Reports by the secret department of the state have made Mayawati worry. About four months ago, the state’s secret department conducted a state survey. Sources reveal that according to the survey, Maya’s BSP is slated to get 164 seats, and until then Mayawati wanted to have the state elections conducted by October-November of 2011. She wanted to dissolve the Vidhan Sabha. She asked her secret service officials to wait for a couple of months and carry out a similar survey again. That survey reduced her seats by 18. Now Chief Minister Mayawati has decided to conduct the state elections at its assigned time, and consider May-June of the next year to be the right time. At that time, when the sun scorches UP, the BSP cadre will come out to vote, but how will the babus come out to vote in the scorching sun? The real worry Maya has is about the increasing popularity graph of the SP. And the seeds of friendship that are germinating between the SP and the Congress is also considered nothing short of dangerous by her.

The million dollar question is if Kanhimozhi will be arrested. The present circumstances betray by nodding in consent, and the imprisoned Raja in Tihar is probably waiting for his rani, too. But people are mistaken in thinking that Kani is Dayalu Amma’s daughter. Actually, the same question had been asked of Karunanidhi several years ago in the Vidhan Sabha as to who Rajthi Amma was. The bespectacled gentleman had unhesitatingly said, “Rajthi is Kanhimozhi’s mother and Kani is my daughter.” So now it is not secret that Karunanidhi has three wives, the eldest is dead, the second is the mother of Azhagiri, Stalin, and the daughter, and the third’s daughter is Kanhimozhi. No wonder Kani is so dear to Karunanidhi.

There is speculation that as soon as it is sure by next week that Uma Bharti will be back into the BJP fold, Govindacharya may also be back. Despite this, through his social activism, Govindacharya is confronting the state governments where BJP is in power. On his casualty list is Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Nishank. When he was in Delhi recently, he met with Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and repeated his request to announce the 135-km area from Gaumukh to Uttarkashi as an eco-sensitive zone. He also had Ramesh send Nishank a stern letter. It should be mentioned that during a meeting with Manmohan Singh, the chief minister had agreed on announcing the area as eco-sensitive, but the moment he returned to Dehradoon, he relented under pressure from the central ministers of the party and went back on his promise.

The BJP is worried about the Congress’ behaviour towards the PAC. Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj has written a letter to the speaker of the house, saying that it has been a tradition that the PAC chairperson has always been from the Opposition party. Thus, carrying the tradition further, the next PAC chairman should again be Murli Manohar Joshi, while some excited Congress leaders want the position to be taken by Saifuddin Soz.

Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra is behind bars for now, and seeing the problems coming in the way of his bail being granted, his lawyer has been changed from K T S Tulsi to Ram Jethmalani. They have also managed to change Niira Radia, and the company’s PR exercise is now being handled by Dilip Cherian. He is an old player in the game, and another new account doesn’t make too much difference to him.

No matter what the popularity chart of Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley has to say, his popularity has crossed geographical borders and he has got an invite from the US state department to visit the country. Jaitley will be in the US from June 21-27, and not as an Opposition minister but in a personal capacity. As it is, he has lot of friends and family in the country – at least half-a-dozen relatives from east coast to west coast.

Ever since Prithviraj Chavan has taken over the chief minister’s post in Maharashtra, he’s been more worried about RTI than the Opposition party. As a result he is so wary of signing files that the rate of progress in the state has almost stalled. Actually, BJP’s Kirit Somaiya approached the CM with a file that was a confidential one dealing with a space deal. Surprised, Chavan asked Somaiya, “Where did you get this file from? I had merely glanced at it when I was a state minister in the PMO?” “But these are your signatures,” replied Somaiya. The worried minister agreed that they indeed were his initials, but had signed only because he has been asked to, by the PMO officials. Somaiya then told him that he had got all these documents through the RTI. Since then Maharashtra’s right to information is taking a toll on the right to work.

For a long time, Snagh Parivar has wanted Advani to take over as a mentor of the party and instead for being at the centre of things in the political arena, he should take a backseat and from there, try to drive the party into the country’s mainstream. But the way top officials and journalists came for Advani’s high tea on Ashtami, some people even complained that they weren’t invited. So, another party was organized at his residence on the occasion of Ram Navami, and those who had been left were invited. For the first party, a half-hour movie by Advani’s talented daughter Pratibha Advani was shown, wherein devotional songs and film songs associated with Lord Ram were used as a background and Pratibha played the role of a narrator. A similar movie by Pratibha was shown on Advani’s birthday, which revealed the emotional bond of love between father and daughter.

When Ghulam Nabi took over the health ministry, he found V S Ramachandran and Rao there, too. It is said that without Rao’s permission, no file ever moves in the ministry. Since S K Rao’s fame has reached the PMO, the all-powerful Kuttinair from the PMO has asked Nabi to relieve Rao of his duties. Instead of him, Nabi is now set to get an officer from the UT cadre as a PS. It is worth mentioning here that it is the same Rao whose name was named with the infamous Ketan Desai from the Medical Council.

Neeta Ambani is the wife of India’s richest man. So she knows how to been in the news at all times. And anyways, it is the time of paid news. The TV cameras were set in such a way that every one in a while, they would come back to focus on Neeta Ambani’s box, where she was cheering on with her husband, kids, Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao and Rajanikanth. The other VIP boxes got negligible coverage, so those such as Kapil Sibal, and Arun Jaitley came out of the Presidential box and went into Neeta’s. They knew this is the box to be in.