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Journalism of Courage
Mocking the PAC
With the PAC in the eye of a politcial storm,some lighter moments are relieving the tension. The AIADMK parliamentary party leader M Thambidurais take after Congress and DMK members got Saifuddin Soz of the ruling party to chair the mock proceedings of the PAC in the absence of Murli Manohar Joshi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should guard his chair now,for,Soz may choose to occupy it next.
Return to the fold
The return of stormy petrel Uma Bharti to the BJP hanging fire for long despite Nitin Gadkari and L K Advanis desire to bring her back is finally gaining momentum. An exasperated Gadkari has now taken the matter into his own hands. Gadkari,one hears,had a word with Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan who has been opposing her return. The agreement seems to be to ensure that she will not create problems for him. The RSS,it appears,has also come on board. The buzz is that BJP state unit chief Prabhat Jha has been urgently called to Delhi by Gadkari in a bid to remove the roadblocks. The latest news is that Bharti is being kept in the loop as evidenced by her meeting with Gadkari yesterday.
Dalit trouble
Barabanki MP P L Punias elevation as the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes a post with Cabinet rank has led to unease among a section of the Congress leaders from UP. They allege that the party has willy-nilly projected him as its Dalit face in the state. Punia,they feel,is no match for Chief Minister Mayawati,whom he once served under as Principal Secretary. Among those waiting in the wings to replace Punia as the Congresss Dalit face in the Hindi heartland is Bahraich MP Kamal Kishor Commando,who was in the late Rajiv Gandhis security detail and who wears his loyalty to the family on his sleeve.
Launch aborted
The Congress high commands plan to announce the launch of mission UP may get delayed. The buzz was that general secretary in charge of UP Digvijaya Singh,the partys known backward face Beni Prasad Verma along with state unit chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi had mooted the idea of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul holding a joint rally in Varanasi to announce the partys battle readiness. The high command agreed to hold the rally in the third week of May but the plan has now hit an unexpected roadblock after Beni a key player in the partys UP scheme of things had to be hospitalised. The latest is that Rahul,Digvijaya and many senior leaders are now calling up Beni to inquire about his health and to find out when he and the party will be ready for action.
Nuclear frission
The protests against Jaitapur nuclear power project have seen the mild-mannered Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan getting into an assertive mode. Convinced that the protests were being engineered by vested interests,it was Chavan who convinced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a meeting earlier this week not to put the project on hold,as suggested by some. The Prime Minister himself is said to have been slightly worried at the continuing protests,but Chavan stood firm in his resolve. He is learnt to have persuaded the PM to send out a clear message that the project would not be stopped.
