The NIA chargesheet doesn’t mention RSS’ prominent leader Indresh Kumar’s name. The government has made it clear that it doesn’t want to chargesheet Indresh on its own. If the court itself summons him on the basis of witnesses, it is another matter. The government doesn’t want to give weightage to the same without a reason.

The PIL in the court regarding the land in Greater Noida has the builder group apart from the Congress involved. The group is said to be close to the chief minister. The court’s bulldozer on the builders just before the UP elections seems to have created havoc in the political echelons. One lakh flats have been canceled after the court’s orders and more than 5,000 hectares land has been freed. The farmers are ecstatic and are telling the builders to buy land from them but the real estate prices are soaring sky-high and the builders’ coffers are empty. What can the poor builder do, how do they buy the land and return money to the investors?

After the Cabinet reshuffle, a governor shuffle is on the cards. Karnataka’s Bhardwaj, Bihar’s Devanand Kunwar and Tamil Nadu’s Barnala may be shifted. Ten Janpath wanted to see Shivraj Patil in the Rajya Sabha but he refused, and wants to be transferred to a neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

Jat leader Ajit Singh is miffed with the top command in the Congress and is saying it everywhere that he is becoming the victim of the cold war between two Congress biggies Digvijay Singh and Ahmed Patel. Because it was almost sure Ajit will come into the Cabinet fold, and this arrangement had been done by Rahul’s gatekeeper Digvijay. And if Ajit is to be believed, Patel, through a well though-out strategy broke this sand castle. The Congress was even ready to give a Cabinet and a state ministry berth, because of the way Rahul had recently worked politics in Jat-important areas for farmers. To bring this to fruition, they wanted someone like Ajit Singh to be on the fore. Now things have come to a stage where Rahul isn’t even giving time to meet Ajit despite him having asked twice to seek a meet with Rahul. He did meet with Ajit’s son Jayant but that wasn’t enough.

Be it the BJP or the Congress, both parties have several lawyers. While the Congress has Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Jayanthi Natarajan, Salman Khurshid and so on, the BJP has Arun Jaitely, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ram Jethmalani. While the BJP has created a storm in the Parliament about the 2G scam, BJP’s Rajya Sabha member and Advani-aide Jethmalani is the lawyer for Kanhimozhi in the 2G scam and is saying in the court that the 2G matter isn’t a scam at all. Jaswant Singh also refuses to call it a scam. Which means lawyers from both parties are being allowed to take a line of thinking on the contrary to the party stance. Mahatma Gandhi had also amply promoted a lawyer Jawahar Lal Nehru but it is worth mentioning that Nehru was a non-practising lawyer. Times have changed and so have politics and its rules. So today parties give full freedom to its lawyer party members to fight a case in the court, and also thumb its nose at the party.

Pradeep Kumar’s appointment as the new CVC speaks about the Malayali lobby losing its clout. The entire Malayali lobby was trying its best to push retired Home Secretary G K Pillai, however Bijoy Chatterjee, Naresh Dayal, Alka Sirohi, R P Agarwal, Vijaylakshmi Gupta R S Pandey were among the 28 who were in the fray, most of whom were from the IAS or former IAS officers. An IAS from the 1972 Haryana cadre and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar and G K Pillai were neck to neck. But Pranab Mukherjee and 10, Janpath, came in the way of Pillai. Pranab da bore a grouse against Pillai that he had tried to spy on him on Chidambaram’s behest, while 10, Janpath wanted to stop the monopoly of Malayali lobby. So Pradeep Kumar was preferred over Pillai. It is likely that Sushma Swaraj’s Haryana connection may have something to do with this.

Now the question is who is Tulsi Prajapati? Both Tulsi Prajapati and Sohrabuddin were considered convicts in Hamid Lala’s murder, the gangster from Rajasthan. Tulsi also had a case of killing a property dealer in Ahmedabad against him. Tulsi was also the witness for the Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi encounter. When Tulsi was arrested from Rajasthan, he had given it in writing to the Human Rights Commission and the court that the Gujarat police may bump him off in a fake encounter. But by then the Gujarat police took him on remand and it is said that some big officials from Gujarat police took a lot of big money from the marble lobby and Tulsi became a tale of yesterday.

The top leadership of the Congress is clearly divided into two about the issue of whether the party should support Mamata’s Trinamool by joining it or give support from outside. Along with Manas Bhuiyan, the entire state committee as well as Rahul and Sonia are not in favour of having Congress become a part of the state government. But that may not be such a wise move for the coalition at the centre.

Despite efforts by the Sangh and Gadkari, Uma Bharti’s entry into the BJP has been postponed for the time being. Gadkari brought the matter at the party forum during the recent core group meeting, but the second-tier leaders made their displeasure openly known about the president’s decision. Anant Kumar was the first to speak against it, “What work does Uma have in UP?” Jaitley and Venkaiah went next and at the end, Sushma too vented her feelings and spoke about how Shivraj Singh Chauhan also has fears and misgivings and that should be clarified first. For now Uma is working with the “Clean Ganga” movement but equally important is the cleanliness of the BJP leaders’ minds and hearts.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh is an actual doctor, and knows how to locate the political pulse. Gradually making his political journey and without any hoopla, Raman has become one of the significant party members in the BJP. In a somewhat quiet way, his fans consider him as one of the people for the prime minister’s post in 2014. Full of Thakursuhoati feelings, he has already influenced Rajanth Singh and it is Gadkari next. Raman’s media advisor in Delhi, Rajkumar Sharma, is working from the party president’s residence at 13 Teen Murti, rather than usual Chhattisgarh Bhavan. He is said to be managing the media from there, but with a little deftness, it is Gadkari who he is managing more. The Sangh leadership is also startled at Dr Raman’s changing body language. It is all about Raman in Chhattisgarh and the saffron party has been pushed back into the dark. The local media is so enamored of the chief minister that the BJP leadership sometimes wonders if it is their own party that is ruling this small state. (Raman Singh)