Dependent on mentors

Staying on

Former prime minister Chandra Shekhar was evicted from his house and landscaped garden in Bhondsi, Haryana, two years ago on the high court’s orders. He was accused of misappropriating panchayat land. Chandra Shekhar’s elegantly designed house is today in urgent need of repairs and the garden has gone to seed since there is no one to look after it. The National Institute of Design (NID) was commissioned to draw up a plan in the hope that a hotel might start a resort on the premises, but so far there are no takers. One deterrent is that since Chandra Shekhar lives next door, he will make certain that not a single tree is cut for the proposed resort. After all, he spent a lot of time and money to green this once barren countryside.

Chandra Shekhar now lives in what was meant to be an art gallery nearby, which he has converted into his home by adding a toilet. An overzealous district officer served a notice to quit even this modest dwelling, but the local authorities had to backtrack and apologise after it was proved that the building was built on land bought by the Acharya Narendra Dev Trust.

No to dole

A Delegation of 21 BJD and BJP MPs called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week and presented a memorandum requesting Rs 10,000 crore for various development projects. The generally mild-mannered and courteous Singh lost his cool. ‘‘Where will I get the money from? Money doesn’t grow on trees that I can pluck it,’’ he protested. The delegation was taken aback by Singh’s subsequent remark. ‘‘These people don’t do any work.’’ It was not clear exactly who in the Government he was referring to.

The Orissa MPs’ grouse is that neighbouring Bihar has been treated far more sympathetically. Actually Laloo Prasad Yadav is furious that Singh has not delivered the largesse that he was hoping for. In fact, Laloo and Rabri pointedly stayed away from Singh’s press meeting in Patna to register their displeasure.

Write choice

Considering that Prime Minister Singh has an excellent draftsman in his media adviser Sanjaya Baru, a distinguished financial journalist, many are puzzled as to why a second speech writer, S N Sahu, has been inducted into the PMO. Sahu was an anonymous researcher in the Parliament library until former President K R Narayanan asked Parliament to prepare a speech for the 50th anniversary of Indian Independence. Sahu did such a good job that Narayanan took him on as his press secretary. The new speech writer, like Baru, studied at JNU and he has been inducted reportedly at the suggestion of the Left, some of whom are wary of Baru because of the praise he once lavished on former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s statesmanship in an article. Sahu, it is felt, would ensure the correct ideological balance in the PM’s speeches.

Tea tease

During his first few days in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi was surrounded by eager journalists who pleaded that they wanted to get to know him better. ‘‘Call us for tea,’’ suggested one pushy correspondent. ‘‘Sure,’’ replied Rahul good-naturedly and promptly invited them to his house a day later. A large media contingent showed up at 10 Janpath at the appointed hour, only to be informed by the reception office that they had not been given any instructions about admitting journalists. Last week newspersons who had covered Rahul’s campaign in Amethi got a call from his office inviting them to tea the following day. The only problem was that the journalists were in Delhi and the tea party in Amethi.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s dinner invitation for journalists last month was even more tantalising than Rahul’s. Reddy called the Delhi press corps for a dinner he was throwing for Sonia Gandhi and the top brass of the Government. But the journalists were confined to a room in the house without any dinner as the security guards refused to allow them to move into the garden and mingle with the guests.

Excess baggage

M M Aggarwal was an Independent Rajya Sabha MP from UP who in the last regime allied himself with the NDA. But last month he was introduced to Sonia Gandhi at a UPA dinner as a member of the ruling coalition. The switchover is a fallout of the Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand where one of Chief Minister Arjun Munda’s ministers, Madhu Singh, was sacked after reports that he had received Rs 50 lakh from a businessman for securing 10 MLA signatures for a Rajya Sabha nomination. Word of Singh’s involvement leaked out after he failed to deliver his side of the bargain. Aggarwal, whose term had expired, was apparently scouting around for a fresh RS seat. Now his detractors in the Congress feel that considering his checkered history, they can do without his support.