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Balancing Act
Lucknow: Why has the Uttar Pradesh Government
posted only Brahmin officers in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Lucknow
parliamentary constituency? By some strange coincidence all those holding key posts here
are upper castes: Divisional Commissioner Arun Kumar Mishra, District Magistrate Sadakant
Shukla, Additional District Magistrate (City) A.K. Chaturvedi, Additional District
Magistrate (Civil Supplies) S.K. Ojha and City Magistrate S.R. Mishra. Even the SSP is a
Brahmin. According to government sources, all these officers were personally picked by the
prime minister to take care of his constituents and constituency. But then there is no
obvious bias here. For, in the Prime Minister's Office in Delhi the majority of the
officers are non-Brahmins. Party
Jet-Setters
Delhi: The perks of being a hotshot in the BJP can be a trip to cooler
climes when the heat is on in the capital. Despite the pressures of war in Kargil and an
impending general election, several party seniors flew abroad on various junkets. Former
Union minister Sushma Swaraj went to Los Angeles to attend a conference of Indian doctors,
General Secretary Narendra Modi spent three weeks in New York attending a seminar on
American foreign policy and party spokesman M. Venkaiah Naidu jetted to London to address
the European Telugu Association. While these members, all part of the party's poll
campaign committee, were away, important decisions had to be kept in abeyance. Now that
they are back, the belief is the party will soon get geared up for the electoral joust.
Paper Tiger
Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal's aversion to the print media is
well-known. He never misses an opportunity to let it be known that he doesn't read
newspapers because they are unreliable. Last week, however, Bansi Lal's stand stood
exposed. During his speech on the confidence motion in the state Assembly, he quoted
extensively from papers to buttress his views on his performance during the three-year
rule. The chief minister's pr men had burnt the midnight oil to collate
"positive" reports to embellish his otherwise lacklustre speech. Nobody was more
amused over Bansi Lal's new-found love for newspapers than the scribes in the media
gallery.
Timely Departure
Chandigarh: Punctuality and Indian Railways never sync. So when Union Railways Minister
Nitish Kumar walked in leisurely for the foundation-laying ceremony of the
Chandigarh-Ludhiana rail link on June 27, his late arrival by more than an hour didn't
seem out of place to many among the crowd. But the real surprise was the way Kumar kept
even the journalists in suspense. The pen-pushers were promised a press conference after
the function and were made to wait for the minister. But long after the function was over,
the media people were informed by embarrassed railway officials that Kumar, distressed by
Chandigarh's sultry conditions, had left for the cooler environs of hilly Shimla. Like
railways, like minister.
Jailhouse Mock
Bangalore: Last week Union Home
Minister L.K. Advani was joined by Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde and Karnataka Chief
Minister J.H. Patel on a 45-minute tour of the cells at Bangalore Central Jail that he and
others had occupied during the Emergency 25 years ago. That's where he picked up a little
Kannada, Advani recalled. "Maybe if I had been here a bit longer I would have learnt
to speak it well." The witty Patel, who was also an inmate then, talked about how he
owed his chief ministership to the time spent in jail: "I became a chief minister
only after going to jail," adding sarcastically, "There are others who become
chief ministers first and then go to jail." Are you listening J. Jayalalitha? |
