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Power Speech
Delhi: For Sharad Pawar, there is a strange coincidence involving two facets
of his public life -- as a social worker, and as a political leader. In his first role, he
was invited thrice -- in 1978, 1986 and 1999 -- to deliver the Vasant Vyakyan Mala
lecture, an annual event in Pune which dates back 125 years. In 1978, a day after giving
the lecture, he pulled down the Vasantdada Patil ministry in Maharashtra to become the
state's chief minister. In 1986, within a week of the event, he returned to the Congress
party after six years of exile. This time round, minutes after he had wound up his speech
at the city's Sharada Niketan Hostel, came a call on his mobile phone with the news that
he, as also his comrades-in-arm P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar, had been expelled from the
party's primary membership for six years. Tome Trouble
Thiruvananthapuram: The publication
of a 1,114-page book containing Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar's speeches in the last 20
years has triggered a controversy. Not for its contents but for the fact that the book --
Kaalathinte Kannadi (Mirror of the Times) -- has been published by the state Public
Relations Department (PRD) at a cost of Rs 16 lakh. While the opposition United Democratic
Front has lambasted the Government for "wasting public money", others wonder why
the PRD didn't deem it fit to publish speeches of stalwart chief ministers like the late
E.M.S. Namboodiripad, C. Achutha Menon or Pattom Thanu Pillai. Coming to the department's
defence, Nayanar says, "The Centre has published speeches of Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Those books were priced, my book is not for sale and will be distributed to all libraries.
Why don't you appreciate this?" Incidentally, Nayanar's tome has come at a time when
his party is busy with a Rs 5 crore project to bring out 100 volumes of the collected
works of EMS.
Shoddy Parallel
Patna: Bihar's Laloo Prasad Yadav and AIADMK
supremo J. Jayalalitha may have nothing in common, at least politically. But Laloo chose
to draw a parallel out of nothing after his wife and Chief Minister Rabri Devi was quizzed
by the CBI about their wealth. Piqued with the CBI hounding him for what it claims are
disproportionate assets worth Rs 42 lakh, the RJD chief remarked, "My whole property
is less than the value of the slippers owned by Jayalalitha." This infuriated Amma
and one AIADMK functionary lashed out at the father of nine, "Is Rs 2 lakh (the value
of Jayalalitha's footwears) the total value of Laloo's wealth?"
Crashlanding
Srinagar: Even as Pakistani shells were
raining on the residents of Kargil-Drass, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah couldn't resist
doing what he does best: make theatrical speeches. Flying to the frontier region to take
stock of the war-like situation, the irrepressible Farooq landed himself in an
embarrassing situation. Addressing a small gathering of fear-stricken Kargil residents who
were expecting some morale-boosting from him, Farooq dropped the bombshell by accusing
them of "helping" Pakistan. Stung by the charge the small gathering was on its
feet in protest, forcing him to stop his harangue. The situation was saved by an
accompanying army commander who pacified the locals, saying the reference was only to a
few "bad fish". |
