The Union Home Ministry is in the final stages of preparing an order by which Rahul Gandhi’s security drill will be stepped up because of increased threat perception. If the order is passed, all traffic in one direction will be stopped at intersections when Rahul’s car is on the route. At present a similar drill is followed for Sonia Gandhi, L.K. Advani, and the vice-president. Along with Rahul Gandhi, Lalu Prasad Yadav and some others are also to have their security upgraded. That way, the order does not appear to be meant solely for the Gandhi scion and takes the sting out of possible criticism.In a spotThe Left’s singling out of Pranab Mukherjee for special mention is increasingly putting him in an awkward position in his own party. When the comrades pushed hard for him as president, Sonia Gandhi dug in her heels and declined. Last week, in a Karan Thapar television debate, N. Ram, editor of The Hindu and a close friend of CPM general-secretary Prakash Karat, called for Manmohan Singh’s resignation since he was “in a permanent political sulk”. He suggested Mukherjee’s name as a replacement. Surely the foreign minister — also known as the other PM (troubleshooter Pranab Mukherjee) —will be squirming.Also Madhya Pradesh’s daughterGujarat rolled out the red carpet when Sunita Williams came to India and hailed her as one of Gujarat’s most prominent daughters. But Gujarat cannot take all the credit. Williams is a Slovenian on her mother’s side. And although very few know it, her father’s family is originally from Madhya Pradesh. An intrepid Gujarati journalist tracing the family’s romantic history discovered that Sunita’s paternal great grandfather Brij Lal was a Brahmin from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. Brij Lal and his wife and two children went on a pilgrimage to Varanasi at the end of the nineteenth century. The wife was bitten by a rabid dog, and the husband contracted plague. Before his death, he asked two sadhus to accompany his orphaned children to Vidhisha. The sadhus, however, travelled instead to Gujarat. They stopped at a village called Nardipur in Mehsana district, where the villagers, getting suspicious of their motives, took charge of the children, who, in turn, were adopted by a rich landlord.Tabling his loyaltyThe new Congress general-secretary, Rahul Gandhi, was taken on a tour of the party’s Akbar Road headquarters in Delhi by party treasurer and office in-charge Motilal Vohra. Gandhi peeped into general-secretary Prithviraj Chavan’s room and admired the table, which was much smaller than the one in his office. Vohra promptly ordered that Chavan’s table be transferred to Rahul’s room without even bothering to check with Chavan, who was away.Wrong lobbyThe U.S. India Political Action Committee (PAC), a lobby of highflying NRIs, takes credit for helping push through the Indo-US nuclear deal at the American end. When the group visited Delhi last week, it discovered a rather different environment. The members were made to wait for an hour in the lobby of the CPM office without getting audience. At the CPI headquarters, Ajoy Bhavan, they had to listen to a long lecture from A.B. Bardhan and managed to get barely a word or two in.
