Opinion Gene junction

Sonia Gandhi is to lay the foundation stone for the new headquarters of the Congress at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg this month. Since Congresspersons felt it would be inappropriate to print an address on the party letterhead which commemorates a BJP icon,the party has decided to put the address of the street behind that borders the plot. So,instead of 1 Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg,the address will be 1 Kotla Marg.

The Vajpayee government allotted land on the DDU Road to all national parties on the understanding that they would vacate their existing premises in government bungalows once the buildings on their new premises were complete. But it is doubtful whether the political parties will ever surrender their present offices. When Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister,a large plot on Rajendra Prasad Road was allotted to the Congress in lieu of its Akbar Road premises but the building on that plot was never used by the party and instead became the office of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

Diamond draw

The presence of CBI director Ashwini Kumar and his wife at the wedding of prominent diamond merchant Govind Dholakia’s son,Shreyansh,in Surat has prompted some comments. Kumar and his wife flew to Surat in a chartered flight. Chief Minister Narendra Modi and former Chief Minister S Keshubhai Patel were among the many celebrities who attended the lavish wedding. The bridegroom drove to the function in a car worth over Rs 1 crore,which was decorated with diamonds and precious stones.

Strange recruitments

The arrest of senior RAW officer Nisha Bhatia for allegedly harassing her colleague and neighbours with text messages from her cellphone suggests there is a lacuna in the recruitment methods of the premier agency meant for gathering external intelligence. Interestingly,the complainant in the case was another woman RAW officer who is herself facing a departmental inquiry for misusing her official computer for surfing the net while posted in Beijing. The complainant was sent back from China shortly after her assistant was caught in a honey trap with a Chinese woman.

No mistaken identity

Before the debate on the Liberhan report,Congress MP Rajiv Shukla warned his party leadership that the BJP would get a handy weapon if Jagdambika Pal was chosen to open the debate since he is one of the 68 people indicted by Liberhan. The weak excuse trotted out by the Congress subsequently was that the Pal referred to in the report was another and not the Congress MP. But the judge had very clearly,the Congress Pal,in mind. A senior journalist recalls that two years ago when he met Liberhan he had spoken disapprovingly of the tendency of Pal,once a minister in Kalyan Singh’s government,to switch parties. The Congress high command seems to have been swayed by Pal’s own argument that as a UP Rajput and a former chief minister of UP,he would be a suitable counter to Rajnath Singh who was to initiate the debate for the BJP.

Actually the claim that Pal was once chief minister of UP is itself debatable. Pal was declared chief minister for a day by the then UP speaker but,subsequently,the Supreme Court ruled that it was an illegitimate assumption of office and his name would not figure in the official record of chief ministers.

Not quite cricket

When the IPL was first set up,at the meeting to discuss the composition of the IPL council,members felt that a clause be introduced stipulating that all council members should be affiliated to their respective state councils. The suggestion was not,however,recorded in the minutes of the meeting. Which is why Lalit Modi is entitled to remain commissioner of the IPL even after losing the elections to the Rajasthan Cricket Association. Modi,however,hopes to get elected to the BCCI from Mumbai’s CCI club.