Fly on the wall

The rising sonThis time, Rahul Gandhi won't be merely waving to the cheering crowds along with his sister Priyanka Vadra. He is preparing...

The rising son

This time, Rahul Gandhi won8217;t be merely waving to the cheering crowds along with his sister Priyanka Vadra. He is preparing for his debut speech for the Congress.

The venue, date and duration of Rahul8217;s first formal public address are being decided. Rahul, however, will not make the speech in the first leg of the campaign. One of the reasons is that his Hindi is weak and diction needs improvement.

Leaders who have been interacting with him at 10 Janpath whisper that he is hellbent on clearing the rot around Sonia. He feels that the senior leaders misled his mother in April and forced an early election.

Policing politics

Retired CBI directors are flocking to politics. Except D.R. Karthikeyan, none of the recent directors landed post-retirement jobs.

So K. Vijayarama Rao joined the Telegu Desam Party. He may even make it to Parliament. His successor, Joginder Singh is not lagging behind. He met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani. But theproblem was it was not possible to find a safe seat for him in Delhi. In Punjab, the Akali Dal was unwilling to spare an extra seat for the BJP to accommodate the former super cop.8217; He will try his luck after returning from a junket in the UK and the US.

Another retired CBI chief, R.C. Sharma, is often seen at 10 Janpath these days. His name was even considered as party8217;s candidate from Karnal when Bhajan Lal expressed his desire to move to Faridabad. But Sharma was not so keen, he is happy to be part of morning tea circle at 10 Janpath.

Lobbying time

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The next government may still be far away but the lobbying for renomination to the Rajya Sabha has begun.

Aspirants, most of them close to the BJP, are knocking at the door of the Prime Minister. Social worker Nirmala Deshpande and actress Vaijayantimala Bali who were nominated for six years by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government are keen on another term. Two editors are trying to fill the slot vacated by Maulana Habibul Rehman, an Andhrajournalist nominated by Rao. While one of them is lobbying the Jhanewalan headquarters of the RSS, the other is directly in touch with the PM.

Crowd-pulling flight

Sonia8217;s managers averted a major embarrassment when she visited Orissa last week. She flew from Varanasi and as soon as her aircraft landed Jailguda, Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang was virtually in tears. The heavy downpour had made the crowd flee and except for a handful of party workers there was no one on the site, he told Sonia. Another bad headline in the newspapers?Gamang suggested that instead of waiting indefinitely, the rally be cancelled. But the strategy team thought of a novel idea. The pilot of a small aircraft was asked if he could have a fun ride in the area. The obliging pilot made two sorties over the tribal belt. And soon, Sonia found a crowd of 20,000.

Tell-all tapes

Political circles in the Capital are agog with rumours about the existence of tapes of a conversation of Bahujan Samaj Party leaders Mayawatiand Kanshi Ram. In the tapes, it is said, Mayawati lashes out at Kanshi Ram. A former general secretary of the BSP, who was close to Mayawati before joining the Congress, is reported to be in possession of the tapes.