Snapshots

Bihar ChaloUnion Minister for Civil Aviation, Sharad Yadav has been camping in Bihar to take on arch foe Laloo Prasad Yadav in the Assembl...

Bihar Chalo
Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Sharad Yadav has been camping in Bihar to take on arch foe Laloo Prasad Yadav in the Assembly elections. That is understandable but, taking sycophancy to bizarre heights are some of the chiefs of subsidary bodies of the ministry who have hit upon strange pretexts to visit Patna. D V Gupta, Airports Authority of India chief, has just returned from dropping in on his minister, and other officials are not far behind. Says a senior aviation official wryly: 8220;Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan ministry headquarters has moved bag and baggage to Patna.8221;

Jats And Journalists
While going ahead with his please-all policy, Indian National Lok Dal chief Om Prakash Chautala had also promised that a party ticket for the forthcoming Haryana elections would be granted to a journalist. So on the occasion of the release of his party manifesto, journalists asked him why none of them had figured in the list.

Instead of replying to the question directly, Chautala went ahead to narrate an anecdote. 8220;A few centuries ago, Jats belonging to various kingdoms got together and jointly attacked a very mighty ruler,8221; Chautala said. The ruler was unfazed and while the Jats continued to move nearer his capital, the ruler did not flinch an inch. Finally, when the Jats reached his palace, the ruler placed his crown on a plate and went to offer it personally to the attackers. He, however, asked them as to who would like to wear the crown, upon which all the claimants within the Jat community started attacking each other, Chautala said.

So why don8217;t you decide who among the journalists is the consensus candidate, Chautala suggested. Obviously, there were no takers for that one.

Memory Block
The Haryana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to be suffering from amnesia. While it highlighted the achievements of the six-month-old Chautala Government in its manifesto for the State Assembly elections slated on February 22, it has completely forgotten its 38-month-long association with Bansi Lal in the State.

And that too, when it not only came to power alongwith Bansi Lal8217;s Haryana Vikas Party HVP, but was also part of its government. In contrast, its love-hate relationship with Chautala is barely six months old and yet the BJP is taking credit for his achievements, though it supports the government only from the outside.

Or does it indicate that the BJP does not have any achievements to highlight during the 38 months of its rule with Bansi Lal?

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Mining Money
He is no Sukh Ram, just a small-time contractor. Yet, he nearly matched the politico in his cash-stocking instincts. The enforcement staff of the Income Tax department was in for a rude shock a few days ago when it raided the premises of a Faridabad contractor dealing in mining contracts. Though acting on a specific tip-off that the contractor had stocked cash at his residence, the IT team recovered a couple of lakhs of rupees in the bathrooms.

They did not stop sniffing around, though, and their efforts paid off as they stumbled upon unaccounted cash as much as Rs 2.48 crore stocked in bundles and sacks which were kept hidden in lofts and cupboards.The unaccounted cash recovered was counted with the help of machines also recovered from the miner8217;s home. Though armed with machines, it took the bank staff a total of over 14 hours to count the booty. Even Doordarshan8217;s former Delhi kendra director M B Pahari would have been hard put to compete with him.