Opinion Notice to bunkers

Eavesdropping ends

It is noticeable that ever since A Raja resigned as Telecommunications Minister,some DMK ministerial colleagues have finally started using their MTNL Dolphin cell phones issued to them by Parliament. Clearly,they earlier feared that Raja could well tap their conversations.

Advani’s favourite

BJP leader L K Advani rates Indira Gandhi as the best Congress Prime Minister,though she put him in jail for 19 months and imposed the emergency. Advani feels that while Lal Bahadur Shastri showed promise,he was in office for too short a period for him to pass judgment. Narasimha Rao had a strange style of functioning. Gandhi stuck out because she kept national interest above all else. In contrast,Advani believes her father,Nehru,was a prisoner of ideology. Gandhi,for instance,could never have penned the two letters Nehru wrote to US President John F Kennedy in November 1962,which have just been made public. In the letters,Nehru makes an abject plea for US air cover and confesses the total lack of preparedness on the Indian side.

Sudden prominence

AS it’s with most cabinet ministers,Minister for Textiles,Dayanidhi Maran pays scant attention to his junior minister Lakshmi Panabaka,a four-time MP from Andhra Pradesh,who is given no responsibility and seldom sent on any tour. Last month,for a change,the MoS was an honoured guest and much feted at the inauguration of a ministerial scheme for the rapidly expanding hosiery industry in Tirupur,Tamil Nadu. Lakshmi was flown down for the function in a special aircraft by the state government. Maran was responding to objections from the Tamil Nadu Congress that there should be representation from the Congress at the Tirupur function since it was after all the central government,not the state government,which had put down Rs 200 crore to bankroll the project. In the past,the DMK has blithely ignored state Congress protests about being sidelined but Maran was placatory since his party colleague A Raja has turned out to be a major embarrassment to the UPA government. At that point,Maran was also hopeful of getting back his old telecommunication portfolio.

How the brethren works

Outsiders,including senior BJP leaders,are under the mistaken impression that the RSS has no written constitution. Actually,the RSS claims to have a constitution which was prepared in 1949,after the ban on the RSS was lifted. The RSS’s constitution is,however,not specific on many counts. For instance,there is no mention as to how the sarsanghchalak,who is deemed head of the organisation for life,can be removed. K S Sudarshan,whose intemperate allegations against Sonia Gandhi have left the Sangh Parivar deeply embarrassed,stepped down in March 2009,ostensibly because of ill health. But unlike earlier RSS chiefs,Balasaheb Deoras and Rajju Bhaiya,Sudarshan,reportedly,did not retire voluntarily. He was “advised” to do so. Was it the ‘pratinidhi sabha’,which according to the constitution,is the main decision-making body,or was it the a dozen odd senior most leaders in the organisation who “advised” Sudarshan,whose irrational outbursts were increasing,to retire?

Missing funds

After 32 years,elections at the local level are being held in Jharkhand. The outcome of the polls in 24 district for 445 zila parishads will have a bearing on future assembly and parliamentary elections in the state,Although the state Congress chief,Pradeep Balmuchu,and Keshav Rao,who’s in charge of the state,have requested the Congress headquarters for a modest Rs 2 crore for financing the election campaigns,till three days before the first phase of polling,no money had arrived.