The Hindu : Prabhu pays the price for 'not dancing to the party's tune'

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Thursday, Aug 22, 2002

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Prabhu pays the price for 'not dancing to the party's tune'

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI Aug. 21. Suresh Prabhu had to quit the National Democratic Alliance Cabinet because of the dissonance with his party (Shiv Sena) chief, Bal Thackeray. Mr. Prabhu refused to pay the traditional obeisance to the "First Family" of the party and had to pay the price. Mr. Thackeray disapproved of Mr. Prabhu's desire to be "Mr. Clean.'' Curiously, the Sena has been wary of official comment, leave alone confirm the resignation.

Despite the stories emanating from New Delhi, Mr. Thackeray did not say a word on the resignation. Today's issue of Saamna, the official mouthpiece of the Sena, did not carry a line on the issue. The spokesperson, Subhash Desai, also its publisher, said yesterday: "It has not happened. If the chief makes up his mind, it will be first made known to our party newspaper. You will have to wait till then.'' Save one senior leader who confirmed the resignation, others did not even pretend to know what was happening.

Mr. Prabhu, whose last assignment in the Vajpayee Cabinet was the Power Ministry, was not able to dance to the tune of the party which those who have spent their lifetime in the organisation are prone to. A senior party functionary told The Hindu: "Mr. Prabhu, I know for a fact, did not even care to make his mandatory calls on the chief when in town. He often gave it a miss.'' His tendency was to spend more time in the constituency, which returned him thrice on the Sena ticket, though the Congress had initially offered him an option to go to the Assembly from Sindhudurg district. In fact, in Lanja, where he had promised a fertilizer factory when he headed the Ministry of Fertilizers and Chemicals, he has a small office of "the project'' with a couple of employees. And when he is in Rajapur, he is out of reach since cellular telephony is yet to arrive there.

In 1991, Mr. Prabhu offered the badly required cash credit facility of the Saraswat Cooperative Bank, — a large scheduled bank of which he was chairman — to Saamna, which led to a relationship developing between him and Mr. Thackeray. When the time came for dispensing the ticket for the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Prabhu was the choice for Rajapur in Konkan.

Sena sources justify the distance that has grown between Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Prabhu and point to the former's often-made remark that his Ministers hardly brought any shine to the office they held. Of course, this comment was often made even when Manohar Joshi was in the NDA Government with Mr. Prabhu and Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil.

Sources say that the remark was intended more for Mr. Prabhu. It was in March this year that a resignation drama was enacted. The information that Mr. Thackeray sought the resignation was leaked and equally suddenly, it was denied by the Thackeray household but not before the chinks in the relationship were made public. In fact, the story doing the rounds is that when Mr. Prabhu called his aides in New Delhi from Mumbai, he was told that the TV was announcing his resignation.

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Prabhu pays the price for 'not dancing to the party's tune'