S Jaipal Reddy
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A brief biography
Rajeev Deshpande, July 29, 2019: The Times of India
S Jaipal Reddy may not have anticipated but would not have been surprised that one of the loneliest battles he would fight was on the price to be charged for gas produced by Reliance Industries — a tussle that led to his ouster as oil minister in the UPA-2 government.
He was an unlikely pick for a ministry known as a den of corporate interests. If Reddy’s integrity was a reason for his selection at a time when the Manmohan Singh government struggled to contain burgeoning scams, his sense of propriety led to a conflict that he could not win.
Well aware that he was up against interests who had the ear of party bosses, Reddy staunchly opposed doubling the price for Reliance’s KG basin gas as he was convinced the group was throttling production to pressure the government. “I own the gas, the gas belongs to me,” he is understood to have told RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani.
When the UPA cabinet did clear the higher price after he was moved out, Reddy gamely opposed the decision. A part of his resolve certainly came from the physical odds he fought in using crutches to overcome the effects of childhood polio. He never accepted assistance. His hardships and a deeply held political puritanism defined his life.
In a distinguished political career, Reddy held several portfolios in different governments but did not always come across as an innovative administrator. He tended to be conservative in his decisions. But when his moral compass was challenged, the affable, erudite politician who could quote Lord Acton and Diogenes effortlessly, knew when to draw a red line.
He was all too aware that the phrase, ‘politics is the art of the possible’, meant compromise. Nothing illustrated this better when he joined Congress. A leader who earned his spurs for attacking Congress over the Bofors scandal seemed to have made a Faustian deal. He said this was the only choice at hand.
His return to Congress in 1999 — he had left to join Janata Dal in the late 1970s — worked well. He earned the trust of Sonia Gandhi. In the years when the Vajpayee government was in office, he was a key adviser, urging Sonia to build a rapport with opposition leaders and reach out to disgruntled BJP allies.
Reddy will live on as the ideal spokesperson, a role he essayed from his early days in national politics. It is no surprise that he was often named information and broadcasting minister.
Despite not being a mass leader, his record of five Lok Sabha terms, four MLA tenures and two Rajya Sabha terms is more than creditable. His “ghar wapsi” did not diminish a clear eyed view of politics he expounded on over coffee, punching his lines with a sharp in-drawn breath.
Yashwant Sinha’s tribute
Yashwant Sinha, (As told to Surojit Gupta), July 29, 2019: The Times of India
‘Reddy never swayed from the path of righteousness’
I met Jaipal Reddy when I joined Janata Party in 1984. We were in Janata Party together and it was merged into Janta Dal. Janata Party had the symbol of a man with a plough but Subramanian Swamy continued with Janata Party and the EC decided that the symbol be frozen. So we had to look for a new symbol.
In those days, I was general secretary headquarters of Janata Dal. Jaipal was also one of the general secretaries. So I discussed the issue of the symbol with him. Then we came up with this idea of a wheel. But the wheel was also the symbol of a famous detergent brand, so we changed the spokes of our wheel and we, of course, were guided by the fact that the wheel was in our national flag. We showed it to the leadership then, V P Singh, Devi Lal, Chandra Shekhar and others and they all agreed that this could be our symbol and then we went to the EC.
The EC agreed. Now, Jaipal and I came back very buoyant to the party office in Jantar Mantar and immediately called a press conference. There is a famous photograph of Jaipal and I together showing the symbol to the media. But we made a mistake because while the EC had orally told us it was alright to have the wheel symbol, it had not yet approved it. The EC came down hard on us and sent a message that it will not approve the wheel symbol. So we pleaded with the EC and finally the wheel emerged as the symbol of the Janata Dal.
We were fighting Congress and therefore it was quite clear that we will be attacking it. I was the official spokesperson of the party then and I was holding daily press briefings, especially during election time. But Jaipal used to join those briefings whenever he was in Delhi. I did not contest the 1989 election, Jaipal did and therefore during elections, he was busy in his constituency. But we were fiercely attacking Congress in those days, especially because of the corruption relating to Bofors and others issues. Jaipal was one of the finest friends that I had in my political career. Our paths diverged and I joined BJP and he joined Congress after the disintegration of Janata Dal. We still kept our relationship and continued to exchange views, shared each others heartbreaks. We remained very close friends and I always used to tease Jaipal by saying that he had given to the English language what could only be described as “Jaipalese”. He was very fond of this term and he would always ask me so how is my Jaipalese?
Jaipal was a very erudite scholar and there are very few people in politics who could match him in erudition. He was a very distinguished politician, a fine friend and a great human being. Despite his physical problem, he could still make his presence felt wherever he went. He was disappointed when he was transferred from the petroleum ministry in the UPA government. But he was an absolutely upright individual and never minced words, never swayed from the path of righteousness.
