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NEWSNOTES
CAPLOOKS
Verse
and Worse
 Delhi:
The rivalry between the two Bengali ministers at the Centre, the Trinamool's
Mamata Banerjee and the BJP's Tapan Sikdar, is no longer confined to political
one-upmanship. On Vijaya Dashami, Mamata penned a Bengali sonnet for Sikdar
which was packed with undecipherable phrases (like "the eternally
forlorn"). Sikdar, a powerful Bengali orator, however, could not
make any sense of the lines. Later, when Sikdar gifted packets of Darjeeling
tea to ministers, Mamata returned hers in a huff, her staff informing
the man who had brought the packet that the railway minister "never
accepts gifts".
Friends
Forever
 Delhi:
Once bitten, the Congress is now twice shy. At the emergency CWC meeting
to discuss its stand on supporting the JMM(S) in Jharkhand, only two members
favoured backing the party: Bhajan Lal and R.K. Dhawan. Incidentally,
both of them were named in the original bribery complaint.
Idle Boast
Delhi:
The HRD Ministry is a single-boss entity in which M.M. Joshi leaves little
work for his minister of state. After fretting a lot in public, the junior
minister, Shahnawaz Hussain, was given a spacious bungalow on Motilal
Nehru Marg. Recently, he invited MPs from his home state of Bihar to dinner.
Guests, including cabinet ministers Yashwant Sinha and Ram Vilas Paswan,
sat squirming as Hussain said it hardly mattered if he had any work when
he had got "such a magnificent bungalow". Low ambitions?
Tour
de Farce
Mumbai:
The Maharashtra Cabinet faced a strange problem last week: both Deputy
Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal (who holds charge of tourism) and his deputy
Rajendra Darda wanted to join a delegation to Europe to promote tourism
in the state. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh agreed-as long as the ministers
paid their fare. The trip was cleared. But Union Tourism Minister Ananth
Kumar put a spoke in the wheel: why were two ministers travelling for
the same purpose? Poor Darda had to stay back.
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| Harin
Pathak resigned from the Vajpayee Ministry last week after
he was chargesheeted in a 15-year-old case.
Q.
Is it a frame-up?
A.
A
Gujarat High Court panel that looked into the police atrocities
has said in its report that I was nowhere near the site where the
policeman was killed. In fact, we were with the panel at that time.
Q.
Some NDA partners think you led an anti-reservation stir in 1985.
A. We were merely protecting people who were the target of police
atrocities.
Q.
Then why did you resign on moral grounds?
A.
I resigned because I thought it was morally wrong to continue in
office when charges had been framed by the court. I'm also confident
of proving my innocence.
Q.
Couldn't you have used legal means to sidestep the case, considering
the BJP has been in power in Gujarat for so long?
A.
It
is more a moral question than one of inefficiency. That I and my
party didn't resort to it only proves we have been wrongly framed.
Q.
Was it right for the party to ask you to resign?
A.
It was my decision, not the party's. I don't regret it as I will
prove my innocence. I will come back with a bang.
-Uday
Mahurkar
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The
Indian industry has increased its decibel level of whining. Instead, it
should get the government to deliver, says INDIA TODAY Associate Editor
V. Shankar Aiyar in 