Delhi Confidential: Eyeing Tharoor’s seat

Hectic lobbying for the seat already seems to have begun even though Tharoor was recently appointed a party spokesperson.

According to reports, Shashi Tharoor was rushed to the hospital after he complained of chest pain.

Hectic lobbying seems to have begun in Kerala

Given the uncertainty of Union minister Shashi Tharoor’s electoral future, ticket aspirants for his Thiruvananthapuram seat seem to be making a beeline to the top leadership and the Kerala PCC. Hectic lobbying for the seat already seems to have begun even though Tharoor was recently appointed a party spokesperson in an indication that the party is willing to stand by him.

DIFFERENT VALUES
While socialist leader Raj Narain, who defeated Indira Gandhi in the 1977 elections, did not allow his sons to join politics taking a moral high ground against dynasty, his grandsons are not hesitant to leverage his name. Uttar Pradesh BJP unit chief Laxmi Kant Vajpayee Monday inducted Narain’s grandson Dharmendra, an insurance agent, into the party. Dharmendra chose to ignore the fact that his induction was solely on the basis of his credentials as an inheritor of Narain’s name and appeared unmindful of the socialist leader’s opposition to “dual membership” of RSS leaders that had caused the fall of the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government.

CD SOLUTION
After complaints by MPs regarding limited availability of papers supplied during the Parliament session, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have asked the secretaries of all ministries to provide documents in digital format. The Ministry of Home Affairs recently supplied a CD containing the details, papers to be laid and other documents from the budget session in 2013 till the winter session. The aim is also to develop a digital repository that can be easily accessed by MPs.

Playing safe
Facing criticism for a series of accidents involving several frontline warships in the past few weeks, the Navy is attempting a face-saver with a “special briefing” on the “operational environment” in which it works. The session on accidents is being held at the Kota house on Tuesday afternoon by Assistant Chief of Naval Staff Rear Admiral R B Pandit. However, the Navy that has left room for ambiguity on the series of accidents by not coming on record in the past is again taking a safe stand by announcing that the briefing is on “background”, which means that the officer cannot be formally quoted or held accountable for what he says.

NO SHOW
The Defence Ministry’s last-minute decision to exclude Finmeccanica from the forthcoming DefExpo in the Capital next month is being seen as an ominous sign for the Italian company whose subsidiary AgustaWestland is under the scanner in the VVIP chopper deal scandal. Though AgustaWestland had been excluded from the event at the beginning, the parent company was initially allowed to participate and even paid to set up stalls. However, it seems that the last-minute exclusion of the entire group was decided after the ministry was asked why AgustaWestland had not been allowed to participate. The late decision is a major blow to Finmeccanica and its subsidiaries as all plans had been finalised for the event. In fact, a large calibre naval gun from the Oto Melara group is believed to have arrived in India for the show.

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