There is little hope of any Bill being passed in the current Parliamentary session. Rahul Gandhi is in a hurry to pass six or seven of his ambitious Bills. But the Opposition and especially the BJP is trying to make his efforts come to naught. Thus, there is little hope of the Telangana Bill or the anti-communal violence Bill passing in the Parliament. The other one that the Opposition might consider is the Appropriation Bill. 

There are names of four IB officials in the Ishrat Jahan chargesheet. If sources are to be believed, they are going to reveal some big mysteries. These may be so big that the very foundations of the UPA government may tremble. These may be about how, in the past 10 years, some people at the helm in the UPA government have indiscriminately used these secret  agencies, so much so that several politicians in connection with 10, Janpath may see their political careers floundering. 

Who will be the next Lokpal? The Congress is extremely excited about choosing the next Lokpal. The Congress-led UPA government is in such a hurry to appoint someone that it doesn’t even have the time to hear out the issues the Opposition parties may have with it. A meeting on February 3 was held regarding the Lokpal’s appointment and the meeting was attended by the Prime Minister, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Brushing aside Sushma Swaraj’s strong objection about it, the name of P P Rao has been finalised. It is the same Rao who is considered to be extremely close to the Gandhi family. The file has been sent to the President for his signature. But his name has still not been sanctioned by the President and one wonders why. What is the reason behind this delay? The question is a million dollar one. In any case, what with cases such as Coalgate, 3G, Augusta Wasteland, Highway Scam and so on, there is a definitely for a Congress-supporting Lokpal to take care of these cases. 

Subramanyam Swamy is an albatross around the BJP’s neck. Neither can the Rajnath-Modi due get rid of him, neither understand him. Rajnath took offense to Swamy’s comments of Vaiko. In a way, the lotus party has offered a New Delhi seat to Swamy, but Swamy himself is not keen on contesting from there, and wants a seat from north-east Mumbai for himself.

To look for new alliance partners has not been a cakewalk for the Congress. Telengana’s Rashtriya Samiti Chairperson K Chandrashekhar Rao was asking for a big price for its alliance with the Congress. Rao’s logic was that his party is very small and the Congress is as mighty as the Ganga. So his supporters may not find it easy to speak up after the alliance and he wanted to be so financially independent so as to “adjust” his party’s staunch supporters. Sources say that when the Congress thought the price asked for the alliance was too high, it has TRS the option of a friendly fight and offered for an alliance post the elections. Chandrashekhar is still thinking about the offer.

AIUDF’s Badruddin Ajmal is also giving dirty looks to the Congress. The Congress wants a coalition with Ajmal’s party in Assam, and is even ready to leave three seats for AIUDF, but Ajmal didn’t come around. His reasoning was that winning two seats for him will not be a problem. In such a scenario, if he launches his own candidates from all 14 parliamentary constituencies in Assam, his party stands a chance to grow. But the Congress hasn’t lost all hope yet and continues to court Ajmal.

Arvind Kejriwal may not appear to be too fit to take care of the Delhi’s functioning, but everyone is surely talking about his name, his integrity and work ethics. A few days ago when a Delhi businessman’s gleaming car jumped a red light, the traffic police  stopped him. The traffic police inspector asked him whom he favoured – Kejriwal or Congress. He was also explained that if the man was with Kejriwal, he will have to give a challan of Rs 1000 and if he was with the Congress, he only had to pay a bribe for Rs 100 and move on.

AAP’s think tank and strategist Yogendra Yadav didn’t see eye-to-eye with AAP’s chief Arvind Kejriwal that the dharna in front of Rail Bhavan should last 10 days. So when Kejriwal started the dharna at New Delhi’s Rail Bhavan and was ready to make it last for 10 days, all Yadav ji had was a green colour pouch that had his toothbrush and toothpaste. AAP activists wanted to know how Yogendra will spend the night there, where was his quilt and mattresses? To this all Yogendra Yadav could say was that he wasn’t ready to be there for even 48 hours. And thank god, the dharna did end the next day.

Looks like Karunandhi, he of the dark glasses, has given his seal of approval to his successor’s name. In a way, the party has been informed that Stalin will be Karunanidhi’s successor. Which means that the decision to suspend Alaigiri from the party was not a sudden one. It is said that Karunanidhi sat with his family and only then did he take the big decision. Alaigiri has been suspended twice before, too and was taken back into the party after a while. But Karunanidhi seems to be in no mood to do it this time as well.

Good press and bad press played out against each other perfectly in Amethi a few days ago. When Rahul and Priyanka started for their two-day tour to Amethi, the Congress vice-president had to deal with black flags welcoming him. Some women wearing black saris chanted “Rahul, go back” as well. Nearly all news channels in the country covered this event. A surprised and shocked Congress tried to dig deeper into the matter with the suspicion that the black flags may lead it to either a BJP conspiracy or that of the AAP. But when the matter came to light, the Congress’ heartbeat increased because they saw a hand of the ruling SP government behind this. The SP is pretty upset with Rahul for the way it has cried foul over the state government’s treatment of the riot victims of Muzaffarnagar and thus wanted to retaliate. That it would come in this form was what the Congress had no idea about.