Snippets

Titanic Cong'It was the turn of serious, old RSS die-hards to say, Oh, what a movie!'. At a special screening of Titanic at an Ahmedabad c...

Titanic Cong8217;
It was the turn of serious, old RSS die-hards to say, Oh, what a movie!8217;. At a special screening of Titanic at an Ahmedabad cinema hall, Rajshri, BJP delegates poured in to see the James Cameron classic about a sinking ship. Some of them had not seen a movie for almost 25 years. It may have come as a culture shock if the last movie you had seen had Meena Kumari singing love duets with Raj Kumar without actually coming within 20 feet of each other.

A precocious DeCaprio painting a nude Winslet with the only common fact of not touching may boggle the mind. Do you see a parallel in politics? That one was right up their street. 8220;Yes, the Congress is a sinking ship like the Titanic,8221; pat came the reply.

Contented leader
Thakreji may have started promoting his old faithfuls from his home state, Madhya Pradesh, already. Kisan Morcha president Chandrashekhar Sahu, MP, was listed to speak after Sushma Swaraj at the council meeting. Another one listed was KarunaShukla, MLA and niece of the Prime Minister. The MP contingent was there in full force as well. Anyone who has any sort of ambition was seen hovering around. A senior leader from the state, when asked what were his expectations, simply said: 8220;We the state have given the party a PM and a president, what else is left.8221;

Change of guard
It was amidst chanting of Vedic mantras that LK Advani garlanded Kushabhau Thakre, signalling the change of guard. Earlier, the session began with singing of Vande Matram. Next, Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel welcomed the BJP top brass. He presented Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with a garland, coconut and angavastram.

As he moved on to Advani, the Union Home Minister advised him to welcome Thakre first, as he was the new party president. But Keshubhai reminded Advani that he was still the president; Thakre would become president only when Advani completed the formality of garlanding him. Advani agreed. Keshubhai then welcomed Advani, followed byThakre, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sikandar Bakht. He also presented them big, framed pictures of the Somnath temple.

Doctors8217; pains
Government doctors on duty at the convention have a long tale of woes. They had been summoned from different parts of the state, but many hadn8217;t been allotted a place to stay. 8220;I have to sleep in this stall only8221;, complained one of them. Another grumbled that while there seemed to be plenty of food for everyone, they had to stand in queues 8220;like beggars8221;. A third pointed out that there was no bed to examine patients, and not even a curtain which they could use as partition. Yet another said that most medicines were meant to be kept in 8220;cool, dry place8221;, but their stock was exposed to hot sun. 8220;Many of these medicines will lose their potency8221;, he remarked. Surely, the organisers could do something about it.