Joshi146;s Secular Space

The annual Urs festival celebrations at Ajmer Sharif had an unexpected visitor this year in Murli Manohar Joshi. This veteran saffronite not...

The annual Urs festival celebrations at Ajmer Sharif had an unexpected visitor this year in Murli Manohar Joshi. This veteran saffronite not only offered a chaddar at the Dargah, he also joined the mehfil for half an hour. No one can quite understand what8217;s bitten Joshi. So far, Vajpayee8217;s been the one to send a chaddar during the Urs festival every year. This year too, his faithful representative in Lucknow, Shiv Kumar, travelled to the dargah with Vajpayee8217;s offering. Political circles are speculating about the motive behind Joshi8217;s gesture. Is he, like Advani, trying to 8216;8216;secularise8217;8217; his image to make himself more acceptable to NDA partners? He certainly seems to be jostling with Advani for space in the ruling coalition. And he obviously feels there8217;s no better place to start than Ajmer.

For Rajnath, It Took One Village

The BJP8217;s latest political programme8212;BJP Gaon ki Or BJP Village-bound8212;seems doomed to failure if party general secretary and former UP Chief Minister Rajnath Singh8217;s experience is any indicator. Singh decided to flag off his rural tours in a village near Hapur in western UP. He entered with much fanfare, atop a tractor which he drove himself, and mounted the podium to address the gathering. Unfortunately, the villagers didn8217;t seem interested in hearing what he had to say. Instead, they pounded him with embarrassing questions about his party8217;s inability to deliver. Mayawati is going all out to help her Dalits, they said. What is the BJP doing for its voters, they asked. You say you are helpless because it8217;s not your government, but you are part of the coalition, they said. What are doing in the government if you can8217;t help us, they wanted to know. Singh had no answers to their queries. Their parting shot was a clear warning8212;this simply won8217;t do, watch out next time. The experience has shaken Singh so much that he8217;s not in any hurry to resume his tour.

In The Name Of JP

Veteran Janata ideologue Jayprakash Narayan8217;s birth centenary celebrations have their share of quirks. One such odd bit, which has raised eyebrows in the Janata family, is a programme slated to be held at Teen Murti Bhavan next week under the auspices of the Loknayak Jayprakash International Research Centre. Now, JP8217;s antipathy to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty was well known, as was Indira Gandhi8217;s dislike of JP. Both must be turning in their graves at plans to honour JP in Nehru8217;s old residence. Sonia Gandhi couldn8217;t be liking it one bit either. But with the Culture ministry determining the fate of Teen Murti House, the family no longer has a say in the functions held in its grounds. The programme is threatened by another controversy. At least two of the speakers listed on the invitation cards, journalists Kuldip Nayyar and Prabhash Joshi, will not attend the function. According to them, they never gave any commitment to the organisers who don8217;t seem to be well known among JP followers.