Slogan rewrite

BSP changes its slogan to "desh ka neta kaisa ho,Behan Mayawati jaisa ho.

BSP supremo Mayawati recently gave instructions that party workers should change their slogans at her meetings and programmes. Instead of desh ka pradhan mantri kaisa ho,Behan Mayawati jaisa ho,workers have been asked to change their slogan to desh ka neta kaisa ho,Behan Mayawati jaisa ho. This comes at a time when she has already declared that her party would not have any pre-poll alliance in the next general election. She has also not shown any keenness to join forces with any third front bandwagon. While party leaders do not seem to have a cue about the reason for this change in the slogan,it is certainly no indicator of her ambition,or the lack of it.

Pac dig at ASI

The Archaeological Survey of India was at the receiving end on Tuesday as the Public Accounts Committee hauled it up over a range of issues highlighted in the recent CAG report. PAC members observed that while the ASI has been found wanting on a number of excavation-related issues,it was quick to take up excavations at Unnaos Dhaundiya Kheda village just because somebody dreamt of gold buried there. The PAC also sought to know the status of the new conservation policy and pointed out how the draft was yet to reach the members. Last heard,ASI was hurriedly packing off draft reports to all PAC members.

Holding Fort

With CBI director Ranjit Sinha away in Panama to attend an anti-corruption conference and K Saleem Ali,the senior most special director set to retire at the end of this month,the role of acting director of the agency till Sinhas return is being performed by Anil Sinha,another special director. Anil Sinha and Ali were supposed to share the directors responsibility in the coming week but with Ali away from headquarters most of the days,Anil Sinha is virtually left to take care of CBI affairs. CBI director has put on hold any major decision till his return,including the filing of a chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan and Sadiq Jamal encounter cases. Both the cases are being supervised by Ali who is supposed to file a final report in the court before his retirement.

Southern Tilt

Apart from central BJP leaders who hail from the southern parts of the country,the BJP has summoned senior state-level leaders from Tamil Nadu,Kerala and Andhra Pradesh to court voters in Delhi. In a carefully planned strategy,these leaders have been asked to hold public meetings in pockets with sizeable section of electorate from their respective regions. In an apparent attempt to reach out to them,the BJP is publishing advertisements of the public meetings of these leaders in Malyalam,Tamil and Telugu language papers that are circulated in the national capital. Voters from the southern state constitute about one million in the national capital.