Patil’s classic case of clean forget
Ambitious projects of the UT Administration seem to be slipping away from the memory of Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Shivraj Patil. At a tourism conclave this week, Patil forgot to mention UT’s much talked about plan of constructing Convention Centre at Sector 34 and Industrial area, albeit he kept on endorsing plans of Punjab and UT for constructing such Centre at Beant Singh Memorial. He even went on to say that there is no need of other Convention Centres in the city except the one coming at Beant Singh Memorial. Reacting to his statement, a senior UT official said, “It could be a case of temporary memory loss. He might have forgotten UT’s plan for setting up two such Centre’s in the city."
CTU workers irk UT senior officials
The officials of Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) threw senior UT officials into a tizzy at a seminar on urban transport this week. Against UT Administration’s decision to ply long low floor buses in Chandigarh, CTU officials put UT Finance Secretary VK Singh and others through the wringer at the seminar while picking holes in UT’s poor planning for public transport. looking at the large gathering at the event, the FS not only dodged the questions on poor fuel efficiency and risk of plying long-low floor buses here but also asked the concerned CTU worker to hold his tongue on such matters. Surprisingly, most of the experts present there acknowledged the concerns raised by the CTU workers.
We are nothing without the party
Congress candidates are finding themselves in a peculiar situation in the local bodies’ elections in Haryana on June 2 in seven municipal corporations and two municipal committees. While INlD and BJP will contest elections on their party symbol, the Congress has decided not to use its symbol in these polls. The candidates who belong to Congress are confused what to do. Most of them have started putting their photographs on the banner along with the photographs of Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. When asked why they are using the photographs of their leaders, when the party symbol is not being used, a local candidate for Panchkula MC questioned back, “Who knows usIJ Our identity is with the party”. Another candidate quipped, “we are not using the symbol or name of the party but only giving respect to our leaders by putting their photographs on the banner”.
Sahib is in the constituency
In the hot summer, most of the Haryana Ministers don’t attend their office at Chandigarh regularly. When asked, their secretaries, repeat the same thing ‘Sahib Constituency mein hain’. last week, when a cabinet minister reached his office, a group of journalists reached there and asked him about his absence from office and his other colleagues. The minister remained silent for few seconds and then said, “you people dig up one scandal after the other. We don’t want to get into trouble”. He admitted that even when some of the ministers are taking rest, the office staff have been instructed to utter the safest sentence, “sahib is in the constituency”
Home secretary stopped for security check!
It was President’s visit on the occasion of Golden Jubilee Celebration of Himachal Pradesh Assembly and all babus and politicians dressed in their best attire were rushing to the venue. The State Home Secretary suddenly found that he was not carrying an entry pass with him and State CID personnel who failed to recognise him stopped him at the gate. He tried to identify himself but the strict security personnel refused his entry. Suddenly a senior top cop identified him and scolded the personnel that they have failed to identify their own boss.
(Contributed by Nishu Mahajan, Bhupinder Sharma and Manohar lal)