Paresh Baruah survived getting caught by the Indian agencies. In a timely move, Pakistan intelligence agency ISI took him to Pakistan. ISI had also tried to take Arvind Rajkhowa and Raju Baruah to Pakistan, but the Indian intelligence agencies and Bangladesh Government through their joint efforts thwarted the designs of the Pakistani agencies. Paresh Baruah is alleged to own a five-star hotel in Dhaka and a big business empire in Chittagong, which the Bangladesh Government is soon expected to take into its own hands.

Ankur Chawla, who has become the target of CBI and now IB questioning, had earlier slipped away to Singapore. But his influential editor father played such a political game and through the senior Ambani managed an influential person occupying a high post in such a way that Ankur became confident that for the time being he would not be arrested in this corruption case. But for how long can the family rest assured? And now Ankur is in denial mode and insisting that there is no concrete proof that he had paid company secretary Banthia. CBI has already trapped the company secretary of a leading Hindi newspaper group of Uttar Pradesh whose written documents are available that he had paid Rs 10 lakhs to the accountant for payment in this case. After CBI, the officials of IB are also registering Chawla’s statement and from the changed circumstances there are indications that several big fish can land in the net in this case.

Ever since Jaswant Singh has got the third row in Lok Sabha, he is seldom seen in the House. Yes, he is seen everyday conducting meetings of the PAC. And it is a PAC that has been boycotted by the main opposition party BJP.

Former Karnataka minister and a close associate of Yeddyurappa, Shobha Karandlaje, is constantly in tears. Ever since she was removed from the ministerial post, let alone senior party leaders, even small workers are not giving her any importance. Shobha’s biggest grievance is that the party asked for his resignation through the media and via Karnataka BJP president Sadanand Gowda. Yeddyurappa did not even talk to her, neither then and nor till date. When Shobha calls up, the Chief Minister refuses to take her call – `O’ love, it pains seeing your plight…’.

When Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt was on his much-talked about two-day visit to Delhi, he did not forget visiting a special place and that was Sulabh Gram on the Palam Dabri Road in New Delhi. The Swedish Prime Minister spent about an hour and a half here and for most part of the time he was with the scavenger children of Sulabh Public School and rehabilitated women scavengers of Alwar. Only recently, the founder of Sulabh Movement Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak had been honoured with the Water Laureate Award 2009 in the Swedish capital of Stockholm and probably since then the urge to see the working of India’s biggest social service organisation had been there in the mind of the Swedish Prime Minister. And a detailed and interesting account of this visit is available on the Prime Minister’s official website.

The entire Sangh appears determined to have Nitin Gadkari as the next president of BJP. But who is Gadkari? What is the Sangh seeing in him? Sangh’s vision is clear, now it wants to keep the reins of BJP firmly in its hands. Even in Rajnath’s rule, the reins of BJP are in the hands of Sanghis, but every now and then the Sangh has had to face difficulties due to Rajnath’s loose policies. Sangh has made a mistake once and it does not want to repeat it. After creating a personality like Atal Bihari Vajpayee the Sangh had appeared like a pygmy before him. Gadkari is that dainty daughter of the Sangh who has seldom stepped out of the house. Probably, he has not even seen states like U.P., Jharkhand and Bihar properly. It is this quality of Gadkari that appealed to the Sangh. When a daughter feels shy in stepping out of the house, she remains within the ambit of ethics and morality. Is this how BJP’s conduct, character and face would change!

Advani is so eager to play the last decisive innings of his political career that he intends to tour India during his awareness campaign. But there is no one in the party to support this plan of his. So, one day Advani called up Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and said `arrange my meeting in your State’. Raman Singh informed Ram Lal about this and Ram Lal got the word spread in BJP that meetings are decided by the organisation and not the Chief Minister. So in the end Raman Singh had to call up Advani and inform him that `Sir, no one is willing to have your meeting’. As a result the awareness campaign got cancelled. As a result, despite Advani very eager about it, the awareness campaign could not get off the ground because in BJP at the moment the need is not for a public awareness campaign by a self awareness.

If out of the four top BJP leaders of Delhi, no one would be the next president of the party then whose number would it be, Nitin Gadkari? Manohar Paricker? Or will it be the same Bal Apte about whom the Bhisham Pitamah of BJP Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once remarked … then we would have to also get our national president introduced by people. But close confidantes of Sangh chief Bhagwat who know his mood and moustaches insist too much had been read into it. So if the writ of Bhagwat alone would run then Bal Apte would be the next president of BJP.

Has the BJP still kept its hearts and doors open for Naveen Patnaik? Otherwise Naveen stayed for several hours over dinner at the Chittaranjan Park house of a Bengali journalist who is close to BJP (one he was considered close to Advani, and these days to Arun Jaitley). A lady journalist close to Naveen was also present at this dinner. If Naveen is angry with anyone, it is another journalist-turned-politician Chandan Mitra. Perhaps the BJP high command has understood this and they have handed over the reins of the `Naveen’ (new) campaign to another Bengali warrior.

Wait…wait…long waiting. Maybe this has become the theme song for some old Congressmen like Shivraj Patil, Arjun Singh, Santosh Mohan Dev. Politically three of them have been sidelined from the mainstream. But they still prefer to wait to grab a better position. They actually mean a permanent address in Raj Bhavan in any corner of the country. They are in regular touch with top Congress leadership, even pushing for their demands. But the leadership is in a fix because they are not sure as to in which states they can be accommodated. All of them may not be rehabilitated also.