Congress UP the down staircase

Congress circles are at a loss to understand when this forgotten figure from the past became a contender for PCC president in a state where the party desperately needs to revive if it hopes to be within striking distance of government formation in the next Lok Sabha elections. It seems that the deadly trio of Arjun Singh, M L Fotedar and Mohsina Kidwai quietly sprung him on 10 Janpath when the tussle between high profile aspirants Salman Khursheed and Pramod Tiwari reached uncompromising heights. That Congress (T) connection again. Munna was the first UP leader to join this band of Sonia loyalists when they split from Narasimha Rao’s Congress in 1995.

The ideal MoS assignment

While others are still assessing their losses and gains after last week’s Cabinet and party reshuffle, the new Minister of State for External Affairs, Digvijay Singh, knows that he’s emerged a clear winner. He’s out of the Railways Ministry where he was being slowly suffocated by fellow Samata leader Nitish Kumar because of factional politics. He’s in the MEA, a ministry he handled during the shortlived Chandrashekhar Government and loved. And best of all, his new boss is old friend and fellow Chandrashekhar acolyte, Yashwant Sinha.

There were immediate gains. Sinha proved generous to his younger colleague when he sliced the MEA pie. He’s kept the all important P-5 countries and neighbours for himself. Singh’s been given the rest of the world. Few ministers have shared so much with their juniors. In retrospect, Vajpayee seems to have been grooming Singh for his new job. He made him Minister-in-Waiting for Musharraf as well as Nepal’s King Gyanendra; he sent him as his special envoy to Sri Lanka and more recently, he led the Indian delegation to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meeting.

A sixtieth birthday, Sangh style

The shashtipurthi (sixtieth birthday) of RSS leader Madan Das was celebrated in Mumbai over the weekend in typical no fuss, no frills Sangh style. A simple function, attended by a select gathering of around 200 old friends and ABVP comrades of Madan Das, was organised at a school in Dadar in central Mumbai. It’s a different matter that many of them have reached high places in government. That evening, they were all simply old comrades. Among those who attended were Sports Minister Uma Bharati, Urban Development Minister Ananth Kumar, Minister of State in the PMO Vijay Goel and Minister of State for Coal and Law Ravi Shankar Prasad. Controversial former BJP general secretary Govindacharya showed up after a long time. The highlight of the evening was a short skit by an old ABVP worker who did a wonderful job of mimicking Madan Das, much to the amusement of the Sangh boss.

After Narayanan, the job hunt

With President K R Narayanan scheduled to bow out of Rashtrapati Bhawan next week, his Secretariat is scrambling for soft landings. Shamsher Sharief, who has functioning as his secretary after Gopal Gandhi’s departure, is being tipped for an assignment in the Asian Development Bank in Manila. Press Secretary S N Sahu is likely to revert to the Rajya Sabha from where Narayanan had wooed him to research his speeches. The permanent staff is waiting with bated breath to see who the next President brings with him.