*~*The Unforgettable Bachchans Fan Club*~ - Page 69

July 4: Several imponderables lie ahead of the political potboiler now being scripted in Delhi. One concerns a family in Mumbai that all of India knows: Amitabh Bachchan's.

As the Samajwadi Party and the Congress drift closer, the realignment has a personal sub-plot involving the Bachchans and the Nehru-Gandhis whose relationship — now gone sour — spans six decades.

Sources said Samajwadi general secretary Amar Singh, who never tires of calling the Bachchans his family, has made it clear the political repositioning would not hurt them.

But the freeze between the Bachchans and Gandhis may continue for many more months, with the Congress-Samajwadi ties unlikely to trigger sudden warmth between Sonia Gandhi and Amitabh Bachchan, whom she once regarded as a brother.

Sources close to the Bachchans said the family was a little wary — of Mayavati. They fear a witchhunt by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. The Bachchans trace their roots to the state and have interests there.

Amar has all along denied allegations that he was the "spoiler" in the family's ties with the Nehru-Gandhis, pointing out that the relationship dated back to before his birth. "I have no authority or competence to comment on the ties of two great families. Only they are competent to comment on each other," he had once said.

Social circles in Delhi and Mumbai are watching how Jaya Bachchan, a Samajwadi MP, would react to her party's rapprochement with the Congress. Indications are that Jaya, who has in the past indirectly lashed out at the Congress and its first family, might keep a low profile for some time.

The Gandhis and Bachchans have never spoken about the reason their friendship soured but common acquaintances blame it on clash of personalities, ego tussles and one-upmanship amid failures and tragedies.

For years, the buzz in the Delhi social circuit was that the families had fallen out over money. But all those who know them well reject this theory. The Bachchans' problems with ABCL might have further strained ties, but were not the prime reason for the end of the friendship.

Family insiders from the two sides blame the bitterness on human failings.

There was an issue of obsession with astrology. After Rajiv Gandhi's death, when Sonia was feeling low and depressed, rather than being given emotional support, she is said to have been bombarded with unwanted advice on her political future.

As Congress workers and leaders requested Sonia to take on a more active political role, a janam kundli was prepared for her. Sonia was told again and again that her kundli was very weak in relation to leadership and political future.

But the real point of break is said to have come around Priyanka's wedding on February 18, 1997. Amitabh's daughter Shweta got married on the 16th-17th of the same month.

The Gandhi daughter's wedding announcement was made well in advance while Shweta's was a "chat-mangni-pat-viwah"— the engagement was announced just two months earlier, in December 1996. There was a view that the February 16-17 dates were chosen deliberately, as if to overshadow Priyanka's big day. With the film industry in attendance, the Bachchan wedding was bound to steal the limelight.

Common guests, such as Lalit Suri, faced confusion and even Amitabh had to rush to Delhi for the early morning ceremony in the Gandhi home after late-night celebrations in Bombay.

Sources said the role of the row over wedding dates in souring relations could not be underestimated. Petty as it may sound, at the time tempers were running high and Sonia was very lonely and hurt. No member of her family attended Shweta's wedding.

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