Delhi Confidential: Twitter Spat

Indian Democracy: Freedom of Speech and Expression. Where such personal statements find eye catching space.. pic.twitter.com/CXm5PhJbGJ

— Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) September 29, 2015

Katju hit back with a series of tweets questioning Bedi’s political and professional conduct. “Is it not a strange co-incidence that KB is the abbreviation for both Khisiyani Billee and Kiran Bedi?” said Katju in his last tweet, referring to the Hindi idiom about the angry cat who vents her anger at the pole.

Covert Support?
Political circles are still speculating who could be the force behind Hardik Patel, who has stunned the BJP leadership and the Gujarat government with the kind of crowd he has been pulling during the Patel quota agitation. While the source of his support remains mysterious, sources said the BJP has discovered that the venue for the launch of Patel’s political outfit, Patel Nav Nirman Sena, in Delhi has been booked by a former Congress MP. The former MP who booked Constitution Club for Patel was once considered close to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Foreign Factions
Congress leaders were Tuesday asking each other about one Juned Qazi, who claims to have resigned as president of the Indian National Overseas Congress’s (INOC) US chapter. Qazi reportedly claimed he was pained by Rahul Gandhi not acknowledging him or other Congress workers during his US visit. Qazi, it is learnt, had tried hard to secure a Lok Sabha ticket from Aligarh in 2014. But sources said he was never president of the AICC-approved INOC in the US and was apparently heading a splinter group along with one George Abraham, who claimed in 2013 that he was removed from the post of president by the AICC foreign affairs department chief Karan Singh. Singh says AICC does not recognise the duo and the head of the INOC in the US is Lavika Bhagat Singh, who was elected in February.

Raft And Report
ITBP DG Krishna Chaudhary Monday flagged off a Swachh Ganga rafting expedition of the force, beginning from Devprayag in Uttarakhand and ending at Gangasagar in West Bengal. The 2,350-km expedition would cover 30 cities in five states with an aim to spread awareness about keeping the river clean and conserving its ecosystem. The expedition will collect water samples at various locations during the journey and test the level of water pollution before submitting a report to the Environment Ministry. Chaudhary said a similar expedition taken up in 2012 had failed to achieve its objective fully as samples were not collected scientifically by the team. This time, those shortcomings have been addressed, the DG said.