raised the Bofors issue saying that the timing was very intriguing. Singh said the case was to be heard on January 4 and instead it came up on December 31. He said that the appeal filed by Win Chaddha's son pertains only to Chaddha, so how could Quattrochi's name figure in the assessment order.

While the Bofors issue and Quattrochi have once again embarrassed the Congress president, sources say there is a deliberate attempt in sections of the government to create such an effect and raise the Bofors bogey whenever it suits them.

Sources in the party say that the Bofors issue would periodically come up during Narasimha Rao's regime and now similarly in Dr Manmohan Singh's tenure in a manner which has led to speculation on what exactly is going on within the government. The fact that a huge power tussle is on, is now obvious but how far it goes and how much it damages the party and the government remains to be seen.