Thackeray muses, and muses again

On the eve of his 78th birthday, while his Sainiks planned cricket matches and cultural celebrations, Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray de...

On the eve of his 78th birthday, while his Sainiks planned cricket matches and cultural celebrations, Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray decided to spring a surprise. His cleverly-timed musings, serialised in party mouthpiece Saamna, made public his desire for a dream pact with NCP president and arch rival Sharad Pawar. ‘‘If only Pawar and I were united, no one would dare go against us,’’ he noted. And although the NCP rejected the idea, Thackeray simply repeated his wish once again in the last part of his musings.

Eye on Bihar’s polls

Wahan ka paani yahaan ke doodh se achcha hai,’’ reminisces 32-year-old Sanjay Jha, a tailor, about his home district of Madhvani in Bihar. But like the countless others, he too has left his native state in search of a better living. From their crammed, filthy, slush-ridden quarters in areas like Bihari Tikra Road, in Mumbai’s western suburb of Kandivili, they now watch the run-up to Laloo’s February fight.

Barring a few exceptions, most of the migrants nurse dreams of returning to Bihar, if only it was half as developed as Maharashtra. Most are hoping that a change of government back home will work the magic. Maybe it’s time Mumbai started praying for a better Bihar too.

Much ado over a bridge

With so much talk about Maharashtra’s mounting debts and financial problems, invitations to inaugurations of infrastructure projects come as a welcome surprise. And they seem to be highly sought after too, even if it is the inauguration of a 685-metre flyover in suburban Powai that is being completed after eight long years.

Jostling for the photo-op in Powai were Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, two public works ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Anil Deshmukh, a minister of state for housing, a minister of social justice, and even a minister of state for medical education. None of them were part of the original team which decided to construct the bridge. So Sardar Tara Singh, BJP MLA from Bhandup, turned up as the sole representative of the erstwhile government which had planned the bridge.