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Identity Crisis The newly-appointed Labour Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, seems to be facing an identity crisis. He is learnt to have instructed his staff in the Labour Ministry to put ‘Sahib Singh’ instead of ‘Sahib Singh Verma’ on all official records. The national capital’s political grapevine has it that this instruction has been in force since some people from Haryana said that his name, with Verma added, gives the impression of his being a baniya. But then, the Labour Minister, in his attempt to become a Jat leader, appears to have taken the wrong tack. He probably does not realise that if ‘Verma’ is struck off his name, people will take him to be a greenhorn in the political arena. Is the Labour Minister prepared for that? | |
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Tel Chatte BJP Rajya Sabha member and RJD leader Laloo Prasad Yadav, does not hesitate to foist his own brand. Recently in Parliament, when each opposition member was targeting Petroleum Minister Ram Naik on irregularities in petrol pump allocations, Laloo found the proceedings boring. He rose from his seat and began to spout his special brand of speech: "Log jhhuti afwahein failate hein ki mein karoro rupaiya ka chaara chaat gaya. Lekin ye nahi jante ke BJP wale to tel chatte hein. Pure desh ka tel chaat jayenge. (People are spreading rumours that I ate up fodder worth crores of rupees. But they do not know that the BJP men drink oil. And they will suck up all the oil of the country.". It was enough to kick off peals of laughter. Even those who were sitting on the Treasury benches could not resist laughing. | |
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No Excuses, Please
Persons like Arun Jaitley do not normally make excuses, but when it comes to the crunch they do not hesitate in doing so. This is what happened recently. Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj had called an informal gathering of all former Union I&B ministers at her residence a few days ago. I. K. Gujral, Pramod Mahajan and several other persons who had been in the ministry attended. Jaitley was conspicuously absent, even though he had been informed about the gathering well in advance. After the party ended, a journalist from a reputed national daily made a telephone call to Jaitley and asked, "Sir, aapne kyon nahi party attend kiya. Kya koi khas baat (Sir, why did you not attend the gathering. Was there something special?)." Jaitley coolly replied: "When I was a minister, I had a lot of officials to look after my work, now I am merely a party worker. Consequently, I have to bear the burden of files myself, so where is the time?" | |
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Disillusioned Sonia Congress President Sonia Gandhi seems to have fallen into the morass of disillusionment. She does not understand why Opposition parties like the NCP and the Samajwadi Party do not give due importance to her stewardship as the President of the 117 - year-old Congress. In the run up to the vice-presidential election she wanted to formulate a strategy jointly with these parties. She telephoned the Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and NCP president, Sharad Pawar, telling them that her political secretary, Ahmad Patel, would meet them separately and discuss in detail plans and strategies meant for the election. Both the leaders did not appreciate Sonia’s offhand way of dealing with a serious matter like the vice-presidential poll. They decided to respond in the same manner. Sharad Pawar told Sonia that as he was busy, his political adviser, Prafulla Patel, would discuss the matter. A similar reply was given by Mulayam Singh Yadav who told Sonia that he was preoccupied with U. P. political affairs and his party general secretary, Amar Singh, would sit in at talks with her emissary, Ahmad Patel. Embarrassed, Sonia had no option but to reluctantly accept the tit-for-tat responses of Mulayam and Sharad. | |
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Teen Devian and poor Vajpayee! Even tehelka.com or, for that matter, the Gujarat situation could not have bothered Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee more than three women—Mayawati, Jayalalithaa and Mamata. While Chief Minister Mayawati’s approach towards governance in Uttar Pradesh is making life uncomfortable for the Prime Minister, Mamata’s behaviour in the aftermath of the Government’s decision on the railway zone bifurcation issue has made Vajpayee a prisoner of his own conscience. The Prime Minister is not able to decide how he should deal with the Trinamool chief who has the potential to hurt the BJP-led NDA government’s interest through her inimitable theatrics both inside and outside Parliament. And then, there is the imperious Jayalalithaa. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is bent on needling Vajpayee as much as she can. After putting MDMK leader Vaiko behind bars under POTA, she is pestering the Prime Minister to throw M. Kannappan, another MDMK leader, out of the Cabinet. According to sources, the AIADMK general secretary has flooded the PMO with pleas to remove Kannappan from the NDA ministry immediately. The reason she gives is that he has indulged in Constitutional impropriety by openly supporting the banned outfit, LTTE. Vajpayee is in a fix. If he throws Kannappan out of the ministry, it will dent the NDA’s strength and if he does not, then it will send a message that the Centre has its own agenda for tackling terrorist organisations like the LTTE. Poor Vajpayee does not understand where to move to get far way from these three devian. "You should create a special cell in the PMO to deal with these three gentlewomen,’’ a man from Agra is learnt to have written to the Prime Minister. Good advice indeed! |
