For over a month now,Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has been in hospital because of a severe spinal disc degeneration. However,unlike Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,Karunanidhi continues to run the government from his hospital bed. As his own home minister,handling the lawyers agitation and the break down of law and order in the state,is Karunanidhis personal responsibility. Ministers and bureaucrats are summoned to the Rama Chandra Medical College for meetings. Karunanidhi has even inaugurated a flyover in north Chennai and a hospital in Shiva Ganga through video conferencing. This week,he launched the BSNL 3G service from his hospital bed. Karunanidhi is following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor,MGR. The late MG Ramachandran was hospitalised in the US during the assembly elections of 1984. He campaigned through films,which were screened by his party workers,and won the elections.
Not on party lines
Elections to Delhis Constitution Club were fiercely contested,even though the club has no gym or spa and has a virtually defunct swimming pool. Of the 651 membersMPs and former MPs who had paid the lifetime subscription fee of Rs 5,000237 cast their vote. BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy,who was elected unopposed as secretary (administration),has ambitious plans for improving facilities at the club. Rudys panel won hands down; only two contestants from outside the panel,BJP MP Maya Singh and RJD MP Saroj Dubey,were successful. The healthy trend was that the voting was not on party lines. The Congresss Navin Jindal was elected sports secretary,the CPI(M)s Hannan Mollah is treasurer and Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit is the culture secretary. The losers included BJPs Vijay Goyal and the RSPs Abani Roy. Judging from the results,sitting MPs had a clear edge over former MPs.
Fishy business
The official prime ministerial candidates of the Congress and the BJP,L.K. Advani and Manmohan Singh,have of late avoided personal attacks on each other. Except for a snide remark from Advani that democracy would have been better served if the prime minister had been elected to the Lok Sabha,not the Rajya Sabha. But the probable opponents in the general election after the upcoming one have already started sparring. While Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari accuses Narendra Modi of bad taste in directing personal barbs at Rahul Gandhi,it was in fact the Gandhi scion who set the ball rolling. Gandhi,who visited Modis turf thrice in the last month,said that Modi spoke nonsense and accused the Gujarat government of looking after the interests of big business alone,ignoring the plight of diamond workers and farmers. Modi retaliated by comparing Rahul to a gold fish in an aquarium bowl who has yet to face the choppy waters of the open seas. Tewari thought to score brownie points and use the fish analogy to dub Modi a piranha which devours human beings. A remark reminiscent of Sonias maut ka saudagar comment which backfired at the polls.
Pawar play
If Sharad Pawar is openly flirting with the Shiv Sena,it is because he assumes that the Congress in Maharashtra has no option but to go along with the NCP since it is on a very weak wicket. Narayan Rane,who was recently re-inducted into the Congress,despite his earlier rebellion and intemperate outbursts,is already bad-mouthing Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. Rane has been given the industries portfolio while he expected,at the very least,the Revenue or Urban Development Ministry. Former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is sulking because his brother has not been brought into the state cabinet. And a loyalist like Govindrao Adik is fuming because he has been sidelined once too often.
Weighing options
In her election campaign,Mamata Banerjee plans to quote from the Sachar Commission report,which found that the status of Muslims in West Bengal is among the worst in the country. The Trinamool Congress believes that the Sachar reportalong with its Nandigram campaign,the police cover-up in the death of Rizwanur Rizwan and the West Bengal governments asylum to Tasleema Nasreenwill win over Muslims,who constitute 30 per cent of the vote share in the state. While most people in the state Congress are anxious for a tie-up with an invigorated Trinamool Congress,Pranab Mukherjee continues to sabotage a possible alliance. With P.R. Dasmunshi out of commission,no one in the party is in a position to counter him. Mukherjee is still banking on Left support in a post-election scenario.
