Gurudas Kamath and Vayalar Ravi found themselves in a thick political soup when they announced with great gusto the holding of a Sonia rally on December 28 to mark the birth anniversary of the Indian National Congress - born on December 28, 1885 at a Hall near Gwalia Tank in Mumbai. They were in soup because the venue had already been booked between December 26 and 30 by the Maharashtra Kabbaddi Association, a pocket borough of the Nationalist Congress Party, for a Sharad Pawar rally on December 27, among other celebrations. Ravi, Kamath and Shivraj Patil went running to Sharad to seek his favour for letting them have the venue for just two hours on December 28 to hold the Sonia rally and save their jobs. Sharad relented to save some of his old protégés who were now on the Sonia side but with one condition. And that was the giant cut-outs of Sharad Pawar and his super-lieutenants Purno Sagma and Tariq Anwar would remain and could not be removed. But the subtle Hutu Tu match between the two Congress will keep the political game players wondering who will come out the champion, Sonia or Sharad? For when live telecasts on December 28 carry the voice of Sonia Gandhi all over the country the TV cameras will find it hard to escape the giant cut-outs of Sharad Pawar, Sagma and Tariq Anwar spread all over the park with advantage NCP.

On December 14, the one and the only Laloo Yadav in his inimitable style tried to immortalise the Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda by asking publicly who is this Munda Chaumunda? Chaumunda is a goddess of wrath but Laloo certainly did not want to give Arjun Munda the statue of a goddess. In his own words or language which may call now ‘Laloo Bharati’, he tried to say that the Jharkhand Chief Minister was a king-sized non-entity. The angry Munda hit back with the remark that Laloo was the king of the State. Tomorrow he would publicly declare that he did not know the name of his own father. The RJD activists hit back Munda with the remark,"why bring fathers in this political vendetta? Munda should not forget the day when he had gone to godfather, rubbing the Munda nose in the dust and got a ticket to fight the poll. He should know who is whose political father." Remembering that Jharkhand is a breakaway part of Laloo’s own Bihar, he should know Jharkhand well and the Jharkhandis too should know their Laloo. The RJD frontmen are now heard singing about "Mundi Sambhal Munda, Mundi Sambal Re".

ONCE amongst the tallest figures of the BJP, former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana, having been unable to sweep the Congress out of power in Delhi, also found himself by younger leadership within the Delhi BJP. Mukhi became the Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly and Harsh Vardhan became the Delhi BJP chief because there was an all-round replacement of the old guard with younger leaders who had delivered political goods better in Rajastan and Madhya Pradesh. Faithfully, Khurana called upon the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime minister and then announced his resignation from the Moti Nagar assembly seat of Delhi, which he had rightly won. He seemed to have settled down for the advice offered to the elderly among the BJP politicians to have a sojourn in an exalted position as the master of a Raj Bhavan. In this case, suggestion was that he resign his Lok Sabha seat also and move to the Raj Bhavan in Jaipur as Governor of Rajasthan. But Khurana, wary from his recent experience, was not in a hurry to resign from Lok Sabha unless the notification and press release of his gubernatorial appointment was made. Insiders had been whispering that he had a minor problem too. The Deputy Prime Minister was said to have advised to rest and sojourn and smile, but keeping his mouth shut, that was the problem.

Corridors of BJP higher echelons were abuzz that a Cabinet reshuffle was on the cards and many old and aging ministers might have to make room for the younger leaders of BJP whose performance had earned them laurels and who deserved ministerial New Year gift. Who will go and who will stay was something which was worrying many but one name was being mentioned as a certainly for a berth in the Union Cabinet and that was "PM" who was a special choice of the PM. "PM" to friends and admirers is Pramod Mahajan, whose performance, along with younger BJP leaders like Arun Jaitely and Sushma Swaraj was said to be superb. Speculations whether he would return as a Information and Broadcasting Minister or replace some other senior Cabinet Minister.

Najma Hepthullah, popularly and fondly known as "Najma Appa" by young parliamentarians across the political parties in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, must have been shocked by the story doing the round in the Congress circles that an indirect message has been sent to the BJP leaders "Beware of Najma, she has been with us for two years but could not keep faith in us". The undertone is the rumour that "Appa" might return to parliament either as a BJP-supported nominee in Rajya Sabha or as a non-Congress candidate to Lok Sabha with the support of Sharad Pawar. Incidentally, she is quite acceptable to almost all the political parties in the country and has been an honoured leader of the Inter Parliamentary Union, a global body of parliamentarians. Will "Appa" be able to overcome the shock?