Delhi Confidential: Old Habits

While thanking the Congress and its leadership and singing praises for the Congress, Siddiqui took the name of the BSP twice in place of his new party.

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BSP leader Nasimuddin Siddiqui

Old Habits

HE MAY have changed his stripes but could not control his natural instincts. Minutes after he joined the Congress, former BSP leader Naseemuddin Siddiqui had some embarrassing moments in the presence of top Congress leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad. While thanking the Congress and its leadership and singing praises for the Congress, Siddiqui took the name of the BSP twice in place of his new party. Old habits die hard, he admitted. Azad chipped in and, in a lighter vein, said he has one month time to forget the past.

Clearing The Air?

JUNIOR HRD Minister Upendra Kushwaha, whose Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) is a constituent of the NDA in Bihar, called on BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday. This set many tongues wagging within other NDA constituents from Bihar. Among the many guesses state leaders are making is that Kushwaha is trying to dispel the impression of him growing apart from the NDA. The impression had gained traction after RJD leaders joined the human chain organised by RLSP in Patna recently. It was not clear whether he was summoned by Shah or the RLSP chief himself called on to clear the air around it.

Number Game

BILLIONAIRE JEWELLER Nirav Modi may be facing charges of committing a fraud that runs into 12 digits, but when ED sleuths seized his luxury cars — suspected to have been acquired with the help of the business that he built from the money defrauded from the banks — they found many of them with single-digit number plates. Sources said it appears Modi not only spent the bank’s fortune on Rolls Royce and Mercedes but also on VIP numbers.

His Story

WHEN UNION Minister Ananth Kumar came to the new BJP office — he was the first one to meet journalists in the newly built headquarters — he had an emotional story to say about his personal attachment to the NDA government’s Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Jan Aushadhi Programme that is administered by his own Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. His mother had been diagnosed with cancer when he was a teenager and was prescribed some medicines — which cost Rs 20 per tablet then — twice a day. Being a railway employee with a salary of Rs 1,200 per month, his father had to choose between the meal for the family and medicines for his wife. He could provide only one tablet for her. This experience made him take up providing the essential medicines at affordable price as a mission, Kumar said.