How did this calamity strike Nishank all of a sudden? Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajnath Singh have been speaking against his favour for ages but couldn’t do anything against this man who was liked by Gadkari and the Sangh. But the genie was out of the bottle when Gadkari-Jaitley confidante Arun Narendranath came out with a survey report. Nath takes care of the public opinion surveys for the party. His recent survey on Uttarakhand revealed that the BJP was having a tough time in the state. The survey revealed that of those favouring the BJP, 46 per cent wanted to vote for Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri, while Nishank found favour with only 15 per cent, while 8 per cent were with Koshyari. Gadkari is now waiting for one big win and so doesn’t want to lose any state elections. And since the Shradhh will start on the 12, under which no new auspicious thing is done according to Hindus, he was in such a hurry to remove Nishank and a coronation ceremony for Khanduri.

The foreign ministry is upset with Anand Sharma and so is the ministry’s head, S M Krishna. They have complains that Anand Sharma interferes in the ministry’s territory at times. But this is one of Sharma’s old habits – for several years he has been sending concised notes to Sonia Gandhi pertaining to the foreign policy, the activities of neighbouring countries, and significant international issues. He continued with the habit when Sonia Gandhi was away in the US for her treatment. Sonia may not have been able to go through the notes, but Krishna has read the intentions behind the same – that Anand is eyeing the foreign minister’s post. Sharma’s in-laws are an NRI family from Africa, his wife lives in London, and so Sharma spends a considerable amount of time there. Whenever he gets a change, he flies away to London. It is said that the PM is not very happy with this, but Sharma has full faith in 10, Janpath.

Rahul Gandhi has clearly told his party members that he isn’t ready to take on any responsibility in the present times; he neither wants to become the party’s working committee’s president, nor wanting to hold the prime minister’s post. He is repeating the same lines that he wants to travel all over India and make the Congress stronger. A prominent member of the Rahul brigade says it is not the opportune time for the Congress. At such a time, taking over the reins of Congress could prove to be hara-kiri for the prince. For now he is concentrating only on media attention and is trying to think of ways so that he can make headlines.

When the prime minister reached Dhaka, he gave a big interview to Bangladesh’s biggest newspaper “Bangladesh Samvad Sanstha” and commented on how in the past he was very fond of the Hilish (Hilsa fish) but has turned vegetarian for health reasons, but if the host does place a Hilish dish before him, he may give up being vegetarian. The hostess heard and that very night there was a dinner to be hosted by Sheikh Hasina and different kinds of Hilsa fish were cooked for the occasion. The prime minister also stood true to his word and taste Hilish machh. When he left for Delhi on his special aircraft, the host nation presented him with a big box of Hilsa fish. As a part of his “Hilish diplomacy”, the prime minister sent the fish as a gift to politicians of various parties and some Bengali professors of Jawaharlal Nehru University also got to taste the delicacy.

Who knew the honeymoon between Congress-Trinamool would end so soon? That armed with all the political tricks of the trade, the fighters will be set for a face-off? Manoj Pant, who has been Pranab da’s personal secretary for a long time, became a joint secretary. And since an IAS of the joint secretary level can’t be a minister’s PS, Dada got him a good post in Washington and now wanted a new PS for himself. For the same, he was interested in the DM of Birbhum, which also happens to be his constituency. Pranab da wanted to bring him to Delhi as his PS. But since the DM was an IAS from the Bengal cadre, it was imperative permission be sought from the state government. But Mamta didi put her foot down and said the DM won’t be sent and wrote a formal letter about the same: “We anyways are facing a dearth of such IAS officers, and can’t send our officer to Delhi. If at all, Delhi should return some of the officers back to Bengal.” Dada has read didi’s message loud and clear and the coming days will show his reaction to the incident.

The CAG report that talked about Air India’s scams of Rs 40,000 crore, a finger has also been pointed at a group of minister. Home Minister P Chidambaram’s overactive dealing of the issue is also raising several questions. It may come as a relief to Prafful Patel that he is not the only one who will be named in the entire issue.

Meghalaya Governor R S Mushahari has written an emotional letter to all Parliamentarians, saying, “As a member of the civil society, I ask you ….” Now the Parliamentarians are asking themselves that Mushahari served in the police force all his life, and since he was an IPS, he got the governor’s post right after his retirement. So when did the governor get the degree of being from the civil society?

The Congress has decided to give a new political turn to the murder of Hiren Pandya, the former home minister of Gujarat. The way Justice Waghela’s recent judgment acquitted the few Muslim accused in the case, the needle of suspicion now points to all the accusations Hiren’s father had made and had held Narendra Modi directly responsible for his son’s death. Now Pandya’s widow Jagriti’s statement point to the same accusation. In the days to come, the Pandya family may submit an SLP to the high court or the Supreme Court and make the request that the whole issue should be investigated once again. Which means the Congress is in no mood to let go of Modi lightly.

There seems to be no end in sight to Amar Singh’s problems. After his name has appeared in the “cash for vote” scam, there has been demand that he be removed from the Parliament’s permanent committee. On the other hand, the issue of Rs 26 crore as donation to the Clinton Foundation is again rearing its ugly head. It is believed that the matter is being investigated more quickly and the crime branch is going to present its report to the concerned department for further proceedings. A lawyer, Vishvanath Chaturvedi, who is said to be close to several prominent Congress ministers, talked about the issue for the first time and had gone to the court about it, saying he suspected Hawala money being used for the transaction. The Reserve Bank had also clarified that it had not being asked for permission for any such amount and the lawyer had then complained to the ED about the same. Now that the Congress has to sort out several issues with Amar, it is trying its best to use the issue as a weapon against him.

During the debate in the Parliament this Saturday about the Janlokpal Bill, everyone from the BJP wanted to speak – from Yashwant Sinha to Anant Kumar but Opposition leader gave this chance on the big TRP day to her young colleague Varun Gandhi. Actually, Sushma had intended to have her own party’s Gandhi shine in answer to Congress’ Rahul (who had spoken on Friday). The idea was to compare the two brothers, the two Gandhis and two thought processes, so that people could compare the both and Sushma was successful in achieving it. So much so that even Advani was of the opinion that the motion should be passes as soon as possible and even stood up once for the same. But Sushma patiently waited for her party’s next speaker’s turn to come, a wait that lasted several hours; morning turned to evening but Sushma didn’t change her mind.