The M factor in Vajpayee's life

The M factor in Atal Bihari Vajpayee''s life continues. No sooner had Mayawati departed fretting, fuming and carrying with her a depleted bag of BSP men, Mamata came back - to the Cabinet, fretting and fuming and carrying with her a depleted bag of Trinamul men.
Last heard, the lady is a minister but without a ministry, which means car and bungalow and Cabinet sit-ins, but nowhere to throw your weight around.The Atal way of telling you where you get off.
Essentially, the latest and last Cabinet reshuffle of the Vajpayee government was a simple fare - two reinstated, a few reshuffled. A seemingly routine affair made a little interesting by a minister-to-be who could well be expected to walk off in a huff if the upholstery at Rashtrapati Bhawan during her swearing-in did not please her.
She did not and a good thing too. For after the angry exit of Mayawati, the M space needed to be filled.
So the loss of Mayawati''s friendship and her 14 MPs in a tenuous Lok Sabha equation was sought to be compensated by ensuring the friendship of Mamata and her eight. Also the small ''M'' from the MDMK four - Gingee Ramachandran came back as minister after three months in the wilderness for his PA''s sins.
In election mode now, the BJP - which has in the last few months taken the mantle of big brother rather seriously - realises that smaller siblings in a large family like the NDA may be ill-treated once in a while when no one''s looking, but cannot be ignored.
So the big box of cookies is being passed around to placate the juniors who may have been feeling somewhat ill-used. Uttar Pradesh and the Mayawati fiasco after all did not just mean another state where the BJP is now in Opposition.
It has also meant the Congress - the ubiquitous M surfaces again in the form of Madam Sonia Gandhi - has adopted the coalition way of life. And just to make things a little rougher for the BJP, is toying with the idea of teaming up with Mayawati in the all-important November Assembly elections.
So Madam may well have the best of both worlds - Mulayam and Mayawati. (Many a braveheart would quail at the prospect actually).
New UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh''s many professions of love and loyalty for the Congress suggests the possibility of putting together a coalition against the NDA.
The man, who till last month''s no-confidence motion turned up his nose at the very thought of Sonia Gandhi leading such a team, has considerably mellowed after being allowed his favourite pastime - playing UP chief minister.
He will still not give an overt thumbs up, but at least smiles while telling you to mind your own business. It''s an electoral imperative thus that the BJP consolidate too. It does have a reputation to protect as the only party to lead a coalition through five rocky years of governance.
So Mamata Banerjee, no more the force in West Bengal that she was once, is welcomed nevertheless, tantrums and all. In fact, the irascible Banerjee threw a fit almost at the doorstep of Rashtrapati Bhawan, turning down the coal portfolio and preferring to wait till the Prime Minister offered something that matched her stature. The stature undoubtedly is being assessed as of now.
She has done this before, about every six months ever since she walked out in a huff over the Tehelka scandal and then returned quietly to the NDA fold when the ill-advised relationship with the Congress in West Bengal proved a disaster.
She was railway minister then and would like to refuse any position that does not match up. But the fact that she was quick to grab an indeterminate profile shows reality is not lost on her - that her bargaining powers are considerably diminished.
In the end it may just be a matter of who blinks first. Till then, and beyond, the BJP will not miss much. Mamata will provide the little irritants and moments of embarrassment that Mayawati ensured a constant supply of.
Didi, after all, can be as difficult as behenji was. If Mayawati rushed to Delhi and L K Advani when she felt slighted, Mamata has used Vajpayee''s soft spot and avuncular benevolence to stamp her foot and get away with it. One more time, every time.