Opinion Counting their chickens
After the NCPs poor performance in the parliamentary poll,the Congress wants to squeeze its ally in the Assembly poll for Maharashtra....
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After the NCPs poor performance in the parliamentary poll,the Congress wants to squeeze its ally in the Assembly poll for Maharashtra. The Congress is even eyeing the key portfolios of Home,Energy,PWD and Irrigation in the next government,though these ministries are presently with Pawars party.
But it could be a case of counting chickens before they are hatched. True,the Shiv Sena- BJP alliance is in no great shape but the Congress should be concerned about the Third Front eating into its vote share. The Congress presumed that Ramdas Athawale of the RSP would be its election partner,but Athawale has broken ranks and floated a Third Front,which includes three other factions of the RSP,as well as the PWP,JS and SP parties. Athawale was upset after losing the recent Shirdi parliamentary election and felt the Congress and the NCP had taken him for granted. He wanted to meet Sonia Gandhi,but neither Congress Chief Minister Ashoka Chavan nor MPCC President Manikrao Thakare bothered to arrange a meeting. In the last Assembly election,some 55 to 60 seats were lost by margins of less than 2,000 votes and the RSP helped tilt the balance in several of them.
Timing,even in death
Both Home Minister P Chidambaram in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister K Rosaiah in Hyderabad confirmed the news of Y S Rajasekhara Reddys death at exactly 12.31 pm. The careful coordination was because according to the pundits,this was the appropriate time for the announcement.
Questions have been raised about the airworthiness of the Bell 430 helicopter in which the Chief Minister had travelled. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) website stated that the aircraft had not been certified for airworthiness for the last two years. But the DGCA was quick to deny this,claiming that it was simply that the website had not been updated for a while.
Dynastic alliance
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda initially planned to host his son Deepinders engagement at a five star hotel,until reminded by party president Sonia Gandhi that he should avoid ostentation in keeping with the CWC resolution on the drought. Hooda held the engagement party at former MP Sajjan Kumars residence instead. But since the caterer and the tentwallah pulled out all the stops for the CM,to make it a grand affair,the message about austerity seems to have got lost.
Incidentally,Hoodas son,an MP,is engaged to Shweta,granddaughter of Congress leader Nathu Ram Mirdha and sister of first-term MP from Nagaur,Jyoti Mirdha. In fact,the elder sister is believed to have played matchmaker.
External factors
Minister for External Affairs S M Krishna announced that a judicial inquiry would be ordered after a CNN-IBN investigation highlighted the misuse of the Haj quota last year. A few favoured travel agents were allotted a disproportionate number of passengers. Besides,nearly a fourth of the total of 46,000 Haj travellers were from Kerala. A day later,Krishna retracted and instead of an inquiry,the MEA decided to simply review the existing system of Haj allotments. The mild stance is because the man at the helm last year was none other than the former MoS E Ahmed,who is an important ally of the Congress in Kerala. In fact,both Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it a point to attend the recent iftaar party hosted by Ahmed,now MoS Railways.
Age is a bar
There is a keen competition to swing prominent positions in the Youth Congress as it is seen as a springboard to proximity to Rahul Gandhi,general secretary in charge of the Youth Congress. The YCs performance assessment interviews can be as rigorous as that for a high-powered job in the corporate world. The screening committee usually includes Gandhi,along with YC president Ashok Tanwar and rising young MP Jitendra Singh. Candidates are expected to present their original marksheets so that there is no fudging of the date of birth. Several promising recruits were found to be above the age limit of 35. Recently a state youth chief was removed after it was discovered that he had not brought it to the partys notice that he had crossed 35. He had also to relinquish his position on the editorial team of the new Youth Congress magazine. Perhaps one reason why the magazine launch has been delayed.
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