Nar Bahadur Bhandari, once the undisputed strong man of Sikkim, who was vanquished by his own protege, now the Sikkim Chief Minister, Pawan Kumar Chamling, and reduced to a one-man opposition in the Sikkim Legislative Assembly, has been considered a fallen horse in State politics for a long time. He is known to have tried his best to knock on the doors of various political parties in the country to revive his national contacts but none of them opened to let him in. But he may still get a new life if he succeeds in making his latest romance with the Indian National Congress work. Congress political circles are abuzz with speculation that former External Affairs Minister, Salman Khurshid, has been assigned the task of establishing contact with Bhandari and explore the possibility of reviving both Bhandari and the Congress in Sikkim. Will the Congress be able to ride on the fallen horse? Or would both of them, like Jack and Jill come tumbling down? Who breaks whose crown is also to be seen.

As the monsoon finally hit the capital, speculation about political showers that might drench and drown some of the ministerial bigwigs have also begun to cloud the sky in the capital. It is the season of cabinet reshuffles again. Will it be before the commencement of the monsoon session of Parliament or after? That is the first speculation. The second one is: Who will be in and who will be out? Third: Will Arun Jaitley be back as the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting? That would mean that the present minister, R. V. Prasad, would be compelled to make room for him. Has the battle between the cable operators and the government got to do something with it? Will Mamta Didi finally ride triumphantly the train to Delhi from Kolkata to take over the Railway Ministry from the much-besieged and beleaguered Minister for "Derailways", Nitish Kumar? Will Dattatreya go the way of Anant Kumar? Will Sahib Singh Verma be shifted from the Ministry of Labour to Urban Development? Will the External Affairs Minister be shifted to the Commerce Ministry and the Finance Minister to Gramin Vikas? Will the Minister for HRD try his hand at finance? Speculation all...But one can expect anything in the season of reshuffles and the year of elections. After all, the power structure in a coalition system has to be continuously reviewed and revamped.

At the party brain-storming session in Mumbai, the BJP Vichar Manch exercise, rumour mongers were active in trying to fathom the root cause of the continuous personal and political duel between the former BJP Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar, and the present BJP President, Venkaiah Naidu, from Andhra Pradesh. It came out that "Shanta Ji ashaant hain, kyonki unko jhoot bol bol ke tang kiya jaata hai". The insinuation is that the BJP President was inclined to listen to and give credence to any rumour and allegation made against Shanta Kumar, who had been one of the most popular chief ministers of Himachal Pradesh and a Union Minister. There were those who went on to say that even the Prime Minister was now irritated at the needless, pointless and baseless Shanta–baiting in this unseemly feud. They claim that the party president has been advised not to open his mouth in season and out of season against Shanta Kumar, whose honour and honesty as a public man have been vindicated time and again. Will there be change in the party hierarchy too, along with or after the cabinet reshuffle. Who knows?

India is the world leader in terms of software technology and many Indians have contributed to the Silicon Valley project in the U. S. A. Even in India, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu had been in the fore in resorting to the Internet to develop efficiency in his administration by e-governance. It did not end there. Punjab Chief Minister followed suit and has used the same tool and re-shaped it as a weapon to hit at former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Now the Punjab government has taken its anti-corruption drive against the former government led by Badal to cyber space. The Chhangai report which had charged Badal with nepotism and corruption during his first stint as chief minister has been posted on the Net by Amarinder’s government. If only Amarinder would put in such determination and concern for other developmental issues then Punjab would soon gain the lost status of being the most developed State of India. Sources close to Badal revealed that the Shiromani Akali Dal also plans to launch a website exposing the misdeeds of the Amarinder government.

One can never predict when friends would turn foes or vice versa in politics. The latest incident of such a turnaround is that of Defence Minister George Fernandes and Minister of Railways, Nitish Kumar. And what better way to forsake rivalry than to visit the temple at Amarnath and cast away enmity at the altar. The imbroglio started with the expulsion of two MPs by Nitish Kumar who were close to George Fernandes. Prabhunath Singh stormed out of the Samata national council, demanding that the expelled MPs be brought back to the party. Well, how could our sensitive Minister of Railways digest such a grave insult and Prabhunath made him do what hundreds of derailed trains could not—forced him to resign. Nitish resigned from his cabinet post though his resignation was not accepted by our honourable Prime Minister. Nitish was firm on his decision but someone seems to be happy with toppling trains. Bashist Narain Singh soon mediated between the two warring camps and restored Nitish to his office. Then it was revealed that George, Nitish and Prabhunath, the three musketeers of the Samata, will board a special Air Force plane and make a trip to Amarnath, as if to seek the blessings of god for a lasting friendship. ‘Jab Nitish-George raazi tab kya karega kaazi’. We can only hope that their friendship does not crash in the near future.