Unscathed Babu
Wheeling-dealing being Harish Rawat’s forte, it was incredible that the propensity to negotiate deals in time of crisis would have cost him his chair. Doubtless, the sting CD that showed him as offering to open the state government’s coffers to lure the renegade MlAs back to the Congress folds helped the Centre to spring upon Rawat with a vengeance. But the question remains as to who prodded the former CM to go for the deal at a time when the plot to oust him was thickening. It is learnt that a senior bureaucrat who was very close to Rawat had fixed the deal with the middlemen. Sources said that the bureaucrat had taken the initiative as the middlemen were close to him. Reposing full faith in him, Harish Rawat asked one of his loyalists to go for the deal. However, the loyalist was unable to go, busy as he was with the task of taking care of the Congress MlAs kept in a resort in Corbett National Park. Desperate to survive the crisis, Rawat decided to plunge himself headlong to fix the deal. Another loyalist accompanied him while other loyalists came along with the middlemen. Amusing nuggets of information are coming from the sources about what happened after the sting video came out. While the loyalist who had gone along with Rawat in the chopper to Jollygrant airport is learnt to have said that he would go for self-immolation if proved involved in the production of the sting CD. Meanwhile Harish Rawat, on the other hand, is said to have beaten his loyalist hard with his sandals. However, the bureaucrat who is supposed to have fixed the deal remains unscathed.
KARGUZARI!
The Governor breathing down upon their necks thanks to the state being under President’s Rule, the district administration worthies in the plains seem to have awakened from a ‘sweet’ soporific spell and sprung up to crush the unauthorized miners to the pulp. Things have reached dizzy heights in some districts, particularly in Nainital where alone the wide-awake administration has slapped the violators with a whopping Rs 30 crore in a week as penalty. However, the carping critics, as is their wont, are raising question over their Karguzari. The answer they are hitting on is that they have suddenly woken up to the task with the Governor cracking the whip. He is said to have chided the DMs of four districts- Haridwar, Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar and Dehradun-for their laggardness through video-conferencing. His point was clear-either there was no unauthorized mining going on or the babus had chosen to look the other way for reasons best known to them. Taking things in the intended way, they decided to jump and go the whole hog to prove their worthiness. However, the future of President’s Rule hanging fire thanks to the state mired in litigation, the babus seem to be bidding their time in pleasurable anticipation of the chance to slump back into the much-desired spell of world-renouncing slumber.