The B-i-G Freeze

• Relationship between the two families began to sour after Amitabh had to quit politics in 1987 over Bofors. The Bachchans believed that Rajiv Gandhi could have saved Amitabh's honour.
  
  
• Jaya Bachchan and Sonia Gandhi never liked each other. Their relationship became strained after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991.
  
  
• Sonia did not take kindly to Big B's repeated advice that she stay off politics.
  
  
• The Bachchans feel the Gandhis did not help when Amitabh was in financial trouble in the mid-'90s.
  
  
• After the Congress lost the general elections in 1998 and 1999, the Bachchans found new friends in Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh.
  
  
• Friends of both families feel Amar Singh was responsible for Jaya's recent outburst against the Gandhis.
  
  
• Amitabh has asked jaya to keep her silence on the issue.

• An all-out political battle between the SP and the Congress in UP.
  
  
• The Sahara group which is close to the SP and Amitabh Bachchan could come under the scanner. A recent RBI circular severely curtails parabanking firms like Sahara from investing deposits where they like. A big chunk of the monies will have to be invested in government bonds.
  
  
• No protection for industrial houses close to SP.
  
  
• Income-tax cases against the Bachchans to be activated.
  
  
• Sukhoi deal inked when Mulayam Singh was defence minister likely to be re-investigated.

"The Bachchans are lying. The people know who deceived whom. The Bachchans have changed loyalties."
 Rahul Gandhi, October 13, 2004 

"The Gandhis are the rajas and we are the subjects. Any continuation of the relation depends on the mood of the rulers."Amitabh Bachchan, October 15, 2004

Meanwhile, those close to 10, Janpath say that Rahul too was told by Sonia and Priyanka that it would have been better if he hadn't responded so sharply. Clearly, even though the relationship between the two families is all but non-existent today, both Amitabh and Sonia would like to steer clear of public controversy, while trying to preserve a semblance of amity.

After all, in 1968, when Sonia came to India to marry Rajiv, she had stayed with the Bachchans for seven weeks till the wedding. Both Rajiv and Indira Gandhi were close to the Bachchans. Recalls P.C. Alexander, former principal secretary to Indira Gandhi: "It was Amitabh who helped Rajiv in drafting his first broadcast to the nation as prime minister." Or as Lord Swraj Paul, who knows both families well, says, "Teji (Amitabh's mother) was as close to Indira as Pupul Jayakar was."

So, what is the reason for the current fit of rancour? Money, politics and Amar Singh, say Congress insiders, with the Bachchans allegedly becoming pawns in the hands of the Samajwadi Party. Points out a former member of the NDA's coordination committee: "While the NDA was in power, there was a very close working relationship between the BJP and the SP. Senior BJP leaders would say that a statement from the SP attacking the Congress could be arranged and the very next day, it would be there. This kind of mutually advantageous political arrangement extended to the benefit of 'protection' too." According to a Congress MP, that 'protection' is now gone. "Now Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh and their powerful friends in industry can no longer pursue their activities as they did under the protective umbrella of the NDA," he says.

According to sources close to the Bachchans, it was at Amar Singh's behest that Jaya spoke out against the Gandhis. This is an allegation the SP leader strongly denies. But someone clearly played on Jaya Bachchan's dislike of Sonia and got her to attack the family. "The feeling was that Congress' position at the Centre would be shaky after the Maharashtra results. Everyone thought that the Sena-BJP would come to power. So Jaya felt that it would be safe to address an election rally to boost the SP's chances," says a source close to the Bachchans. Also, Jaya had not expected a rally in faraway Barabanki to get the media coverage it did. When Outlook contacted Jaya in Mumbai, she was polite but refused to comment on the issue.

Call it a coincidence but within three weeks of Jaya's tirade, the Reserve Bank of India has announced the roadmap for residuary non-banking finance companies (RNBCs) to deploy their deposits. This spells bad news for the Sahara group—close to both the SP and Amitabh Bachchan—which has major para-banking operations. The RBI's latest move is a follow-up to its notification of June 22, 2004, addressed to RNBCs that henceforth 10 per cent of their aggregate liabilities to depositors would have to be invested in fixed deposits or in certificates of deposits of scheduled commercial banks or certificates of deposits of selected fiis, 70 per cent in government securities, bonds, debentures or units of mutual funds. Only the remaining 20 per cent could go into discretionary investments. This reduction in discretionary investments would come into effect from April 1, 2005.And from the quarter April to June 2006, discretionary investments will be abolished.In effect, this means that parabanking funds—the source of Sahara's wealth—cannot be deployed in the stockmarket or invested in new projects or sister concerns.

