Aura or overawed

Sonia Gandhi8217;s rare press meets are arranged so that instead of addressing all journalists together, media representatives are placed a...

Sonia Gandhi8217;s rare press meets are arranged so that instead of addressing all journalists together, media representatives are placed at different tables and served tea and snacks while she moves from table to table chatting with her guests. But at her garden party for the media last week, things did not work out as planned. Many journalists anxious to monopolise Gandhi8217;s attention got up from their chairs and accompanied her from one table to the next. With so many correspondents trailing her and hanging on to her every word, the tea tables were half empty. The Congress leaders placed at each table to look after the guests, including Pranab Mukherjee, Abhishek Singhvi, Divendra Dwivedi and Jairam Ramesh, were left with no one to talk to.

Ironically, it is not just Congress office-bearers who shoo away journalists who pose irreverent questions, many of the scribes are equally protective of the Congress boss and continue to be awestruck by her constant improvement in Hindi and self-confidence.

Silent warfare

The Department of Personnel has written to CBI Director U S Mishra asking him to clarify whether the views attributed to him in an interview to a Delhi newspaper last month were, in fact, his own. The Government feels that the CBI director overstepped his brief by claiming that the autonomy of the CBI was a myth and that there were many pressures on the bureau. He even referred to the cases being closed against a former petroleum minister presumably Satish Sharma under pressure.

Mishra who has seven months left as director cannot be removed since he has a protected tenure under the new rules put in place by the Supreme Court. The CBI chief has been a thorn in the UPA Government8217;s side from the start. One of the CBI8217;s first acts after the installation of the Manmohan Singh government was to issue a red corner notice to Ottavio Quattrochhi. Far from being cowed down by the Government8217;s disapproval, the director seems to have gone into overdrive, doggedly following up the cases against Mayawati for disproportionate assets. With the BSP chief now threatening to withdraw support to the UPA Government, the Government is hard put to explain that the CBI is not acting at its bidding.

Parallels are sought to be drawn to Joginder Singh who as CBI chief registered cases against the government8217;s allies and helped bring about the downfall of the Deve Gowda government. But the comparison is not apt, Singh was a maverick, Mishra a conscientious professional.

Open Window policy

The majority of the Vanniyar community which is the backbone of Dr S Ramadoss8217;s PMK did not cast its vote in the recent TN Assembly by-elections. Their abstention helped swell Jayalalithaa8217;s victory margins. When DMK Chief M Karunanidhi was asked about the possibility of both the PMK and MDMK quitting the UPA and joining forces with the AIADMK before the Assembly elections next year, Karunanidhi retorted tartly that every house had a window and the shutters were open for people to come and go.

Uncommon Yadav

At the farewell for Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy, the new CEC B B Tandon pointed out that the first names of all three ECs, Krishnamurthy, Gopalaswamy and Brij Behari, were names for Lord Krishna. His remark was greeted with laughter. The subtext of Tandon8217;s observation being that Yadavs whose traditional occupation was herding cows are known to be devotees of Lord Krishna. But Laloo Prasad Yadav is the exception, who, instead of devotion, has hit out at the Krishnas in the Commission.

In father8217;s footsteps

Story continues below this ad

Is Opposition leader L K Advani8217;s daughter Pratibha, a television anchor, planning to follow in her father8217;s footsteps? Last month, Pratibha started writing on cinema for the RSS8217;s English language publication Organiser. One of her pieces was even translated into the RSS8217;s Hindi mouthpiece Panchjanya. Old-timers recall that in his youth, Advani apart from being a politician was also a journalist and regularly did film reviews for Organiser.

Look who8217;s talking

The Big Brother of the Left, the CPM, often winces at RSP MP Abani Roy8217;s fondness for publicity since the Delhi media assumes that he speaks for the entire Left. But the CPM is not in a position to rein in the outspoken Roy, whose quips garner the RSP publicity out of all proportion to its modest strength of three MPs in the Lok Sabha. Recently, when Roy was in hospital for a week, another RSP MP Manoj Bhattacharya showed that he too has a flair for media relations. His letters criticising the UPA government were leaked to a correspondent and made the front page of a national newspaper. This infuriated Roy who complained that he was the only spokesperson in the party, and had the exclusive right to speak to the media on the RSP8217;s behalf.

Why shoot the messenger

It is not just Sonia Gandhi but several Congress Working Committee members who swear that Manmohan Singh never made his controversial remark about assessing his government as a mere 6/10 in his speech before the CWC. The PM8217;s media adviser Sanjay Baru is accused of inventing the remark. Actually the 6/10 assessment was made by Singh in the prepared text of his speech but since he read out only a summary of it, this point got omitted. When Baru was asked for the text of his speech he supplied the original text. Singh, meanwhile, has defended Baru by making clear that the grading was simply his own perception.