Last December, a video purportedly showing Sanjay Joshi, the BJP general-secretary in charge of organisation, in a sexual romp created a major flutter in the Sangh Parivar. Joshi, after all, was the RSS representative in the party. An inquiry was ordered and he was exonerated. Party president Rajnath Singh reinstated him to his old post. But it turns out it was a temporary reprieve. As much to save the face of the RSS as to bail Joshi out. The younger members of the Sangh Parivar have convinced RSS general-secretary Mohan Bhagwat that the accusation against Joshi was not without foundation, though they deplored the methods used to expose him. Last week, Joshi was summoned to the RSS headquarters at Jhandewalan and informed that he would no longer continue to play an active role in the party, even if he was not eased out immediately. The man slotted to take Joshi’s place as the RSS’s interface with the BJP is Ramlal Aggarwal, presently in charge of both the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkhand poll campaigns. Aggarwal, along with three other RSS pracharaks, was inducted into the BJP a few months back. Rat race for SPG Sonia Gandhi’s office at 24 Akbar Road, the Congress party headquarters, was opened and aired last month after lying locked for most of the last three years. A huge rat emerged, to the horror of party leaders. The SPG, which had sealed and sanitised the space in preparation for Gandhi’s visit was ordered to get rid of the rodent immediately. The room was fumigated, carpets taken out for sunning and furniture removed to figure out how it had gained entry.. This is not the first time the ace security force has had to work to protect its wards in this manner. The SPG once employed a snake charmer to rid the Race Course Road garden of snakes. A langur is hired to deal with the monkey menace at the PM’s residence. The SPG was even asked to stop the peacocks form nibbling up the PM’s plants.The high power operation to flush out the rat was only partially successful. Two days later, it resurfaced in Motilal Vohra’s office terrifying a journalist. Jammed! News of important Cabinet decisions is sometimes flashed by television channels even before the Cabinet meeting is over. Investigations into cell-phone transcripts traced the leak to a senior minister who was sending SMS messages to select senior journalists. However, when the fact was brought to the notice of the high-ups in government, they preferred to look the other way. But now, the Intelligence Bureau has placed a jammer near the Cabinet room in South Block. Piloting her own course Rama Pilot, wife of the late Rajest Pilot, threw a party last week to celebrate both basant panchmi and her birthday. The ambience was slightly different from the simple farmer’s lunches which her late husband used to host for the media, a tradition which her son Sachin Pilot still continues. Among the invitees at Rama’s power lunch were Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja, and senior party office-bearer Margaret Alva. Haryana Chief Minister Hooda’s wife and former MP Shama Singh were other high-profile guests. Rama was an active politician when her husband was still a pilot and not yet in the Congress party. She has been elected to both the Rajasthan Assembly and Parliament and was the first Congress OBC woman representative in the CWC. Though she may have stepped aside for the menfolk in her family, she continues to be active at the grassroots, particularly in Gujjar-dominated areas. Rama was among the first from her party to rush to Nithari when the news of the horrendous murders first broke, her husband’s native village being close by.
