Opinion Akhilesh in making

Wedding bonding

Senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley,Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi were invited last week by Lalu Yadav for the wedding of his fourth daughter Hema in Delhi. They were pleasantly surprised to discover that the baarat looked familiar as it included members of the Delhi BJP,including former Delhi minister Purnima Sethi. The father of the bridegroom,Vineet Yadav,is a long-time RSS supporter,a connection which Yadav would like to keep under wraps. Since the wedding was just after the assembly results,politics was the popular topic among the high-powered guests. Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had a long chat with the victorious Mulayam Singh Yadav and it was here that Yadav was reportedly first sounded about the possibility of a cabinet berth and joining the UPA.

Private party

Trinamool Congress MPs tend to congregate on two benches at the rear end of Central Hall during lunch break in Parliament. But on the day after the Railway Budget,they were missing from their usual perch. They wanted to keep away from the media since they were unsure of their temperamental leader’s reactions. The TMC MPs met instead in an alcove away from prying eyes of the media and fellow MPs. When a journalist caught up with them and asked what they were discussing,Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien explained it was a private meeting and they were speaking not in Bengali but in a rare dialect of Bengali known to very few. “What dialect?” the scribe queried. “Trinamoolese,” was the quick response.

Inevitable parting

Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi was torn between the wishes of Mamata Banerjee for no hike in railway fares and those of his guru and good friend Sam Pitroda who heads the committee on modernisation of the railways. As a businessman,Trivedi was conscious that a fare hike was necessary if much-needed reforms were to be introduced in the near-bankrupt public sector behemoth. Conscious that the chances were high that the mercurial Banerjee would ease him out of his ministerial perch sooner or later because of a basic clash of ideas,Trivedi felt it was wisest to part on an issue of his choosing.

Party pooper

The Congress was so certain that Captain Amarinder Singh would emerge victorious in Punjab that a huge post-election celebration was planned to coincide with Singh’s 70th birthday. The captain’s friend,Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam,had in fact obtained Indian visas for nearly a dozen family members,including her son and grandchildren,for the party. With the Congress losing the poll,enthusiasm for the celebratory bash waned. The venue was changed from Chandigarh to Delhi and it was a far more low-key affair than originally planned.

Unlikely choice

An opposition MP who travelled on the same flight as Vijay Bahuguna some months ago found him confident of becoming CM of Uttarakhand. Bahuguna’s appointment,however,came as a shock to most Congress MLAs from the state who were not aware that he was in the running. Some joked sarcastically that Bahuguna was being rewarded for his sister Rita’s ‘grand’ performance in UP. Bahuguna’s candidature seems to have been approved both by Rahul Gandhi and the coterie around Sonia Gandhi. They ignored some black marks in Bahuguna’s past. He had resigned abruptly as a judge of the Bombay High Court after an application was made to the Chief Justice for permission to prosecute him. While officially,Congress rebel Harish Rawat and BJP president Nitin Gadkari deny that they had a secret meeting,the story seems to have gained wider currency since they are close neighbours in Teen Murti lane. At any rate,Rawat is believed to have sent intermediaries to the BJP asking for support as he wanted to demonstrate to his party that his threat of revolt was very real.