Fly on the wall

Dining with defaulters
The Central Vigilance Commission has hit upon a new idea. It is in the process of issuing guidelines to Union Ministers and top bureaucrats on whom to dine with. It has been found that some of them frequent late-night parties with defaulters who owe crores of rupees to the ministries and departments under them. These defaulters flex their muscles later in the corridors of power. If Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha have dined with industrialists who owe crores to banks, I&B Minister Arun jaitley too dines with DD’s defaulters.

Defence deals
Defence Minister George Fernandes’ next target could be Mulayam Singh Yadav. One of the reasons for his ordering a roving CVC probe into the deals since 1985 seems to be to fix the Samajwadi Party leader. There had been hardly any major defence deal during the 15-year period barring the Bofors, HDW submarine, Sukoi-30 fighter aircraft and three ships and two submarines from Russia. The first two purchases are already under probeby the CBI while the last three deals were cleared during Mulayam Singh’s tenure as Defence Minister. The Defence Ministry under George is yet to make any major purchase. The buzz is that he wants to silence all those who may raise a hue and cry when the ministry goes in for a buying spree.

Private dinner
For a change, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani did not discuss politics when they met over dinner last week. Advani threw a private dinner for his “elder brother” at his Pandara Park residence and Vajpayee quietly drove in with his foster family. It was after months that the two got together to exchange views on poetry, journalism and host of other apolitical issues including personal problems. After all, both were journalists when they began their careers in politics.

Wooing Sushma
Desperate to make a dent in Karnataka after the drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP high command wanted to snatch the Bellary seat vacated by Sonia Gandhi. AnanthKumar, Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, was deputed to persuade Sushma Swaraj to contest again. Ananth Kumar went to the extent of saying that the PM is keen on her being a member of the Lok Sabha and this was an opportunity for her to be in Parliament. But Sushma did not agree.