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Home Alone
Delhi: L. K. Advani has never been a mere
home minister. Though he is no longer party president, a new room has been prepared for
him at the BJP's Ashoka Road headquarters. It is because he is overburdened with work that
Ram Naik, minister of state for railways, was recently given additional charge of the Home
Ministry. The idea was to reduce Advani's workload specially after he was made head of the
BJP's campaign committee. Unfortunately, things haven't quite worked that way since Naik
has been given relatively insignificant charges in the Home Ministry. The result is that
in spite of having an MOS, Advani still looks after all important matters. As for poor
Naik, this is nothing new. Though a senior BJP leader from Mumbai, he has had to play
second fiddle to Nitish Kumar in Rail Bhavan. Same Old Cast
Delhi: The BJP's attempts to put its best faces on the tube have not quite
succeeded. A month ago it had decided that requests for TV appearances must be routed
through the party headquarters. The idea was to field the more tele-savvy leaders and
curtail the appearances of the well-meaning but doddering old-timers. Problem is, the
party is flooded with requests from various TV channels and the more sought-after leaders
like Jaswant Singh, Pramod Mahajan, K.N. Govindacharya and Narendra Modi have little time
or are not always available at short notice. So old-timers like K.R. Malkani, J.P. Mathur
and K.L. Sharma continue to have their moments of glory on the idiot box.
Suspect Unity
Delhi: The Congress may have showed a united front while bailing out Chief Minister
Bansi Lal in Haryana but the state unit continues to be a divided house. The feud between
former chief minister Bhajan Lal, who still sees himself as the party's top man in the
state, and PCC chief Bhupinder Singh Hooda has, if anything, intensified. Last week, it
assumed comic proportions. First, Bhajan had two cronies snoop around when Hooda dropped
in to meet Sonia Gandhi at 10 Janpath. Later, when Hooda arrived at the AICC headquarters
to meet senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee, another Bhajan crony was seen outside
Mukherjee's room. When one of Hooda's supporters spotted the spy, the predictable
altercation followed. The bosses in the party headquarters were saved much embarrassment
thanks to Hooda himself stepping in to defuse the situation
Special Show
Mumbai: RSS chief Rajendra Singh has never been a movie buff. In fact, till the
Aamir Khan-starrer Sarfarosh came along, it is said he had never stepped inside a theatre.
Apparently, so moved was he by reports of the film that he asked Information and
Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan to organise a special screening. Directed by John
Matthew Mathan it is perhaps the most realistic depiction of Pakistan's proxy war in
Kashmir on celluloid. And given the current wave of patriotism and the film's realism,
Sarfarosh has been declared tax-free in Delhi and Mumbai with other regions expected to
follow suit.
A Cut Above
Patna: The war in Kargil has no
doubt raised nationalist fervour, but Bihar strongman Laloo Prasad Yadav has been so
touched that these days he even sports a military cut. If you think this is part of the
wily Laloo's strategy to make electoral capital, perish the thought. "Forget
elections," he said, "the first task before the country is to win the war."
Nevertheless, last week's open session of the RJD showed that elections are never far from
Laloo's mind. First, he got senior Samata Party leader and former MP Shakuni Choudhary to
join his party. Then, in another tactical move, he succeeded in roping in communist
leaders H.S. Surjeet and A.B. Bardhan for his conclave. |
