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| Sushma Swaraj is Cabinet spokesperson | |
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The changing power equations in the BJP have had an effect at the government spokesman level also. Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj will now brief the media after every Cabinet meeting. Reason: The Advani camp which has swamped each and every important department of the Government and the party does not want Parliamentary Affairs and Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan to continue to hog the media limelight as a Cabinet spokesman. After all, it is the spokesperson who knows best how to and what to communicate to the media. If the person on the ‘hot seat’ belongs to the same camp, the establishment of relations with newspapers and channels is done with a keen eye on that camp’s interest. As Mahajan does not enjoy the Advani tag, the Deputy Prime Minister’s followers engineered Sushma’s installation as the spokesperson for the Cabinet. That the Information and Broadcasting Minister, a close confidant of Advani, will further her mentor’s interests better than Mahajan is the belief among the followers of the Deputy Prime Minister. | |
| Mamata speechless | |
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Wisdom comes with age. But it does not appear that Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee has had any brush with wisdom, despite being in the early 50s. Nonetheless, Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya made her feel that she would have to correct her demeanour, otherwise she would make a laughing-stock of herself. Joining issue with her protest for the bifurcation of Eastern Railway, Bhattacharya asked Mamata if her raising the issue made any sense? Today, she was calling for the return of all key railway divisions to the Eastern Zone. In the same vein, would she call for the return of India’s capital to Kolkata, asked the West Bengal Chief Minister. (New Delhi was made the capital in 1911). Mamata had no answer. | |
| Ram Nayak in petrol pump scam? | |
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Recently, the CBI’s Anti Corruption Bureau raided the house of former Haryana and Punjab High Court Chief Justice Agnihotri in Chandigarh. It was done on the basis of information received that the retired Chief Justice, who was heading an agency that dealt with the allocation of petrol pump and gas agencies in Punjab, had allotted 90 per cent of the petrol pumps to people belonging to the BJP and the Sangh Pariwar. According to Agnihotri, all the allocations of petrol pumps were done on the recommendations of Petroleum Minister Ram Nayak. But at the time of the raid, it is learnt that Agnihotri preferred not to disclose any details to the CBI. However, a day after the incident, the retired Chief Justice allegedly rang up to Ram Nayak asking whether he should hand over all the recommendation letters that he had forwarded for allocation of petrol pumps. The response of the Petroleum Minister is not known. |
