Amarinder chewing the royal nails?

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">If the Captain is chewing his royal nails he doesn’t show it. With sangfroid that only those blue genes and a busy political career can beget, the Punjab Chief Minister is waiting patiently to meet Sonia Gandhi, who’s been too "busy". </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">This evening has been given over to that wait, as will the first half of tomorrow.If Sonia doesn’t summon till then, Amrinder Singh will leave for Punjab. "I’ll come down from Chandigarh anytime," he says calmly. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">But the calm is misleading. This is Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi gone cold on her Punjab chief minister. Though Amrinder has been camped in Delhi’s palatial Kapurthala House for two days meeting sundry ministers, he hasn’t managed an audience with the party president. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">He has incurred both Sonia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wrath for precipitating a constitutional crisis on the contentious Sutlej Yamuna Link canal issue. The whispers are getting louder. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Outside Kapurthala House, two scruffy characters, most unlike the Punjab CID men they claim to be, indulge in a nudge-nudge wink-wink exercise. "What do you think? Will he be kicked out? He met Pranab Mukherjee (Defence Minister and leader in charge of Punjab) today, is he resigning?" It seems to be touch and go time for the chief minister, except that with his latest act of defiance, Amrinder’s position within Punjab will only get better. For his latest stance on not releasing water to neighbouring Haryana and Rajasthan have left even his most bitter opponents—read Parkash Singh Badal - with no choice but to support him this once. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">After being on a sticky wicket for over a year, plagued by dissidence and misadventures, Amrinder has now put the Congress in a piquant situation. He may be a new hero in Punjab but it’s quite the opposite in Haryana, which is being denied water. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">And it is Haryana that goes to the polls in about six months. With the Chautala-BJP honeymoon over, the Congress is in with a real chance at winning the state. Only Amrinder’s obduracy could queer the pitch. Congress leaders from Haryana admit discomfiture on the issue. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">But Amrinder is blasé and dismissive: "People hate Chautala. If he gets five seats it will be a great achievement. It will be a sweep for the Congress in Haryana." That said he will still not budge on water, the crux of the matter. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">CM fears trouble in Punjab: For those who came in late, the Punjab assembly has passed a legislation terminating all agreements on sharing the waters of Ravi and Beas rivers with Haryana and Rajasthan. </span><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The Supreme Court had asked the Centre to begin constructing the SYL canal in Punjab by July 15 in accordance with an agreement on water sharing. Punjab pre-empted that move by passing the Bill. Water is a state subject, Amrinder’s ministers point out. Amrinder is adamant that he cannot part with more water to Haryana or Rajasthan from the Ravi and Beas. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">"I have submitted my report to the Congress president and hopefully she would have seen it by now." And he won’t say what he has said in the report. "That is between me and my president." This is a chief minister that talks in numbers. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">He’s done his homework. "History shows water is a contentious issue in Punjab. The Anantpur resolution was about water, and we have lost so many people...I pray for peace always in Punjab, I have to live here, other Punjabis have to live here and all our children. But history shows that if you deny water, there can be disturbances." </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">All through, there is a sense of ownership. "My Punjab" is how the man who would be Maharaja of Patiala if royals still walked Indian soil, talks about his state. "My water goes completely to Haryana and Rajasthan. Of 37 million acre-feet, 23 have been distributed away, I have only 14 million acre-feet. There are nine lakh tubewells...when you don’t have surface water, what happens to my Punjab?" </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Before Captain walks into the large plush room, his finance minister Surinder Singla has been pacing mouthing that dreaded word – "drought". Punjab has paddy that needs to be drenched in water. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Amrinder complains: "Punjab has a Rs 72,000 crore debt, I have no money." That’s the chief minister speaking of course. The man can’t plead such penury. He is after all the son of Leiutenant General Yadvindra Singh, and grandson of that most flamboyant of Indian royals, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">A Golden spoon: It has been a hectic day of meetings and rejection, but when Amrinder Singh walks into the room in mauve turban, crisp white kurta-pyjama and with a retinue of hangers on, nothing seems out of place. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The Patialas are used to ruling. Captain Amrinder Singh’s traceable lineage goes back several centuries, but the most interesting part begins at the turn of the 20th century when his grandfather Maharaja Bhupinder Singh ascended the throne of Patiala at age eight. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Bhupinder Singh was extremely wealthy – sojourns to London would mean booking an entire floor of the Savoy. He travelled in a motorcade of 20 Rolls Royce. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Amrinder’s is rather smaller, with Maruti Gypsies and Punjab police commandoes, but his Ambassador is bullet-proof. Amrinder’s father Yadvinder Singh was the last Maharaja of Patiala before signing over to the Indian Union in 1948. But the Patialas were granted a privy purse and allowed to keep all their personal property, of which there was much. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Captain is called so because he joined the Indian Army in 1963 and quit in 1965 only to rejoin as war with Pakistan broke out. He served till 1966. He began his political career with the Akali Dal, later walked over to the Congress and was elected Lok Sabha MP in 1980. But he resigned from both in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple by the Army during Operation Blue Star. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">In 1985, he was back with the Shiromani Akali Dal. He contested state elections, became a minister, resigned, formed a new party SAD (Panthik), merged with SAD (Longowal), revived his party and then merged with the Congress. All in a decade. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Since then, he has stuck to the Congress and his stock has risen despite much opposition. He was picked chief minister the last time around because 10 Janpath chose to go with him despite several important Congress leaders opposing him. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Now, however, those very doors refuse to open for a meeting. Meanwhile, Amrinder will wait, very much at home in the royal splendour of the richly appointed Kapurthala House. The man that lists horse-riding and polo and flying as his special interests is unlikely to reveal in a hurry that he is worried.</span></div> </div>