Who will take over from Gadkari?
After Gadkari who? Rajnath Singh, LK Advani or Narendra Modi? Now that Nitin Gadkari is all set to lose his job, the race for the top BJP post is likely to heat up. Questions have already started making rounds as to who would succeed Gadkari in December. The recent meeting of the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi with the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has triggered the speculation that Modi met Bhagwat to take the latter’s blessings and persuade him to make him the president of the BJP, thereby making it easier for him to become the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. However, the next claimant is LK Advani. But the entire BJP is opposed to him and the RSS wants him to retire. Advani is, nevertheless, hopeful. But if you go by the mood in the RSS, then it is Rajnath Singh who is the frontrunner. The thakur from Uttar Pradesh is the first choice of the RSS. It was in view of this thinking that he was assigned the job of negotiating with Kalyan Singh. Meanwhile, there is unease within the RSS over the sudden Gadkari expose by Arvind Kejriwal. There is suspicion within the popes of Jhandewalan that the leakage was being done from someone within the BJP.
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Shiela Dikshit plays favouritism
Jaikishen, the Dalit face of the Congress in Delhi, is facing harassment by his own government. As he remains busy mobilizing crowds for Dalit rallies for the party in Delhi and even outside, the Sultanpuri MLA and the Delhi the former secretary of AICC has been totally sidelined. In the last six months, he has been made to suffer losses of several lakhs. The gardening section of his 11-year-old VD Institute of Technology, where BED classes were held, was demolished by the government on the charge that he had encroached upon government land. The electricity of his college was disconnected and a hefty bill of 45 lakhs was slapped on his college. The booster pump of his Sultanpuri constituency was withdrawn creating serious water problem in the region. On the other hand, no action has been taken against the controversial PWD minister and a great Shiela Dikshit favourite Raj Kumar Chauhan, who has encroached into the children’s park next to his residence in a Bhera enclave, west Delhi. He has turned this park into his private guesthouse, where people seeking his audience wait for him for several hours. Not only has the PWD minister encroached upon the park, he has even appropriated a vacant plot next to his house.
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Meet blue-eyed boys of Khurshid
Who are Bobby Singh and Haroon Khan? If you want to get access to the Union law minister Salman Khurshid, please contact Jitin Singh aka Bobby Singh. And if you want access to the minister’s wife Louise Khurshid, please contact one Haroon Khan. They are permanent fixtures in the Khurshid household. Bobby Singh, the son of a late DPS principle, is an employee in Reliance, drawing, as learnt, about ten lakhs a year. He has great connections in the corporate world and the last few years have seen him move from rented houses to his own house and from small cars to big SUVs. Same with Haroon Khan. Haroon, a small time property dealer and a resident of New Friends Colony, has risen to dizzy heights and now moves in elite bureaucratic and corporate world in a span of just three years.
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Ambika Soni repays her due to Khurshid
Questions are being asked why did Ambika Soni alone come out in personal defence of Salman Khurshid, when the entire Congress leadership left it to the Law Minister to defend himself against the allegations levelled against him in the case of the irregularities in his Zakir Hussain Trust. Soni’s defence is being seen as her repayment of an old due. Salman Khurshid in 2002 had gone out of his way bending all rules to give a DPS school to Ambika Soni and Pawan Bansal in Chandigarh. A civil writ petition no. 12161, Vinay Kumar versus Union Territory and others, 2002, is still pending in the court. The petitioner had alleged that the heritage educational society did not fulfill any of the criteria for allotment of land for educational institution. Every rule was bent and the government land worth crores was acquired for a song.
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Anti-Mamata rally of Congress gets shelved
The Congress’ plans to hold a mega rally in the Lalgarh area to show its strength off to Mamata Banerjee is simply not taking off. Earlier this year, they first planned the rally with the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee as the key speaker. Pranab dropped the idea at the last moment, anticipating that the Congress may need the Trinamool Congress during the Presidential elections. Congress again planned the rally on October 16, with Jairam Ramesh as the key speaker. West Bengal Congress leaders even informed Sonia Gandhi how they have planned a massive rally. But once again, the plan has been shelved as Jairam ditched them at the last moment. Sharad Pawar proposed the GOM on Jairam’s close-to-the-heart land bill on October 16 and the rural development minister’s presence was needed there instead.
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Is Jairam too witty for his own good?
Controversy and Jairam Ramesh are synonymous with each other. Some in the UPA have become famous because of scandals and scams, and some because of their arrogance, but Jairam, like Shashi Tharoor, is remembered for his controversial statements. After his “temple versus toilet” remark, he recently had something for West Bengal Congress. When he was asked why did not go for the rally in West Bengal he remarked, “Different people have different engagements. The Congress leaders in West Bengal are busy with ‘Mahalaya.’ I am busy with my shauchalaya.” In the recent dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over water sharing, almost all central ministers belonging to the states either took part in the agitation or led delegations to prime minister Manmohan Singh. Jairam Ramesh was the sole exception, who just sat quietly and kept himself aloof from the hot topic. When asked why he was not raising the issue relating to his home state, Jairam replied, “I am from Karnataka, but my wife Jayashree is from Tamil Nadu. If I had joined the chorus it would have led to a major domestic problem.” (IPA)