Meanwhile, everything was in place in Bangladesh two months ago to overthrow Khaleda Zia’s government. Bangladesh’s army, who has no love lost with India, had made all preparations to make the ruling government fall. Thank god for India’s investigative agency RAW, which gave the information to Zia while there was still time, and she managed to control the damage.

Under the constitution, the Pakistan army wants to overthrow the government– the current government is not liked by the army in any case. The army is trying to push forward Imran Khan and is gathering a lot of crowd for his rallies but the US doesn’t like Imran. Musharraf may also return to Pakistan before the 30. He believes that no matter what, the army will never send him to jail and let him stay on in Rawalpindi.

But Pankaj Pachauri of Krishna’s city Mathura had no qualms about reporting to Pulok nor an allergy to Hindi journalists – in fact, he has good relations with Hindi journalists. His wife is a Marathi and so he also has a reach among regional media. But there is still discussions going on in the PMO that Pankaj is not the PM’s last choice and he will stay on only until such time that the right successor for Khare is chosen. It is possible that the news has already leaked outside, because when Pankaj asked for time from Pranab Mukherjee and Advani for an informal meeting, he got only disappointment.

The prime minister’s former Media Advisor Harish Khare basically went because of a lot of opposition from Hindi and regional media. Their constant grouse was that Khare was too English, stubborn and didn’t give too much importance to Hindi and other regional languages. The PM’s impression of Khare had already been spoilt after the 10, Janpath and 7, Race Course stand-off becoming public and the news about the same every other day. So when Khare was asked to report to Pulok Chatterjee, Khare didn’t agree to it. He was bent on being answerable only to the prime minister. At such a time, efforts were made to transfer him elsewhere. Names such as Prannoy Roy, Bharat Bhushan, Alok Mehta and Vinod Sharma did the rounds but all these journalists had one condition – they will not report to Pulok.

Several veteran journalists, who have toed the Congress line and agenda, are creating a ruckus. Shobana Bhartia of Hindustan Times has already met Sonia Gandhi and clearly told her she doesn’t want a seat in the next Rajya Sabha session. Those who want the seat are the big guys with bigger agendas, such as, Vinod Sharma, Alok Mehta, Mrinal Pandey, Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt.

Despite the political ups and downs and contrary situations, the BJP president continues to stay upbeat and is leading the party wherever he wants to. The Sangh Parivar, which controls and directs the party has clearly told Gadkari that he should be ready for the next year’s coronation, too. After the results of elections in five states are out, the party will immediately call for a planary session, in which the party will introduce its Constitution’s amendment, according to which the tenure of the party president will be changed to three years and the amendment will also make arrangements so that a party president can stay on consecutively for two sessions, that is, six years. Since Gadkari has found this out, he is not bothered about his 100 kg weight and is jumping for joy.

After having the egg on its face on the army chief’s age fiasco, the Central government wants to watch every step it takes. This is the first case in India and even in the world where a ruling army chief has taken its own defence ministry of the government to court. The Congress Core Committee’s meeting seriously discussed the matter about the army chief’s date of birth. Reliable sources have revealed that the government has almost decided that the respected President will ask the army chief to go. In any case, army chief’s working tenure is over by two years and while no army chief’s tenure is pre-decided, it is decided by the country’s president (who is the chief of all three armed forces) on how long she wants the army chief to stay on in the office. Usually, the trend is to ask him to stay on after the retirement age is achieved. But in special circumstances, the president can use her power and sanction his farewell. It is believed that the UPA government and the President have already had a talk about it, and there is merely the wait for the court’s decision standing in the way.

The BJP leaders in UP are a tad worried about Uma Bharti. A group of BJP leaders wanted Uma Bharti to contest from Babina in Bundelkhand. Uma wasn’t ready for this at first, but after a lot of coaxing from central leaders, she agreed. Uma was told that if she is in the election field herself, it will give a moral boost to the party workers. And Babina wouldn’t have been a tough seat for Uma in any case, because it has the maximum number of Lodh voters. But the minute Uma was ready to take the plunge, BJP leaders such as Kalraj Mishra and Vinay Katiyar spoke up against it, they were scared that Uma might include herself as one of the contestants for the chief minister’s post. The protest from the leaders bore fruit and the BJP leadership decided that Uma will contest only the 2014 elections. Uma herself has never made clear her own opinion in the matter.

It looks like the biggies from Congress and the BJP have had a pact of sorts with each other – you scratch my back, I will scratch yours. That is why no prominent leader from one party wants a face-off with another big leader from the opposing party. The surprising big it that these same politicians were, at some point, pushing themselves for the chief minister’s post. For instance, prominent Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat, had his usual seat was from Landsdowne. But since Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha has placed its candidate TPS Rawat there, Harak Singh has moved on to Doiwala, but Nishank also decided to contest from there. Now Rawat didn’t want a face-off with Nishank either, and so quietly made a line for Rudraprayag. What is also interesting to note here is that the candidate BJP has put opposite Rawat is Matbar Singh Kandari, a relative of Harak Singh. Kandari is married to Rawat’s sister. Similarly, the Congress has placed a weak leader opposite BJP Chief Minister Bhuvanchand Khanduri in Kotdwar. It is being said that Satpal Maharaj’s wife Amrita Rawat came to Ramnagar on being asked by the BJP. Yashpal Arya’s entry into Bajpur is also a tell-tale proof of the same.

To woo the forward castes of Uttar Pradesh, especially the Brahmins, Congress yuvraj Rahul Gandhi is now using the Indira card. Rahul knows that after the Kushwaha episode, the BJP has lost face, especially among the forward castes. No one knows what the Brahmin vote has decided yet, and they are being called floating votes, which can go to any side depending on the candidate and how the wind blows. This time when Rahul was campaigning in areas that had a majority of Brahmins, he stressed on the point that the BJP’s love for Kushwaha was only pretence to attract backward caste votes. Rahul reminded the people that he was the grandson of Indira Gandhi, the son of Rajiv Gandhi and had come to UP not only to win the elections but also because he has an emotional connection with the place. The Congress and Rahul know that they have no vote bank in UP, and so, at a time when the SP, BSP and the BJP was trying to woo the backward castes, Rahul is maintaining his focus on the forward castes. The ad agency taking care of the Congress’ election campaign has been told by Rahul to come up with a campaign keeping in mind this caste.