Back in race In a photofinish in 2008,
Dr Harshvardhan lost to Vijay Kumar Malhotra in the race for BJP’s CM candidate. Five years later, the amiable ‘Doctor Saab’ seems to be back in the race, again. Grapevine has it that an internal BJP survey has placed him several notches ahead of his nearest rival for projection as the CM candidate. Will lady luck smile on him this timeIJ
Anonymous letter
Electorates in Chandni Chowk have an received anonymous letter — carrying a picture and damaging remarks about a top leader of Delhi BJP — sending shockwaves across party’s crisis managers in the State unit. Grapevine has it that ‘leader on target’ has now pressed his team into action to control damage and stop circulation of letter beyond Walled City.
Tongue-tied over Marathi
Marathi speaking lawyers are doing well in Supreme Court since in most criminal cases lodged in Maharashtra, the charge sheet is filed by the police is in Marathi. “The Marathi they use is complicated and difficult to understand,” admitted senior advocate Harish Salve. Himself a Marathi, Salve was appearing against BCCI president
N Srinivasan and had to rely on an affidavit filed by Mumbai police in the spot-fixing scam. The senior lawyer said, “I can
understand Marathi, but it is not the way Marathi is spoken.”
Chacko, the Editor
JPC Chairman PC Chacko is busy editing ‘unparliamentary’ words and phrases in the lengthy dissent notes to the 2G report. The CPI(M), CPI and AIADMK have already submitted their dissent notes against Chacko’s findings on the telecom scam. Another highly volatile dissent note from BJP is expected to be filed this week.
Kahin Khushi, Kahin Gham
A day after the resignation of HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju’s from the Union Cabinet on Telangana row, some Ministry staff were seen distributing sweets. “Kya yeh mantriji ke resign karney key khushi meinIJ” Someone asked. The subordinate clarified that the celebration was to recognise “Khushi” achieved by his ‘Bosses’. He was referring to the feat of two Joint Secretaries, Amit Khare and
RP Sisodia. The former was first to carry out raids in multi-crore fodder scam as district collector of Chaibasa and Sisodia is in the news for drawing the roadmap for the multi-crore Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyaan (RUSA) and getting it cleared from Cabinet.
lions and Modi
The aversion of Congress towards the BJP leader and Gujarat CM Narendra Modi is predictable. What was unpredictable was the Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s fluctuating stands on conservation of lions in Modi’s State. The environmentalists were upbeat when she announced in Rajya Sabha in 2011 that Planning Commission had approved lion conservation of Gir as a longterm project and that the Ministry should support it as a Centrally-sponsored scheme. While the wait was still on, responding to a question in Parliament recently, she said that the Ministry was still undecided on granting the necessary funds for the specific purpose of conservation of lions in Gujarat.
Babus’ trouble
In this era of instant communication, the Government top brass is unable to reach out to each other on mobile phones in the high-profile New Moti Bagh Enclave in Delhi. Home Secretary, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and several other top functionaries live in the newly constructed residential complex there. They find it difficult to take calls on their mobiles due to poor signal reception in the absence of transmission towers not installed because of environment and security issues. These babus run the country but are not able to fix this problem for the last one year since the housing complex came up.