Delhi Confidential: Now, Katju says ‘beautiful Shazia Ilmi’ should have been BJP’s CM candidate

RECALL VALUE
JAYANTHI Natarajan’s outburst Friday prompted many Congressmen to remember the unpleasant experiences they had with her when she was the environment minister. Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy remembered that at one point she did not give appointment even to party MPs from Kerala who wanted to bring to her attention their concerns over Kasturirangan and Madhav Gadgil committee reports. Chandy said he and the then state Congress president Ramesh Chennithala had to raise the issue with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. On another occasion, a senior Congress minister from Kerala K C Joseph was not allowed to meet her when he reached her residence. Her security men simply asked the minister to leave the memorandum, if any, at the gate.

PACKED SCHEDULE
FOREIGN secretary S Jaishankar, who joined on Thursday, has hit the ground running. He met the diplomatic corps in Delhi on Friday and briefed them about the US President Barack Obama’s visit. Next, he is on his way to China, where he will accompany External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, to lay the ground for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit later this year. Next week, he has also called a meeting of the Indian heads of missions from across the world.

BATTLEGROUND DELHI
THE Congress is pulling out all stops in a desperate attempt to improve its numbers in the Delhi Assembly. It has asked its chief ministers to rush to Delhi to hold public meetings and reach out to migrant voters. And some of them are hard-pressed for time. For instance, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy flew in to Delhi just for a few hours Friday to attend two public meetings. He landed at the airport in the evening, went straight to Ashram and then to Mehrauli where he addressed public gatherings, before returning to Thiruvananthapuram late in the night. He has to be in Kerala on Saturday to attend the inaugural ceremony of the 35th National Games.

HRD’s SWORD
AFTER Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh, whose file has been forwarded by the HRD Ministry to the President, the next person likely to face the ministry’s wrath will be IGNOU V-C Mohammad Aslam. The committee under Gujarat University V-C Syed Bari to look into various allegations against Aslam submitted its part-report to the ministry this week. It is learnt that the committee’s report is not favourable for Aslam and it has found charges against him to be true.