New years gift

It is one thing when first timers goof up while voting in Parliament but as a seasoned parliamentarian and a minister,nobody quite knows what happened when Krishna Tirath failed to register her vote during the vote on Lokpal debate in Lok Sabha recently. The ministers office maintains that it happened because of a technical glitch in the voting machine and therefore the show-cause notice issued by the party to its members who did not vote along party lines did not apply to her. Tirath is learnt to have got in touch with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal a day after the vote to clarify her point after which she is reported to have been cleared of all charges.

No loyalty factor

Even as Congress MPs from Uttar Pradesh are complaining about the party giving tickets to those who have only recently joined the party after defecting from the SP or the BSP,party high command has now appointed Rasheed Masood,the SP leader who joined the party last month,as Special Invitee to the Congress Working Committee CWC. Earlier,former SP leader Beni Prasad Verma,who had joined the Congress before the last Lok Sabha elections,had been accommodated in the Union Cabinet and also appointed as Permanent Invitee to the CWC. Membership of the highest decision-making body in the ruling party is not driven by loyalty factor alone. Or so it seems.

Southern comfort

Unlike the Trinamool Congress which has been acting almost like an Opposition party in the past few months the Congress can rest assured about its other major ally in the UPA,the DMK. Amidst talks of an impending petrol price hike,one DMK MP said his party understood the compulsions of the government. The signal coming out from the party is that while it would register a protest,should the decision of price hike be taken,it was unlike to press the issue beyond a certain point.

In praise of CBI

CBI officials are these days quite happy with some prominent political leaders it is probing in different cases. During the Lokpal debate in Parliament,leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav came out as the strongest supporters of more financial and administrative autonomy for the CBI. The same applies for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati,whose representative Satish Chandra Misha made an animated speech in the Rajya Sabha. Incidentally,all three of them are being investigated by the CBI in one corruption case or the other. But these days,one can easily hear words of praise for them in the CBI headquarters.