Money trial

Urban Development Minister Azam Khan is a stickler for discipline. He was very angry when Principal Secretary Pravir Kumar and Secretary Sunita Chaturvedi did not attend a scheduled meeting. He rebuked Special Secretary Vishnu Swaroop Mishra when the latter tried to explain their absence. The next day,Khan’s Personal Secretary J S Negi wrote a letter to the Principal Secretary stating that the minister was unhappy over the indiscipline in the department. He wrote that he has been directed to inform him that the minister will not see files until discipline is restored. Amazingly,when the news got out,Khan said his PS had written the letter on his own and that it was an “irresponsible act”. Can any PS write such a letter without getting instruction from boss? If the PS had acted on his own,why has Khan not punished him for the “irresponsible act’’?

Setting benchmarks

Nirmal Khatri’s appointment as UP Congress chief last week goaded his predecessor Rita Bahuguna Joshi into action after five months of prolonged inaction. She decided to personally lead a demonstration outside the BJP office against the party’s attacks on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In order to ensure an impressive show,Joshi collected party workers from the district Congress and burnt an effigy of BJP chief Nitin Gadkari. After the event,Joshi’s supporters were heard asking whether the new president would be able to lead such an agitation from the front. Sources said Joshi’s problem was that she had thought she would be accommodated in some other position,which has not happened.

Mid-term fear

BSP general secretary Naseemuddin Siddiqui is worried over the talk of mid-term Lok Sabha elections. He certainly does not want these before June 2013. For,his son Afzal,who is being groomed to contest the next Lok Sabha election from Fatehpur,will actually turn 25 and become eligible only in June next year. Siddiqui has done careful planning for his son. He has chosen Fatehpur because it is adjacent to Banda,his native district. Besides,Fatehpur has over three lakh Muslim voters and Afzal is working hard to reach out to them. An early election will upset Siddiqui’s plan to annoint Afzal as his political successor.

Two-in-One

Since Lokayukta NK Mehrotra is probing the Noida farmhouse scam,he visited Noida last week. This week,he will be going there again. Sources said Mehrotra’s visits have another purpose. Three petitions against him are pending in the Supreme Court,including one filed by Lucknow-based lawyer Saeed Siddiqui,challenging the extension given to him by the SP government. While visiting Noida,Mehrotra can conveniently also interact with the lawyers and personally check that the cases are being properly dealt with. Recently,he had asked the state government to set up a camp office of the Lokayukta in Noida,but the government has not yet reacted to it.