Pause,delete

Those who know Venkaiah Naidu in the BJP very well were amused to read reports that outgoing Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa had grabbed Naidus laptop.

Those who know Venkaiah Naidu in the BJP very well were amused to read reports that outgoing Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa had grabbed Naidus laptop and smashed it on the floor in a fit of rage minutes after he submitted his resignation. Naidu,in fact,never carries a laptop. In fact,he does not even carry his own mobile phone. That remains with his assistants. Unlike many of his party colleagues,Naidu is not really a tech-savvy person. Interestingly,he was one of the first BJP leaders to speak against former minister Shashi Tharoors habit of tweeting. Too much tweeting can lead to quitting,he had famously said,a remark that had proved prophetic.

Calling the Shots

There were strong rumours that the BSPs leader in the Rajya Sabha,Satish Mishra,had been sidelined by party supremo Mayawati. However,he has been calling the shots in the first couple of days of the monsoon session of Parliament,not just in the Rajya Sabha but in the Lok Sabha as well. It was Mishra,and not Dara Singh,the partys floor leader in the Lok Sabha,who conducted a special meeting of MPs to tutor them on the partys plan to disrupt proceedings and demand an early enactment of the Land Acquisition Bill. He again summoned the MPs in the Central Hall on Tuesday afternoon to tell them to keep on the offensive.

Musical Chairs

The politicians love for the chair is well-known. But when there is no office at stake,one would imagine that they would refrain from pushing one another around. Not so,as the multi-party press briefing yesterday showed. The space was limited,but floor leaders of CPM,CPI,BJD,TDP,Forward Bloc and RSP all wanted a central seat at the table. Since everybody wanted to have their say,the tussle for space around the table was protracted. Musical chairs, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury remarked aloud,seeing the pushing and jostling.

Required Reading

Preparing for next years Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls,the BSP has become proactive in countering potential attacks from its political rivals. After Rahul Gandhis agitation on land acquisition in the state,the party fears the Mayawati governments performance on the law and order situation could be the next issue for its opponents. To counter any such attack,the party has compiled a detailed booklet on law and order in Uttar Pradesh and compared it to the prevailing situation in other states. Details of action taken against all the recent high-profile criminal cases have been included. BSP MPs have made it a point to go through these booklets thoroughly and some of them are seen carrying it with them in Parliament.

Tailpiece

National security is an often cited reason by the Defence Ministry to deny information. So it was hardly a surprise when it used the same justification to avoid a question in the Lok Sabha related to shortage of officers in the armed forces. What is interesting is that the ministry had provided detailed figures for the shortage as recently as March this year in response to a similar query in the Lok Sabha.