Delhi Confidential: Helping Hand

MP Ravi Shankar Prasad rushed to Patna, his constituency, amid a flood situation.

Ravi Shankar Prasad

Being a Lok Sabha member comes with its share of responsibilities. This was evident as senior parliamentarian and first-time Lok Sabha MP Ravi Shankar Prasad rushed to Patna, his constituency, amid a flood situation. While doing so, Prasad, who also holds the telecom portfolio, had to skip an important meeting with Vodafone CEO Nicholas Jonathan Read. Prasad, who was in Jaipur when he was informed about the gravity of the situation in Patna, boarded a train and rushed to Delhi, from where he took a flight to his constituency. He is expected to be back in the capital after normalcy returns in Patna.

Court Code

The Supreme Court has decided to go back to its old pin code of 110001, and asked all concerned to take note. Sources said that though the top court was granted the exclusive pin code 110201 some six years ago, people continued to use the old one, and thus two pin codes came to be in use. This led to delays in delivery of mails to the court. The postal department took it up with the court recently, following which it was decided to return to the old code.

Terse Reply

The Election Commission has refused to give an opinion on whether YSRCP MP Vijay Sai Reddy’s appointment as a special representative to the state will be deemed an ‘Office of Profit’. Reddy sought the EC’s advice before joining the post. Apparently, the poll panel has said in a terse letter that it will not respond to requests for an opinion on ‘Office of Profit’ matters unless a formal reference comes from the President or the Governor.

Guessing Game

MP hopefuls in the BJP are engaged in a guessing game about who is going to land the Rajya Sabha seats that fell vacant after the death of former finance minister Arun Jaitley (Uttar Pradesh) and Ram Jethmalani (Bihar). Although the BJP and JD(U) have not arrived at an agreement on which party will nominate the candidate, the seat in UP has generated an interesting debate about the potential candidates: whether former Union minister Manoj Sinha will make the cut, or a party general secretary waiting long enough, or someone else.