7, Safdarjung Road, which was sealed after midnight revelries last week ended in a tragedy, was earlier occupied by Atal Behari Vajpayee. Pramod Mahajan wasted no time occupying the bungalow as soon as Vajpayee moved to the Prime Minister’s residence at Race Course in 1998. Pramod hoped that since the house had brought good fortune to its earlier occupant, it would do the same for him.Vajpayee had stayed twice at Safdarjung Road, once as leader of the Opposition in 1996 and earlier as foreign minister in Morarji Desai’s government in 1977. But most of his political life was spent at 5, Raisina Road, and as soon as he moved out of that bungalow, Murli Manohar Joshi moved in. Neither house seems to have been particularly lucky for subsequent occupants. In fact, after the recent tragedies in the Mahajan family, 7, Safdarjung Road, is probably dubbed as unlucky.Ministers in search of suitable accommodation may no longer be willing to move into the house even though Mahajan had done it up with all the latest flashy fittings with little concern for CPWD rules. The much-talked-about Jacuzzi, which was the scene of action the previous Friday, was one of his many additions to the imperial-era bungalow.Thakurva can’t steal showHRD Minister Arjun Singh who is in the eye of the reservation storm does not believe in shooting off his mouth but weighs his words very carefully. The Election Commission tried in vain to pull him up for mooting OBC quotas after the Assembly campaign had begun. A scrutiny of the television tapes and newspapers, however, showed that Singh had spoken very carefully and it was journalists who had construed much more from his words than what he actually said. To make doubly sure that he cannot be caught on the wrong foot, Singh takes the precaution of always tape-recording his interviews when he speaks to the media or delivers speeches.Once Singh had set the ball rolling, the OBC leaders in the UPA could not afford to be seen taking a backseat. Otherwise, as Lalu Prasad Yadav put it, ‘‘the thakurva’’ would take all the credit.MP, not freeloaderFormer chairman of the Minorities Commission Tarlochan Singh complains that the present ID card for MPs is a disgrace and it is embarrassing to display it at home or abroad since it makes the MP look simply like a freeloader concerned only with free railway trips. The General Purpose Committee of the Rajya Sabha, of which Tarlochan Singh is a member, has endorsed his proposal that the card should be drastically reworded to make it in conformity with ID cards of MPs in other parts of the world.Oops, Reds see redThe CPI(M) has hit out at the Election Commission for posting on its website the names of 10 party MPs facing complaints of violating the Office of Profit provisions. The complainants, who are all from the rival Trinamool Congress, have still not provided additional documentary evidence to substantiate their charges. Their plea is that the West Bengal government is dragging its feet on giving details of the emoluments of the posts cited and the length of time for which the MPs held the position. This contrasts with the speed with which the UP government replied in a similar case concerning Amar Singh. In fact, the EC hearings as to whether Amar Singh should be disqualified have already begun.The EC is caught in the middle of West Bengal politics. The CPI(M) damns it for not dismissing the allegations against its MPs outright. The other side damns it for not adjudicating more speedily. A resident of Delhi’s Bengali enclave of Chittaranjan Park wrote an angry letter to the EC questioning the commission’s delay in acting on the complaints against the Left MPs and threatened to file a PIL. Nilotpal Basu, who was the most vocal CPI(M) MP complaining against the EC, can take satisfaction that at least his name was removed from the rogue’s gallery on the website since he has just completed his Rajya Sabha term.New world (affairs) orderAdditional Secretary Talmeez Ahmed who was eased out of the Ministry of Petroleum after Mani Shankar Aiyar’s departure is trying manfully to revive the ailing Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) of which he has been appointed director general. The once prestigious institution founded by Tej Bahadur Sapru in 1943 fell on hard times after Congressman Harcharan Josh managed to grab control of the council’s general body by simply enrolling scores of new members in the 1980s. During Josh’s long tenure the MEA and genuine scholars were out in the cold.Ahmed has an uphill task ahead of him. He is trying to once again convert the council into a platform for speeches, seminars and discussions. A proposal to convert the ICWA into a club on the lines of the India International Centre has been rejected. The library is being checked out to find whether historic papers are missing from the archives. Ahmed maintains that no documents on the Bandung conference are lost, although there were reports to this effect in the media.Curiously, Josh, who was ejected by the last government after an ordinance, is not in the doghouse. He was recently appointed as a member of the Minority Commission.Hard Nat to crackNatwar Singh is convinced that someone in the government is out to get him by trying to fix his son Jagat and his associates. While Singh does not quite spell it out, it is clear he is pointing an accusing finger at no less than the Finance Minister himself. ‘‘They can try till kingdom come, they won’t get anything,’’ Singh asserts confidently. He claims he is sustained in the present crisis by his sense of humour and the fact that he is a man of many interests. ‘‘If I spent all my time thinking about this (Volcker interrogations) I would go nuts.’’
