The party that talks about changing its culture, character and priorities has shown its real colours in the party president’s son’s wedding. His dinner spread is still being talked about in the political circles. Before this, it was Rajiv Prasad Rudy who had thrown a similar lavish party for his niece’s wedding, on the same premises that was once the residence of Shivraj Patil. The wedding was attended by Meira Kumar, Kamal Nath as well as Rahul Gandhi apart from BJP party members. Before this, it was Balbir Punj’s party that was the talk of the town. BJP’s party culture rocks!

Because the Congress king-to-be has not been able to prove himself in the Bihar elections, and is taking the defeat pretty seriously. The Congress was sure to win 50 seats but could get only 4. Mukul Vasnik’s team was under the scanner for several scandals. It is believed that in the quest to introduce young blood, several sure-to-win old hands were denied party tickets. A total of 112 such new contestants were introduced who had just started their innings in Congress. The Congress Working Committee seats that have been vacated need to be filled in first. But promotion to those who have lost is an old tradition in the party. After Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, is it Bihar now, and those who were defeated, for instance, Oscar Fernandes, Mukul Vasnik, B K Hariprasad, Prithviraj Chavan, have already been promoted. The question is what next?

The minute Yeddyurappa managed to save his chief minister’s post, the first thing he did was to have his daughter and son-in-law and son vacate his official residence. Then he started to sift through the files of former chief ministers of the state, trying to figure out how many denotifications were cleared in each one’s regime. It turns out that the maximum number of denotifications – 660 – were cleared during the tenure of S M Krishna. Next come G H Patel, Gundurav, Deve Gowda, Bengerappa and Kumaraswamy. But he couldn’t come up with any in which the denotification was given to any of the family members. Yeddyurappa is having to pay a heavy price for securing his seat and is paying big money to a few Central members of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar.

“….. The one I saw was probably someone else/ After all, who is it who doesn’t resemble you.” One can’t really believe that this is the same Sonia Gandhi who would not be worried about the SPG security to talk to even the most ordinary Congress workers. But what could be seen a few days ago told a different tale of politics and its baggage. Held in Delhi, a day-long Congress meeting, Congress workers were to have a photo session with Sonia at her residence. No Congress leader couldn’t contain his excitement – recently shaved, all squeaky clean, wearing new clothes, a warm body language, gifts for madam, a shine in their eyes and a smile they couldn’t hide. But the minute the photo session started, their hopes were dashed. Ordinary party workers realized that there was a security cordon between them and Sonia. On one side of the rope was Sonia and on the other it were those who wished to be photographed with her. The only ones allowed to cross the line was state party presidents. “We may be strong, but it doesn’t mean we are not familiar/ After all, for the earth is the sky.”

Michelle Obama is so in love with India that she wants to come back, and has talked about bringing her kids back for a family holiday.

The Congress is also ready to deal with the Raja questions. If the opposition party pressure increases, Raja may be reduced to a commoner. DMK has already been asked to think of a name in such a scenario. And if the equation with DMK becomes somewhat shaky, the Congress managers aren’t too worried. Ahmed Patel and Madhavan are in constant touch with Annadramuk chief. They even has Sonia speak with Jayalalita, after which Jaya’s comment about coalitions was printed.

Amitabh Bachhan was present with his entire family (wife Jaya, son Abhishek, daughter-in-law Aishwarya, daughter Shweta and son-in-law Nikhil) for receiving the National Award. Who was missing was Amar Singh, who was always by his side like Hanuman. At such times, the evening parties were held by Amar Singh, but this time the job was taken over by Suhel Seth and the dinner was a crowded affair.

BJP party president is going through a phase where he loves to have his photos taken. Thus, he’s getting photographed in different attires. The latest photoshoot of his has been in the Sangh shorts. His admirers even said that in this attire, he looked a lot like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Since then the party president is on cloud nine and the sixth party member is now eyeing the PM’s post. There’s Advani, Jaitley, Sushma, Narendra Modi, Rajnath and now Gadkari himself.

The party president is seriously worried about the Commonwealth Games scandals and scams. He has clearly told the Lok Sabha Opposition part leader Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley that the issue should explode in both houses and the Parliament should not work until the issues are addressed. That’s because Gadkari wants the CWG issue to become a political one. Rest assured the winter session of the Parliament will be a noisy one.

The Commonwealth Games may be over but the ruling party’s worries are far from over. A few days ago, a confidential meeting about the same was help between Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee. Pranab da looked a tad miffed about it and told the Congress Party Sonia Gandhi that significantly important people from important parties were involved in the whole thing. And asked her how far he should go since their own party people were involved too. She said it will be better if the prime minister answers the question. Manmohan Singh clearly said that since the whole thing had tarnished the government’s image, there was no way anyone should be spared, no matter how important he is. Pranab da got the hint.