Bonding over lunch

After decades of active politics,President Pranab Mukherjee may be missing all that action.

After decades of active involvement in the hurly burly of politics,President Pranab Mukherjee may be missing all that action in Rashtrapati Bhavan,but he may not be unaware of the happenings. While members of the Nehru-Gandhi family often come for lunch and dinner and many UPA ministers do make frequent courtesy calls,the President has started inviting senior figures across the political divide over extended lunch. In recent times,he has hosted lunch for top BJP leaders L K Advani,Sushma Swaraj,Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari and their families.

AT HOME

Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who was out of action for about a fortnight due to a surgery for a lung ailment in a Mumbai hospital is set to resume work from Tuesday. In his absence,Finance Minister P Chidambaram has been looking after the Home Ministry as well,as per directions of the Prime Minister,said officials adding that the former Home Minister has been in regular touch with the Home Secretary and other senior officials to keep himself abreast of developments. Chidambaram,who had quite a successful stint as Home Minister,obviously looked quite at ease briefing Parliament as also the Union Cabinet about Kishtwar communal violence. Incidentally,Shinde had faced a lot of flak for extending his stay in the United States last May despite a major Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh. He had then explained that he had gone to see an ophthalmologist. As it was,said sources,Shinde had gone to consult doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Centre in New York where Congress president Sonia Gandhi had also gone for a surgery two years back.

LEGAL FIGHT IN OFFING

Senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechury along with V S Achuthanandan had had a meeting with eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani over the weekend. This was following the party leaderships green signal to Achuthanandan to take the solar panel scam to the court. It came days after the LDF in Kerala had ended its siege of the secretariat over this issue. Achuthanandans decision to wage a legal battle is interpreted by many in the party as his unhappiness with the way the CPM is handling the issue politically.

LITTLE TO SHOW

The Health Ministrys tobacco control division along with the Public Health Foundation of India is eliciting quite a few sniggers with their hectic preparations for the first-ever Tobacco Endgame Conference next month. With little to show beyond a gutkha ban,no movement on zarda,bidi and cigarette plain packaging,activists are wondering whose endgame it will celebrate. Their jibes do not seem to have dented officials zeal for the conference though.

ON EQUAL FOOTING

Notwithstanding all the hype and hoopla about the BJPs undeclared prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi,the party wouldnt treat him differently until his formal anointment. At the National Media Workshop here Saturday,backdrop of the dais had pictures of six leaders A B Vajpayee,L K Advani,Rajnath Singh,Arun Jaitley,Sushma Swaraj and Narendra Modi. While images of Vajpayee and Advani were placed,as usual,at the top,others were bunched in two groups Singh and Jaitley on one side and Swaraj and Modi on the other. Modis picture was of the same size as that of the other three but smaller than that of the two party elders.

FOLLOWING FOOTPRINTS

On Sunday,Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan posted an interesting tweet on the micro-blogging site. It read: Vivekanand said,I am the thread that runs through all these pearls. Am trying to become one such thread to bring people of MP together.