The whole Congress is angry with Sharad Pawar’s attitude. In the last meeting of Congress Working Committee it was as if every party leader had vowed that they want no truck with Pawar. Even the Prime Minister appeared quite displeased with Pawar and for someone who is considered quite pacified, A.K. Antony too came down heavily on Pawar. It was only Pranab who remained silent all through and he did not utter a word against Pawar. But why? Is this something worth telling.

The Congress appears to be concerned about legal reforms in the country. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily is harping the note of judicial reform. In the forthcoming Budget Session of Parliament, Moily wants to bring a Bill that proposes to increase the retirement age of the judges of Supreme Court from 65 years to 68 years, that of High Court judges from 62 years to 65 years and of district judges from 60 years to 62 years. Even if this Bill is presented in the Budget Session of Parliament, it would be essential to bring it before the Standing Committee and this entire process could take up at least three months. The present Chief Justice is retiring in May this year
and so it does not appear that he would gain anything from this legislation.

It is now counted among the common traditions of BJP that whenever someone is about to be given something or something is to be snatched from someone, the slips get distributed. Remember Shyam Jaju, a shy, cultured and honest person who was only a mandal president at Kolhapur in Maharashtra. He was brought to Delhi by Pramod Mahajan and he was established as a prominent face in the BJP central office in Delhi. As has been circulated in a slip, that today Jaju is the owner of vast wealth and benami properties. His writ also runs in BJP-ruled States. He is known to have four to five PAN cards and when crores were siphoned out of the BJP office, the needle of suspicion also pointed to him. So Jaju was told to pack his bags and prepare to leave. As soon as Gadkari would formally take charge on 9th, the search for a replacement to Jaju would begin.

It has been the netaji’s homecoming. No sooner did Amar leave, Mulayam’s old socialism arose. When Mulayam was completely immersed in Amar’s colour, then wily-nilly the corporate culture had also got the better of him. Someone who had traversed the path of his political ambitions in dirty and dishevelled kurta and pyjama, Mulayam had in the recent past begun changing his clothes four to five times a day. And his affection for old friends had changed long back. But now netaji has started remembering his old time socialist friends one by one. Recently in the condolence meeting for Janeshwar Mishra, Mulayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav was seen in close proximity to K.C. Tyagi. It has been heard that Mulayam Singh would be attending with his entourage the marriage of K.C. Tyagi’s son on February 6.

The infighting in Bihar BJP is strong. The swords are drawn over the selection of the new State president. The uncrowned king of Bihar BJP Sushil Modi wants to make a Brahmin leader Mangal Pandey the president and Modi’s opponents have opened a new front. Modi’s opponent are saying in one but muted voice that they do not want the new president to walk around with Modi’s shoes in his hands and who is a known“rubber stamp’’ of Modi. So a new name has emerged and it is of a Harendra Pratap, who is a Pandey of Buxar and has stepped from students union politics into saffron politics. In the past he has also served as party’s organisational secretary and he also shares great rapport with Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar.

Prime Minister’s principle secretary T.K.A. Nair played the most important role in putting the name of Chatwal in the front of the row
for the Padma awards. Even otherwise the friendship of Chatwal and Nair is quite old and very strong. It was also Nair’s friendship
because of which Sikh Chatwal recently opened a hotels in the Malayali land of Cochin and this hotel was inaugurated by Nair too. So this time the committee that was constituted for the Padma awards, in it apart from Prime Minister’s principle secretary Nair, Union Home Secretary, Cabinet Secretary, Rajya Sabha MP and Gandhi family loyalist Kapila Vatsyayan and CII chief Tarun Das were also present. It is understood that in the meeting of this committee, it was Nair who first proposed the name of Chatwal and in no time it was approved
by the other members of the committee. Yes, and it is not worth mentioning that the friendship of the self-proclaimed Mr. Clean
Manmohan Singh and Chatwal is equally reliable, strong and old.

Ananth Kumar and Arun Jaitley recently met Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya and requested him that why not should Vajpayee’s approval be taken for making Advani the chairman of NDA in place of Atal. The son-in-law went to the father-in-law to ask this (as he claimed) and Atal made it clear that he had no objection to Advani becoming the working president of NDA.

Where is Chidambaram thinking differently? In the recent past, Chidambaram had while defining the limits of the working of the National Security Adviser suggested that the outlook of the NSA should be more serious about external security. It should also be concerned about the country’s nuclear policy and it should be directly involved with policies that are personally supervised by the Prime Minister. Chidambaram views the new National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in a positive manner. He believes that Lhasa-born Menon is a capable bureaucrat and he has earlier been posted in China, Pakistan and
Israel. So his vision of external threats is very expansive.

The time has come for the departure of National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan. After an unusual tension in his relations with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, it was being speculated that now Narayanan would have to chant “Narayanan Narayanan after becoming the Governor of some State. If Narayanan goes, then who would take his place? Three names are doing the rounds, the first name is of S.S. Menon who has got the unbridled support of the Malayali lobby in PMO. The second
name is of Shakti Lamba who while working in Afghanistan had greatly pleased America, so he has got the support of the entire American lobby. The third name is of Shyam Saran. He has the blessings of Sonia Gandhi with him and played a crucial role in dislodging the King of Nepal. So if he is the chosen one then it would be a bad news for Nepal.

There is a big battle on in the BJP to become the head of Delhi. For the post of Delhi Pradesh BJP president, big leaders like Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Arun Jaitley are backing former Mayor Arti Mehra. Vijay Goel has also not left any stone unturned and Ramlal and Sudhanshu Mittal are busy in helping him realise his lofty ambitions. Mittal is also considered to be close to Arti Mehra but this time he wants to see the victory crown on the head of Vijay. Nand Kishore Garg believes that people who are not with anyone else are with him. Madanlal Khurana has come out openly in support of Garg. Jagdish Mukhi is also in the fray but he is not liked by Vijay Kumar Malhotra. That is why Mukhi’s claim is nothing more than a posturing.