Mohan Guruswamy
August 22, 2006

Published in HardNews

It is very apparent that while VP Singh's body may be ravaged, his political instinct is still sharp. He has not only picked the right time and place to launch a campaign against the Mulayam Singh regime in Uttar Pradesh, he has also chosen the right mascot in Raj Babbar, behind which he intends to rally his rag-tag army of dissidents of all hues. As an "outsider" in the sense that he is not a professional politician like a Sharad Yadav or Ramvilas Paswan, Raj Babbar comes unencumbered by the odium that accompanies all politicians these days. But it is not as if Raj Babbar doesn't have experience with make-believe. What then is Bollywood all about? Babbar's role in this drama is like the cameo he enacted in "Umrao Jan Ada" where in one memorable scene he castigates the effete elite of Awadh as debauched and corrupt. In the coming run-up to the UP assembly elections we can well expect Babbar to pillory Amar Singh as just that. And Amar Singh is fully entwined in popular perceptions with Anil Ambani and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

I have always believed that in politics you have to be lucky in terms of enemies, for it is the enemies who define you, even if it is all make believe. This is VP Singh's forte. While Raj Babbar had picked a quarrel with Mulayam Singh over Amar Singh, who he has described in quite colorful terms as a bit of a fixer, VP Singh has zeroed in on the gangotri in the form of Anil Ambani. Anil Ambani as we well know was till quite recently the champion of ethical corporate governance. We don't know how much of a future Anil Ambani has now, but he is certainly a man with a past. That past not only includes a stint as a Samajwadi Party sponsored member of the Rajya Sabha, but also as the man suspected to have commissioned a small time hoodlum called Prince Babaria to make a hit on Nusli Wadia. One can imagine Anil Ambani offering supari like Kamalahasan did in Nayakan. Such experience is obviously just the stuff that would make him a natural bedfellow of the Samajwadi Party? By zeroing in on Anil Ambani's big proposed gas based power project in Dadri, VP Singh is centering on the kind of crony capitalism and crony politics, both crooked, that have become endemic. This is good politics and soon Anil Ambani will look like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming bus.

And VP Singh has chosen the issue well. He has picked the huge allocation of over 2500 acres of fertile farmland acquired from the farmers in Dadri at rock bottom prices. This is not land stolen from poor adivasis in Orissa for a steel plant at throwaway prices, and who you can gun down without any compunction for daring to demand a better deal from the State. And get away with it. That's what happens to good people all over. Nobody hears their cry of anguish. This is in the outskirts of Delhi and when the stuff hits the fan even CNN-IBN will be forced to cover it, sooner or later.

Dadri is in the heart of India's badlands, Omkara country if you will where langda Tyagis are a dime a dozen. And this is valuable land. According to an acquaintance who is in the real estate business in Dadri, which here is what the olive oil import business is to New York's mafia, the land prices in Dadri town is around Rs.15000 per square yard. My langda Tyagi friend, who would make Prince Babaria look like Mickey Mouse, somewhat philosophically wonders who the bigger criminals are when 2500 acres of prime land worth Rs. 15000 a square yard is acquired ostensibly for the "common good" at about Rs.120 a square yard?

Now if it was indeed only the "common good" that was involved a somewhat tenuous case could have still been made out to justify this. But more than common good there a much uncommon good for a few that is clearly involved here. For a start a gas based power plant is not that land intensive, not unless you are building a DLF City sized town with half a dozen glitzy malls studded with multiplexes, along with the proposed gas based power plant. Mutiplexes are Anil Ambani's main business these days. Its another matter that the proposed gas based power plant has no assured gas supply, which the makes the project all gas a mere smokescreen and for a gargantuan land grab.

Now does a proposed 3600 MW gas based power plant, even though it is without an assured source of natural gas, really need 2500 acres of land? The National Thermal Power Corporation operates a 440MW plant in Faridabad, now being expanded with additional turbines to generate 900MW. It occupies just fifty acres and has an integrated and self-sufficient township within it. Now the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) is proposing to build a power plant four times the size of that, without an assured supply of natural gas. Assuming that land requirements are directly proportional to generating capacity, which they are not, ADAG will still need not more that 200 acres. Yet the UP government has allotted ADAG 2500 acres of land. Now why this land abutting Delhi when there is so much less valuable and clearly non-agricultural land elsewhere in UP which will do just as well for a power plant? I know a scenic spot or two myself near Mirzapur, just south of the Ganges which is also the stomping ground of an old Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh friend, Dadua who can keep the labor and landowners quiet. Or near Mulayam Singh's home in Etawah, not as scenic but where the family calls the shots.

But Anil Ambani and Amar Singh are men with big appetites and only Dadri, abutting Delhi is good enough for them. At about Rs.6 crores an acre or land worth Rs.15000 crores this deal is more than a steal. ADAG gets the whole power plant for free for it can borrow hugely on the fair valuation of the land itself. The huge loans will then be paid by charges collected by ADAG's Delhi based power distribution company, Rajdhani BSES who Delhites suspect of tweaking the meters. As sweetheart deals go this is the son of Enron and much bigger than the original.

There are other parameters available as well that give a good inkling of how much land is really required for a gas based power plant? All across the USA there are state laws called Land Siting Acts governing power plants that allow for only 65 acres maximum for a 1000 MW natural gas plant. Apart from the clean power, the other major attraction of a natural gas based power plant is its minimal land requirement. A coal or feedstock based plant needs huge storage areas and rail sidings to bring in smoke spewing fuel every day. They emit noxious gases and need space to enable them to be dissipated. That's why the old coal based power plants needed more land. A natural gas plant is considered green.

In picking the Dadri land grab as an issue, VP Singh shows that he has lost little of that unerring tactical sense with took him to the pinnacle of political power in just a couple of years. Now VP Singh has put a mascot ahead to keep the crowds enthralled while he directs the play. Anil Ambani and Amar Singh are about to have their goose cooked. If you don't believe me, ask Amitabh Bachhan.

The Congress may be delirious that VP Singh is going to take on Mulayam Singh. But this battle is not going to end in Dadri. VP Singh senses a mother lode of discontent running through the country where the vast majority has been excluded by the development paradigm that was been mostly inspired by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the World Economic Forum. He is tapping that and if he strikes it, the logical conclusion would be the end of Manmohanomics in India. That is about how corporate India goes about its business and how people think it should. We can debate VP Singh's vision or even the lack of it. But what we cannot dispute is his unerring tactical sense.