Delhi Confidential: Presidential Snub

“Don’t teach me the Constitution,” Pranab Mukherjee told C P Joshi.

Congress general secretary C P Joshi, a Rahul Gandhi-favourite and therefore a rising star in the party, had obviously not reckoned for this when he tried reading the Constitution to none else than President Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Wednesday night. Joshi, who was a part of the delegation which included SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav and two former chief ministers of Bihar, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad, was holding forth on Constitutional provisions regarding the role of a Governor when pat came a snub from Mukherjee. “Don’t teach me the Constitution,” the President told Joshi, who just froze thereafter.

SOME CONSOLATION

When former Home Secretary R K Singh, now a Lok Sabha MP from Bihar, lost his smartphone outside the Parliament House two months ago, he turned to his former ministry for help. Ministry officials put the Special Cell of Delhi Police on the job and his phone was recovered from Aligarh in UP two days ago. Apparently, the Special Cell, which has faced flak for its handling of the arrest of an alleged terrorist from Kashmir, is now using its success in tracking down the mobile phone to convince the Home Ministry that it is not that inefficient after all.

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?

A senior BJP leader has admitted that he did not even know the party candidate’s name before going to polling booth to cast his vote. He had to ask the fellow passenger in his car on the way to polling booth about the details of the BJP candidate. But in order to ensure that his “confession” should not be taken as a comment on party’s campaign, he said his residential address in Delhi is the RSS headquarters in Jhandewalan. Volunteers of any political party do not enter there to canvas for votes. For BJP, they are sure votes and for others they are certainly not theirs.

PREPARING GROUND

Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani’s interaction with students of Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) on Thursday is just the beginning of a round of discussions with educational institutions on the new national education policy. The minister plans to interact with students of different educational institutions, focusing on the 33 broad themes that have been identified, and is slated to subsequently visit Hindu College, Delhi College of Engineering as well as the Jawaharlal Nehru University, among other institutions.

FLAG ORDER

Irked over complaints that the national flag is being improperly displayed on various official websites, the Home Ministry has shot off a missive to all Secretaries at the Centre and all Chief Secretaries in the state governments asking them to ensure that national flag on various government websites is displayed strictly as per the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 and the Flag Code of India, 2002.

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