Fly on the Wall

Gunning for CBI chiefChief Vigilance Commissioner N.Vittal is gunning for the removal of CBI director R.K. Raghavan. The other day at a s...

Gunning for CBI chief
Chief Vigilance Commissioner N.Vittal is gunning for the removal of CBI director R.K. Raghavan. The other day at a seminar, he went to the extent of saying how could corruption be fought effectively if a top sleuth passes half of his time in Chennai. Since Raghavan8217;s wife refuses to move to the Capital, he spends his weekends there.

The CBI has lately become a sleeping dog making hardly any impact in the fight against corruption. With most politically sensitive cases including the Jain-hawala and the JMM bribery cases failing, the agency is nabbing junior officials.

Off air
If Sonia Gandhi is offering to co-operate with the Vajpayee government on economic reforms, hardliners in the BJP are working overtime to create bad blood between the two. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was invited by FICCI to inaugurate a recent seminar and the Leader of the Opposition was to deliver her speech the next day. Both programmes were to be telecast live. The organisers perhapsmade the mistake of not arranging for the live telecast of the Home Minister8217;s speech on DD-1 the same evening. Sonia8217;s live speech was cancelled much to the embarrassment of the organisers on the ground that the DD had never shown live the speech of the Leader of the Opposition.

What a party!
Vice-President Krishan Kant hosted a dinner for foreign delegates who came to attend a seminar on Indira Gandhi. The guests found to their horror that only two tables with a dozen chairs have been laid out for the VVIPs while others were supposed to remain standing throughout the two-hour function.

Even Kant8217;s VVIP guests were embarrassed. The next day, however, Sonia Gandhi made a perfect seating arrangements for all of them and served a lavish spread. The food came from the Oberoi at a discount.

Warm gesture
Diwali 1999 proved costly to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s official host at 3 Race Course Raod, Mrs Kaul. At least 800 boxes of sweets and gifts were personally ordered by herfor the entire SPG personnel, CRPF, CPWD and 140 others deputed to look after the PM round the clock. She called everybody and handed them over the Diwali gift personally. The personnel were overwhelmed by the gesture. They do not remember anybody else except former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar doing such a thing.

Race begins
Arjun Singh, M.L. Fotedar and K. Natwar Singh three Sonia Gandhi loyalists are set to make to the Rajya Sabha in the year 2000 from MP, Delhi and Rajasthan respectively if the writ of the party high command continues to run.

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Arjun Singh8217;s two-year cooling-off period after the Lok Sabha loss period would be over by March 2000. Fotedar did not contest at all and Natwar Singh opted out in favour of his son who lost from Bharatpur.

Digvijay Singh is keen to bring Karan Singh from MP as he had quit his RS seat to contest against Atal Behari Vajpayee. The move is aimed at keeping Arjun Sigh out. Another Arjun baiter, Vidya Charan Shukla who did not get a Lok Sabha seat,is also in the queue. So are Mahendra Kumari, R.K. Malviya, Ajit Jogi and Balram Jhakhar.

In Delhi, the Congress is expected to win all the three seats. If one seat goes to Fotedar, the tussle for the remaining two has hotted up with Ambika Soni, Subhash Chopra, R.K. Dhawan, Vishwa Bandhu Gupta, Meira Kumar throwing their hats in the ring.

Acting with foresight
Laloo Prasad Yadav see-ms to have seen the writing on the wall. He applied to the Bihar Bar Council to register himself as a lawyer to practise in September even before the results for the Lok Sabha polls were out. Now he has got the licence and intends to practise law.