Lucknownama: Curse in blessing

District president of SP in Meerut Jaiveer Singh had a tiff with party MLC Sarojini Aggrawal. The MLC took the matter seriously and complained to the party’s national general secretary Ramgopal Yadav. Convinced of her grievance,Ramgopal immediately ordered sacking of Jaiveer Singh. But Singh did not take it lying down. He approached an official of his community,presently posted in the CM’s secretariat. Within three days,Jaiveer Singh was reinstated. SP leaders often say that in the BSP regime,the CM’s secretariat ran the party too. But no one wants to talk about this incident.

Local interest

Last week Murli Manohar Joshi,BJP MP from Varanasi and Public Accounts Committee chairman,called Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and spoke about the power crisis in his constituency,the unscheduled power cuts and how these were affecting the water supply there. He also requested for the CM’s intervention to ease the people’s problems. But Joshi’s action came as a surprise to most in the party. For,in public,Joshi prefers to comment only on national and international issues,not on local problems. Besides,at a time when the party is attacking the SP government over the power crisis,Joshi,who is a national leader,chose to talk to the Chief Minister about his own constituency.

Saving face

New Congress Legislature Party leader Pradeep Mathur is in the learning phase. While Assembly members were debating the proposal to set up an AIIMS-like institute in Rae Bareli,Mathur offered that ‘party MLA from the area Akhilesh Singh’ would clarify the matter. He was referring to Akhilesh Pratap Singh,Congress MLA from Rudrapur who is also a party spokesperson and mainly deals with VIP areas of Rae Bareli and Amethi. The Speaker allowed him. But,Food and Supplies Minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh got up and pointed out that the Akhilesh Singh,who is actually an MLA from the region,wasn’t a Congressman,while the MLA Mathur had referred to had no link with Rae Bareli. He advised Mathur to be clear next time he referred to Akhilesh Singh. It embarrassed Congressmen to no end. For,Akhilesh Singh of Rae Bareli was once in Congress,he was later removed from the party,won as an independent and was elected as Peace Party candidate in the last election,while the Congress drew a blank in Rae Bareli district.

Not smart enough

On June 15,when Mayawati decided to call a press conference at a short notice,mediapersons wondered what the urgency was . It turned out that Mayawati wanted to beat Mulayam Singh Yadav by announcing her party’s support for the Congress presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee first. Both Mulayam Singh and Mayawati were in Lucknow that day and her worry was that if Mulayam Singh spoke first,she may not get much time on the national TV. So immediately after the Congress announced Pranab’s candidature,the BSP men made inquiries about the timing of Mulayam Singh’s possible interaction with reporters and scheduled Mayawati’s press conference. Mayawati got the satisfaction of speaking first,but Mulayam Singh got more publicity because of his now-famous somersault.