Congress sources say Sahara's chairman Subroto Roy attempted to meet finance minister P. Chidambaram but that the perfunctory meeting that took place yielded nothing. These sources add that "when the notification is implemented, the bottom will fall out of Sahara". Amar Singh, however, brushed the notification aside. He told Outlook: "It means that they (Sahara) have hit an air pocket; there is some turbulence, but there will be no crash. The people in serious trouble are Peerless (the Calcutta-based parabanking firm) and it is the Left leaders who are running around trying to rescue Peerless."

If the threat of a fresh inquiry into the multi-crore deal for Sukhoi fighter aircraft—inked while Mulayam Singh Yadav was Union defence minister in the United Front government—looms large, recent reports on the purchase of Mirage aircraft during the same period could also be embarrassing.A Paris court judgement has revealed that the manufacturers of the aircraft, Dassault International, had hired Panamanian company Keyser Incorporated, to act as a middleman, which is banned for defence deals. Three contracts were signed between September 1996 and July 1998.

And then there is the reopening of a dormant income-tax case reportedly running in the region of Rs 100 crore against Amitabh Bachchan against which he has gone in appeal. Tight-lipped income-tax authorities say that "assessment" and "appeals" against assessment are a continuous process. Amar Singh, asked about the case, simply says, "Bade logon ke khilaaf bade cases hote hain (Big people have big cases against them)."

However, when asked whether there was a message in all this to the SP and its friends, Amar Singh—who had earlier expressed his anger at the treatment meted out to him when CPI(M) leader Harkishen Singh Surjeet took him to Sonia's post-poll dinner—now says: "Sonia Gandhi is not a petty person. I discount all the stories that she is behind it. But there are always enthusiastic officers. I have been told that the intelligence advisor in the PMO, M.K. Narayanan, has been asked to keep an eye on me." While reserving his ire for Congress general secretaries Ambika Soni and Salman Khursheed, he is all praise for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who, he says, personally invited him for the swearing-in of the UPA government.

Running parallel to the money story is the political tale. Sources in the former NDA say that the SP had counted on becoming the political pivot in any new government that was formed after the recent general elections. In the end, the party won a whopping 38 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, but instead of playing king or kingmaker, it found itself in the cold, with the UPA not requiring its support.Now, following its success in the UP byelections, the SP too no longer requires the support of the Congress to run that state's government. Which is why the Bachchan-Gandhi spat could play out in UP. SP sources say the party was banking on the Congress-NCP combine losing the Maharashtra election. That would have been a shot in the arm for the beleaguered BJP and could have triggered off the process of political realignment. The hope was that the Left, with little over a year to go for assembly polls in Kerala and West Bengal, might be persuaded to sever ties with the UPA. Then a hotchpotch government consisting of the BJP, NDA allies led by George Fernandes and even some UPA members like the DMK, MDMK, PMK and the JMM could form a government at the Centre. But all these plans came to nought when the Maharashtra results came out.

No wonder Jaya's tirade is seen as badly timed. After all these years, there was little or no reason to wash dirty linen in public.But as those who know the Bachchans tell you, the family is so obliged to Amar Singh and the SP that they are willing to extend themselves to please SP leaders. This explains Amitabh playing host and receiving guests at functions organised by the Sahara group.

In the final analysis, can the two families ever patch up? According to sources close to the Bachchans, this is unlikely. Jaya still believes that Rajiv Gandhi could have saved her husband's honour in the Bofors case. Instead, he did nothing and Amitabh had to quit politics. Similarly Sonia did not even offer to help when the superstar ran into financial troubles. "It is a deep-rooted feeling of hurt. I don't think Jaya is in any mood to compromise.At best she will keep her silence because her husband doesn't want to make an issue of it." For now, despite the onslaught against him and his political friends, the Big B does not want to play the role of the angry old man.