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The thoughts expressed in the letter may have been Uma’s but the prose seems to have been polished by someone else. The needle of suspicion points at Govindacharya, who has a way with words and is bitter about the party leadership. Many years ago, he had got into trouble when his musings on Vajpayee in the form of notes (that he’s the mask, not the face of the party) were leaked to the press.

Un-Timely reference

In Time magazine’s selection of the best places in Asia, India’s Lodhi Gardens in Delhi, the Green Hotel in Hyderabad and the Havelock Island beaches in the Andamans, figure in the list. But what is strange is that the magazine also raves about a meal on the Dal Lake and the Gulmarg golf club, but links these places only to Kashmir and not to India. The MEA has not uttered even a squeak of protest at last month’s Time issue which categorises Kashmir as if it was a separate country.

Multi-purpose SPG

Newspersons following Sonia Gandhi on her tour of Rae Bareli bombarded her with questions. Sonia, who was meeting her constituents, promised to talk to the media later. Journalists were taken aback when shortly afterwards two SPG officers approached them and asked for a list of written questions. The SPG man scanned the list and struck off queries relating to Rahul and Priyanka. No questions on dynasty were to be asked if the journalists wanted to speak to madam, it was made clear. Now is this part of the SPGs job description?

Jaya’s 4 Vs drive

After her humiliating defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections when she lost every parliamentary seat in Tamil Nadu, one would have thought that Jayalalithaa would not be keen to face another election in a hurry. But the buzz in Chennai is that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is actually considering advancing the Assembly elections from February 2006 to February 2005. Jayalalithaa is convinced she is riding high in the popularity sweepstakes on the back of three Vs. Her triumphs include: the shooting down of the much-wanted sandalwood smuggler and kidnapper Veerappan who had eluded chief ministers of both TN and Karnataka for decades. Again, thanks to a good monsoon the river Veeranam has reached right up to Chennai, something her rival Karunanidhi had promised but could not deliver. Jayalalithaa has become the heroine of the film world with both southern superstars, Rajnikant and Kamal Hasan, hailing her at a function in her honour after she clamped down on video piracy. Those caught for video piracy in Tamil Nadu are now booked under the Goonda Act which is a non-bailable offence.

With the arrest and humiliation of the Kanchi Mutt Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, Jaya believes that she has a fourth V on her side. The junior pontiff, Vijendra Saraswati, is reportedly estranged from his senior. Jaya believes that Jayendra’s arrest will dramatically change political alignments in Tamil Nadu. While DMK is taken aback at Jaya trying to steal its thunder among those opposed to the Hindutva forces, she is silently making overtures to the UPA’s allies, the MDMK and PMK. Both have not said a word so far on the Shankaracharya’s arrest and have no love lost for Karunanidhi’s eventual successor Stalin.

MPs’ test match

The British MPs’ cricket team plans to come to India early next year and is keen to play a match in Delhi with its Indian counterpart. The problem for the Indian side is that much of the cricket talent such as former test players Kirti Azad and Chetan Chauhan as well as K P Singh Deo and Shravan Patel are no longer in Parliament. Navjot Singh Siddhu in fact is the only MP left who once played for India. The Indian MPs’ team with Speaker Somnath Chatterjee as the non-playing captain, will have to rely largely on middle-aged cricketing talent since apart from Jyotiraditya Scindia, Navin Jindal and Rajeev Shukla, not many of the younger MPs are serious cricket players. Among the probable players are the two leading lawyers, Arun Jaitley and Kapil Sibal, both of whom batted for the Delhi Bar Council team which recently beat the Judges Eleven. Akhilesh Das, although slightly portly, is another potential player.

Some of the MPs who wield considerable influence on cricketing bodies, such as Sharad Pawar, Amar Singh and Laloo Prasad Yadav, are not expected to put their cricketing skills to the field test.