Slipping into Italian

The MPs holding offices of profit who have been bailed out by the Parliament Bill amending the office of profit OoP provisions of the Prevention of Disqualification Act should not celebrate, just yet. The BJP8217;s legal eagle, Arun Jaitley, is planning to challenge the amendment in the Supreme Court after the vacation. Jaitley8217;s argument is that according to the original Act, once an MP holds an office of profit, he automatically stands disqualified; the Election Commission has no role but simply to declare the vacancy. Parliament therefore cannot legislate on this provision with retrospective effect.

Also the recent amendment exempting a large number of offices from disqualification is against the spirit and the objective of the Act. Why, for instance, should chairpersons from a large number of development councils in West Bengal not be subject to the law whereas MPs who are heads of development councils in the rest of the country can be stripped of their membership remains unexplained.

Although some of Jaitley8217;s party MPs are in danger of losing their seats if the amendment is struck down by the court, the BJP has not tried to prevent Jaitley from pursuing the case.

Weak-kneed position

For decades the tradition at Congress Working Committee meetings was that members squatted on gaddas on the floor and used bolsters as backrests. But as age has caught up with several senior leaders in the party, the old Gandhian practice has been shelved. During recent CWC meetings at Sonia Gandhi8217;s residence, the Congress chief has placed chairs around a table for the convenience of elderly members. For instance, Arjun Singh has a knee problem and has to be assisted when getting up, while some others are arthritic. There is also a disconcerting tendency of dhotis flapping up when members scramble to rise.

No birthday greetings

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh8217;s Cabinet colleagues from his own party did not release a single advertisement to congratulate him on completing two years in office on Monday. Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde woke up after four days and his ministry belatedly released an advertisement. In contrast, several ministers from allied parties, including Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan Lok Jan Shakti, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh RJD and Shipping Minister T R Baalu DMK, brought out full-page advertisements to laud Singh8217;s second anniversary in office.

Once bitten, twice shy

Considering that till recently Yashwant Sinha was considered a BJP rebel who was contemplating quitting the party and raking up Jaswant Singh8217;s trip to Kandahar, the decision of the party high command to use him as an intermediary to woo back another dissident, Babulal Marandi, seems odd. It is unlikely that Marandi, who has threatened to resign his seat in Parliament and sent his resignation from the BJP, is going to shelve his plans to float a regional party in Jharkhand thanks to Sinha8217;s persuasion.

Though Jharkhand politics is once again on the boil with Marandi8217;s recent moves, one person who is keeping his own counsel is Governor Sibte Razi. After getting into hot water for his activist role in trying to install Shibu Soren as chief minister, Razi has learnt his lesson. When asked to comment on affairs in his state he remarked, 8216;8216;I hear everything but say nothing.8217;8217; Doodh ka jala chaach bhi phoonk phoonk kar peeta hai.

Shotgun tactics

There are actually two disgruntled Sinhas whom the BJP is anxious to mollify so that they remain within the fold. Yashwant Sinha has been appointed as chief of the party8217;s foreign affairs cell, while Shatrughan Sinha has been asked to head the BJP8217;s cultural cell. The Shotgun is already buttressing his position by claiming that this means that all potential recruits to the BJP from the world of arts and cinema will have to be first vetted by him. Since Sinha, like all stars, even ageing ones, likes to hog centrestage, there may be little scope for big-name recruitments to the BJP from Bollywood in the near future.

Creaming the system
When the Left initially pushed for extending OBC reservations in higher education it stoutly maintained that the creamy layer of the community should not be entitled to the facility, which was meant only for the poor and underprivileged. But on the last day of the Parliament session, Lalu Prasad Yadav was more candid. Asked if the creamy layer should be excluded from the proposed legislation on OBC, he replied in his usual blunt manner, 8216;8216;How is that possible? Is the rickshaw-puller8217;s son going to utilise the quota in an engineering college?8217;8217; Significantly, CPIM general secretary Prakash Karat, who had earlier stressed that the creamy layer would not be included in reservations, was silent on this aspect when expounding on reservations in his speech at the UPA-Left coordination committee.

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