What has happened to the political leaders who did such big talk during the UP elections? Where is BJP’s sadhvi Uma Bharti? Has she found refuge in her guru Pejawar Swamy? In hushed tones, Uma is even heard saying that she had tried to tell Nitin Gadkari that she should not be asked to become a part of the complex puzzle in UP and taken to Rajya Sabha. But the important question is will she stay an average Assembly member? What happened to big mouth Amar Singh and his party in the UP elections is there for everyone to see. He remains in Delhi has nothing more to say. For Kalyan Singh, the elections did no good either. He couldn’t even get his son and daughter-in-law to win. Congress’ angry young man Rahul Gandhi made for foreign climes just two days after the election results and went to the Philippines for scuba diving and returned after a week-long vacation.

The foreign ministry is worried about Sri Lanka. The officials in the ministry feel that it was a wrong decision to pass a censure motion by the United Nations about the war crime in Sri Lanka. It is worth mentioning that China had voted against the motion, while India and the US had voted for the motion, which has upset Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s reasoning is that the war crimes didn’t occur against Tamilians but only the LTTE. At the same time, DMK, supporting the Central government had threatened the government with taking back its support to the government and recall its ministers if it did not vote in favour of the censure motion in the UN. For the government it was a tricky situation since it neither wants to upset the US nor its ally party the DMK. The President elections are round the corner, and the Congress doesn’t want to take any risks with any of its coalition parties.

There was a lot of activity in the BJP regarding the Rajya Sabha. Several new tickets were distributed and old hands were dropped. Vying for Rajya Sabha seats this time include Shyam Jaju, Kirit Somaiya, Vinay Sahastrabuddhe, Nirmala Sitaraman, Mahesh Sharma and Hema Malini and a long list of others. The vice-leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, S S Ahluwalia’s luck is at a low. The party wanted to give him a ticket from Jharkhand, but Ahluwalia wanted a seat from a safer place like Rajasthan. BJP’s veteran leader Arun Jaitley preferred lawyer Bhupendra Yadav, who is also attached to the Sangh, to Ahluwalia. Yadav is giving legal advice to Sangh on issues related to the Malegaon blasts, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Ayodhya. To mend her relations with the Sangh, Vasundhara also didn’t oppose the name of an outsider like Bhupendra Yadav from Rajasthan.

The Ambani brothers are proving to be India’s biggest media moguls. Elder brother Mukhesh has got hold of a big English newspaper group, three English news channels, 12 regional channels and three big Hindi news channels. Not to be left behind, younger brother Anil controls two prominent English newspaper groups, a weekly news magazine and a channel each in Hindi and English. Looks like in the days to come, it will be Ambani news all over in India.

There are suspicions not only about the Army Chief’s date of birth, but a lot of chaos about his lawyers as well. When veteran advocate Ram Jethmalani got up in the court to present the Army Chief’s case, the judge asked the Army Chief’s filing lawyer who was fighting the case on the chief’s behalf. He took Uday Lalit’s name instead of Ram Jethmalani. Needless to say, Jethmalani was more than shocked to hear this and left the court in the huff.

For Uttar Pradesh state 2012 elections, Mulayam Singh and Family’s footsteps can be clearly heard. Mulayam may well have handed over the reins of UP elections to his son Akhilesh, but the family’s third generation is also trying its hand at campaigning. Among these are Mulayam’s nephew Ramvir Singh’s (who is no more) son and Netaji’s grandson Tej Pratap, who is back from foreign shores after completing an MBA, as well as the B-Tech Aditya, Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Singh Yadav’s son. Mulayam’s younger brother Rajpal Singh Yadav’s son Anshul and Prof Ram Gopal Yadav’s son Akshay are also giving it their all campaigning for the elections. Mulayam’s another son Prateek is taking care of his uncle Pramod Gupta’s campaigning, who is contesting the elections from the SP ticket. Mulayam’s family’s young generation is pedalling with all its might on cycles in Bharthana, Etawah and Lucknow.

At last, a threat by veteran Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari bore fruit and the Congress high command will have to take him a little bit more seriously, and several close aides of Tiwari have been given the ticket. Upset at being ignored, Tiwari ji had announced that he would ask all non-party contestants to fight elections from all 70 Assembly seats. Clearly, if Tiwari ji would have done that, the advantage would have gone to the BJP. So by way of acquiescing him, tickets were given to his nephew Manish Tiwari from Nainital, Harendra Sharma from Sahaspur, and his son-in-law Navprabhat from Vikas Nagar. In the last elections, too, Navprabhat had contested from Vikas Nagar of Dehradun on a Congress ticket and the BJP had given him a stiff fight there.

Home Minister P Chidambaram isn’t in an uncomfortable position for sure. The way there was so much ruckus in the Parliament on Friday and the Opposition was bent upon his resignation, one thing is clear – Chidambaram is now alone within the Congress itself. The issue of Delhi-based hotelier S P Gupta, who has come under the scanner for several scams, was also raised and he is said to be an old associate of Chidambaram. This man, who has made a stage in the name of Rajiv Gandhi, has been blamed of using letterheads of several Parliamentarians to further his own interests. It is said that this includes a fake letter by Sonia Gandhi as well. That is why 10, Janpath and its loyalists didn’t come forward to talk in favour of Chidambaram. It is also believed that Pranab Mukherjee is the cynosure of the eyes of 10, Janpath currently. That he doesn’t get along with Chidambaram is not unknown. At such a time, Sonia also wants to see another political calculation take its course. That, at a time when she knows that this hotelier may allegedly have links with the 2G scam, because Gupta and Raja got along really well.

When the Parliament didn’t function for seven days straight, Pranab Mukherji realised the cause was lost. The Opposition would not have given in without a vote. The bandh was the last straw. There was revolt brewing within the Congress ranks. Five states are to see Assembly elections soon and every state has 15 per cent voters as traders, who were all talking against FDI in retail. So the government decided to put the FDI issue on the backburner until such time that they get a go-ahead from the stakeholders in the sector.

This may be Karnataka’s saffron party Chief Minister Sadanand Gowda’s biggest test by fire. He is a weak link in the BJP. So instead of making him contest the Vidhan Sabha elections, the party brought him through the backdoor of the Vidhan Parishad. More than half of BJP’s Assembly members are with Yeddyurappa. Now the challenge for Sadanand is to get Yeddyurappa and Shriramlu to his side. This time it will be confidential voting and Gowda is in touch with Deve Gowda. The biggest challenge Yeddyurappa faces is that if Sadanand crossed this hurdle, he may stay the CM for the entire term, something Yeddyurappa may not like.