Fly On The Wall

Before his meeting with the President, Jagmohan had been briefed by the BJP high command 8212; Atal Behari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani included 8212; and told not to open his mouth on the issue. The BJP leadership was peeved over the fact that the President chose to summon a former Communication Ministerto discuss the issue.

Forgotten friend

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had reason to be upset last week. A long-time friend of the Gandhis, Amitabh Bachhan, along with Kapil Dev, was an organiser of a Kargil benefit match between film stars and cricketers sponsored by the Sahara group. However, Sonia was not personally invited for the function.

The limelight was stolen by the Prime Minister and the entire show was dominated by the saffronwallas. Why? Income Tax cases against Bachhan were cleared during Chandra Shekhar8217;s regime and ABCL was declared a sick unit just last week. Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh is said to have helped Bachchan in both the issues. Now that Singh and Sonia cannot see eye to eye, Amitabh chose not to sent her a personal invitation. Gone are the memories of the good old days when Sonia stayed with the Bachchans for weeks before getting engaged to Rajiv.

More from Ram

Ram Jethmalani remains in the news. After rocking the Urban Affairs Ministry duringhis one-year stint, he has decided to repeat it at the Shashtri Bhawan housing the Law Ministry. Though the PM is yet to clear his proposal to appoint S.B. Jaisinghani as the new Solicitor General of India, Jethmalani has decided to show the door to over 300 standing counsel of the Government of India in one go. His predecessor M. Thambi Durai of the AIADMK had selected nearly 400 standing counsel to represent the Centre.

Jethmalani has decided to drastically cut the list. He wanted to bring the list down to 50. But political and other compulsions forced him to restrict the number to 100-odd.

Importance of being Laloo

Stories about the first-ever Sonia-Laloo Prasad Yadav dinner meeting last month are finally trickling out.

At the end of the dinner at 10 Janpath, Laloo reportedly told Sonia: 8220;You are the best prime ministerial candidate the country has today. I am still baffled why Mulayam Singhji did not realise it.8221; After the desserts, Priyanka thanked him for all that he had said. But Laloohad more to say: 8220;But Soniaji, tell me what would happen if the best does not become the PM? Will you think of this worst choice ?8221;

Before Sonia could recover, Laloo, however, clarified: 8220;Let me assure you, there will be no hitch this time. We are getting 300 seats.8221;

Stumped by EC

The announcement of the poll schedule by the Election Commission on a Sunday left some ministries high and dry. These ministries were set to bring in a number of proposals for the Cabinet8217;s clearance two days later. Among them was the proposal to purchase 50-seater aircraft by the Civil Aviation Ministry. The Power Ministry had also processed some projects for clearance of the Cabinet. Even the EC had given indications that it would come out with the announcement on Wednesday. It now transpires that the EC got alarmed by the speed with which the Vajpayee government cleared the telecom package, disinvestment and other projects in a single day. Now the government cannot take any decision of consequence without thepermission of the EC.