No matter who much unrest the country is facing, BJP’s National Chairman Nitin Gadkari is heading to Canada’s picture-perfect Lake Louis, where Maharishi Yogi has his famous ashram. He going there for spiritual peace. Before this, Gadkari will be visiting the cities of Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary with his family. The journey for Gadkari will start on September 26, and he will go along with his wife, two sons and their wives, and his daughter. It is a family vacation, in a way. Gadkari’s nephew stays in Canada and the vacation has been planned on his insistence. Sources reveal that Gadkari and his family will stay in Canada for about 15 days.

The Congress seemed to be a tad miffed with Bodo tribals. Now the Congress strategists are devising a new plan, under which the government wants to decrease the numbers in the tribal council. For now, 30 seats there are reserved for Bodo tribals. The Congress wants to reduce it to 15 seats because it knows that if these seats are not reserved, it will not be easy for the Bodos to win elections and come back.

When there was absolutely no crowd for Baba Ramdev’s second day of fasting at Ramlila Maidan, it is said that in desperation, baba spoke to Advani, Jaitley, Sushma, Gadkari, Sharad Yadav and leaders of the Sangh Parivar. Then it was decided that Shard and Gadkari will come to Ramlila Maidan to have baba break his fast with a glass of juice, and will get a big crowd along with them. As decided, a big crowd collected the next day, but after seeing it, baba changed his mind. All excited, he told Sharad and Gadkari, “I will not break my fast today. Now let’s go to the Parliament and cordon it.” Listening to this, Sharad and Gadkari rushed out.

Although the Sangh has made its intentions clear about BJP President Nitin Gadkari, and that it is in favour of renewing his term, two senior leaders of the party – Murli Manohar Joshi and Advani – have buried their mutual differences and are speaking in one note about how the party can possibly go for elections under Gadkari’s leadership. Both leaders have their views on the same and feel that the coming times are all about elections – Gujarat, Delhi and Chattisgarh Madhya Pradesh and so on are due to face Assembly elections, after which the Lok Sabha elections are to happen. At such a time, how can the central leadership of the party be given to such a leader whose skills the party people themselves don’t trust? Is Gadkari ji listening?

All public opinion surveys may well be showing Modi ahead in the race and may be showing that the Congress will barely get 50 seats, but the Congress leadership isn’t too worried about it. It is in favour of more aggressive action towards Modi. The Congress has shortlisted five big industrialist groups who are giving the most financial assistance to Modi and his BJP party. Most of these are Gujarati businessmen – one has a flourishing port business, one owns a refinery and the other owns a big pharmaceutical company. Sources reveal that the DRI is sifting through all cases and proof against them. The CBI is also waiting to be proven loyal and is in aggression mode.

If someone looked stronger than Sonia Gandhi at the dinner hosted by Pratibha Patil at Hyderabad House, it was none other than BSP supremo Mayavati. Several significant leaders at the Centre were hovering around her chanting madam, madam. This gave clear indications that in the days to come, Mayavati may be included in Manmohan’s Cabinet. Maybe that was the reason why the Centre put so much pressure on Akhilesh Yadav to nab those who had vandalised Mayavati’s statue that the UP chief minister had to do the bidding and the culprits were soon caught.

It is becoming famous about Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan that whenever a file comes to him for approval, he passes it on to his secretary and says, “Form a committee about this.” When the secretary says, “Sir, it has been made,”, then it is, “Then send it to the finance ministry.” After “Sir it has been cleared,” comes, “Then send it to law,” to which the reply is, “Sir it has been cleared from there, too,” and then the chief minister says, “OK, keep it on my table.” The secretary knows that that now the file will never be cleared because the respected chief minister is currently under the impression that apart from him, everyone in this world is dishonest.

In one aspect, Hamid’s track record is truly unique – he is liked by the Left that opposed capitalists, and is considered to be close to one of the India’s most famous capitalists – Mukesh Ambani. Actually, both of them go back a long way. When he retired as the Indian ambassador is Saudi Arabia, sources reveal that Reliance gave him a responsible work – that of keeping an eye on crude oil being exported. This crude oil used to be exported for Reliance’s refinery. And Mr Ansari was working for Observer Research Foundation that Reliance is attached with. When he became India’s vice-president with the grace of the Left, he became one of those close to Rahul Gandhi. Rahul is extremely fond of him and wanted him to take over Raisina Hills. Maybe that is the reason when Sonia handed over a list to Mamata Banerjee, it had the name of Hamid Ansari above that of Pranab Mukherjee.

An important Tamilian Central minister in Delhi went to Chennai to meet the Tamil queen Jayalalithaa. The received the politician and made him sit right next to her in her special drawing room. Before discussions could take place, a senior leader from Jayalalithaa’s Cabinet entered and lay prostrate in front of Jayalalithaa and continued to remain so – before the Tamil queen gave other instructions. Jayalalithaa then turned to the leader from Delhi and said, “Let’s start our conversation now.” The minister was a little uncomfortable with the whole scenario wherein a minister was lying down in front his eyes like this and he had to talk like that was nothing out of the ordinary. But the talks started while the minister continued to stay prostrate. Times kept ticking and 22 minutes went past. The minister from Delhi could no longer control himself and requested the Tamil queen to ask the minister to get up. Jayalalithaa suddenly got angry and said, “This man, let him continue like this only, because I have gone through a lot in the male-dominated film industry before I entered politics. But seeing her guest’s discomfort, she told her minister in Tamil to get up and go. Only after he left did the conversation between the two resume.

Dada is doing all that it takes to stake claim over Raisina Hills. And clearly, time teaches you a number of tricks. Dada, who is known for his political management, is more caught up with the numbers game. So he is touring around collecting support for Presidential elections and is not shying away from meeting the satraps of smaller parties. For instance, this time while returning from Ranchi, he claimed to be able to take the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha from the NDA and asked for his favourite briefcase on the flight and took out a list of Electerol College and wrote some numbers on the margin in his diary and smiled to himself. Sources reveal that this is nothing new and does the same everytime he visits states outside of Delhi. Dada knows very well that to get to Raisina Hills, the numbers game will be more important than requesting for support.