Ayodhya fearsHome Minister L.K. Advani, Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh and a number of ruling party leaders are jittery as the Liberhan Commission inquiring into the Ayodhya incidents of December 6, 1992 is set to submit its report this month.The BJP government in UP may have succeeded in delaying the trial. But Liberhan spurned all suggestions of getting further extension. He conveyed to the Union Home ministry that his report would be with the government by December 31. An indictment may even lead to Advani's exit from the government.All for animalsThe other day, Minister of state for Social Justice, Empowerment and Animals Maneka Gandhi silenced all those in the Cabinet who vociferously opposed her proposed Bill to prevent cruelty towards animals.If T.R. Balu was peeved for being completely in the dark about the proposals though he was a minister for Environment and Forests, Nitish Kumar also wondered how could the Agriculture Ministerbe not consulted. His argument was that the Animal Husbandry was part of his ministry.Maneka said cruelty towards animals had nothing to do with animal husbandry or with environment. If they had any concrete suggestions, she said, they could still send them. But there was no question of delaying the Bill. Finally, the Prime Minister suggested that the Cabinet clear the Bill in the present form and it could later be sent to the Select Committee of Parliament for amendments.Undoing a legacyNew Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley is systematically reversing some decisions taken by his predecessor Pramod Mahajan.He set up a review committee to look into the posting of Deepak Sandhu, Akshaye Rout and others abroad as AIR correspondents. He has also decided not to commission any programmes for DD-I and DD-II. Most of them have to be in the sponsored category. Even for the DD News channel where favourites were doled out crores of rupees in the shape of commissioned programmes arein for a shock. Jaitley has decided to reduce the commissioning fee by 35 per cent even for those programmes commissioned during the Mahajan era.But at the same time, he does not want to hurt his Cabinet colleague. One of the reasons for picking up Shunu Sen, a former Hindutan Lever marketing head, in the Prasar Bharati review committee was to keep Mahajan in good humour. Sen was part of the BJP's media blitz team during the 13th Lok Sabha poll campaign.Acting in advanceUpset over the findings of the Antony committee report blaming the Congress Campaign Committee for projecting Sonia Gandhi against Atal Behari Vajpayee's leadership and also for Haryana fiasco, Pranab Mukherjee has conveyed to the Congress president that he would not like to continue as AICC general secretary.Pranab must be seeing the writing on the wall a possible alliance between Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee in 2001 when West Bengal goes to the Assembly polls. Pranab, for the record, is in the anti-Mamatacamp.Flat troubleParliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan has a serious problem. He does not have a flat to stay in Mumbai. After the defeat of the BJP-Shiv Sena, his brother-in-law Gopinath Munde who had a ministerial bungalow wants back his Worli flat in which Mahajan's family is now staying.
