Opinion To be continued

Gadkari’s extension will not be announced at the national executive at the end of May in Mumbai. The BJP constitution has first to be amended to provide a second consecutive three-year term for the president and this can only be done by the national council which meets later in the year. In any case,Gadkari’s present term continues till January.

Not just coincidence

In the Congress,No 10 is short form for 10 Janpath,residence of Sonia Gandhi,while No 7 stands for 7 Race Course Road,home of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Nominations to the Rajya Sabha in the special category are made either by No 10 or No 7 and only a few candidates bear the 10+7 stamp. RS members like H K Dua and Ashok Ganguly were No 7 appointees. But the three new appointments this year—Sachin Tendulkar,Rekha and Anu Aga—all bear the unmistakable stamp of No 10. There has been much conjecture at Rekha’s nomination since the actress is not known to have any special social or political interests. The surmise is that Rekha was selected from a long list of eminent film personalities to embarrass Jaya Bachchan,an elected SP MP,as Rekha’s name has been linked with Jaya’s husband Amitabh Bachchan in the past. Allotting Rekha a seat immediately behind Jaya was clearly more than just a coincidence. On Jaya’s request,the seats have since been changed.

Don’t discount dark horses

In the presidential race,Hamid Ansari and Pranab Mukherjee are the two front runners. But in such contests,a dark horse,as for example Pratibha Patil in the 2007 elections,can emerge towards the end. Much depends on whether the Congress can mollify Mamata Banerjee with a special financial package for West Bengal. If not,one cannot rule out the chances of two dark horses. S Y Quraishi has won kudos from all quarters for the way the EC conducted elections and Quraishi,incidentally was secretary,sports,when Banerjee held the portfolio in UPA-1. Farooq Abdullah is another minority candidate who is popular with most political parties across the UPA-NDA divide.

Presidential extravagance

President Pratibha Patil was recently criticised for the cost of her foreign trips with her travel expenses amounting to over Rs 205 crore,including Rs 169 crore on chartered aircraft. Patil’s defence is that she merely followed the standards set by her predecessors in office. In this context,there is an interesting episode related by a former civil aviation secretary M K Kaw in his just released book,An Outsider Everywhere. Kaw recounts how the late K R Narayanan as President had insisted that two commanders be put on pilot duty on each aircraft on which he was to travel on a multi-country tour,although the general policy was to have only one commander on board. Kaw and then Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramanian protested that the President’s proposal would lead to a large scale cancellation of scheduled Air India flights and the total loss to the airline would be around Rs 19 to Rs 20 crore. Although both bureaucrats stood firm that an extra commander could not be spared,Narayanan was unmoved. He went to then Prime Minister I K Gujral who buckled under pressure and Narayanan had his way.

Un-Reddy for counter attack

Andhra Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy is a babe in the woods in politics,even if he is a four-time MLA. He should have known better than to take on PCC chief B Satyanarayana by asking the police to take stringent action on the basis of a report from the anti-corruption bureau on liquor syndicates in the state The PCC chief directly and indirectly owns several liquor vends and he is unhappy with the police crackdown. Satyanarayana has instigated several ministers in Reddy’s cabinet to complain to the Congress high command against the CM. The CM,who is without an organised band of followers,does not know how to retaliate. The buzz in Hyderabad is that Reddy’s days as CM are numbered.