The Congress high command has started the search for Virbhadra Singh’s successor in Himachal Pradesh. It believes that now Virbhadra has grown old and so Union Minister Anand Sharma is being seen as his successor. It is understood that Anand Sharma has got the necessary indications in this regard and he has been told to get ready to return to his home State of Himachal Pradesh. He has also been told that he would first work towards strengthening the Congress organisation in the State.

The Chief Ministers of several States have lost their sleep over the unreasonable demands of their respective Governors. Recall who when Balram Jakhar had become Governor of Madhya Pradesh, then the furniture of the Raj Bhawan had to be specially changed for him. When no bed of seven feet length could be found for him, the services of carpenters were requisitioned for making beds of that size. Now the former Chief Minister of Rajasthan and Governor of Haryana Jagannath Pahadia has demanded a bulletproof bedroom for himself. Ever since Hooda is a concerned man because already the security of the Governor is so tight that he is wondering where did the need arise for having a bulletproof bedroom?

Ever since a Tamil minister has returned from America after learning English, his style has become worth seeing in the Cabinet meetings.
When in his heavily American accented English, the Minister tries to say something, then probably because of his over enthusiasm no one is able to understand him. So his friends advised him that enough of English and he should learn Hindi as that would take his point across. So, the Minister is now in search of an able teacher, the only condition is that the Hindi teacher should also know Tamil because the Minister himself is not so sure about his English now.

For the Ulfa terrorists till now there were three safe places to hide – Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. When India was supporting Suu Kyi, Myanmar Army was supplying arms, training and financial support to the Ulfa at its Bangladesh camps. The Indian Government this time made a lot of strategic efforts and Indian diplomacy did create a record of sorts this time. With the help of Bangladesh Government, Arvind Rajkhowa and Raju Baruah were nabbed overnight and they were handed over to the Indian agencies near Silchar. The Indian Government knows that there is no benefit in keeping these arrested terrorist leaders in jail and neither would anything be gained from a long trial. So, the Government wants to quickly bring them to Delhi and not only interrogate them but also open the doors of talks to them.

No matter how long the line of aspirants may be to become the Governor of Punjab, the strongest claim for this post is of Justice Liberhan. Keeping in mind his invaluable contribution, the Congress is making up its mind to promote him.

When the Sangh was asked what was the logic behind the selection of Nitin Gadkari for the post of president, it replied that it wants such a person to take the post of BJP president who does not nurture the ambition to be Prime Minister. Hurt by the dreams and aspirations of the former presidents, the Sangh has also apprised Gadkari of its intentions.

The Sangh is busy arranging for the return of the dissident BJP leaders to the party. It was the growing proximity to Kalyan with the Sangh that made Mulayam snap his ties with him so soon. Mulayam had realised that Kalyan can at any point of time alight from the cycle and climb on to the lotus. The Sangh has also been endeavouring to bring back Govindacharya. The Sangh has its own belief that since Govind and Babulal Marandi enjoy a good relationship, therefore it could be successful in bringing them towards BJP. For a long time now, the Sangh has also been trying to make Uma Bharati join the NDA. But this will only happen after the new president of BJP would take over.

In the Haryana Assembly elections, not only did BJP’s vote bank vanish, but Rs 3 crores also went missing from the party fund and till now this money has not been traced. Remember some months ago, Rs 2.5 crores had gone missing from the vault at the party’s headquarters. But the party hardly made any effort on its own to recover that money. It also did not bother to get an FIR registered with the police. This time in the Haryana elections about Rs 7 crores were collected in the party fund. People involved in the election work for the saffron party in Haryana insist that of this amount about Rs 4 crores was spent in the elections. It is another matter though that neither did this money reach the party candidates and nor did it show in the hoardings and other propaganda material. The party’s campaign was also quite lacklustre. Even then if one were to acknowledge that Rs 4 crores were spent, then where did the remaining Rs 3 crore go? Did the earth swallow it or the sky? Jaitley insists that he has given this amount to the party president, who in turn is allegedly taking the name of Ram Lal. And Ram Lal is taking the name of Vijay Goel and on being asked Vijay Goel insists that he had paid the amount to the man who was looking after Haryana … apart from these there is someone else who is watching them.

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.

Sangh takes an aim somewhere and the shot is fired somewhere else. As a new champion of Hindutva, the Sangh cajoles Varun Gandhi but time and again praises Rahul Gandhi. Recently in the Sangh convention at Rajgir, the Sanghis in one voice aired their approval of Rahul Gandhi’s campaign of spending nights at the residences of the poor and Dalits. And in the same voice they advised BJP leaders and workers that they pay more attention to the state of affairs in rural India. Now in Bhopal on the day of Dussehra there was a weapon prayer programme in a school and in this a shot went off an unlicensed countrymade pistol of Sangh worker Shyamlal Gurjar and one dedicated Sangh sewak Naresh Motwani was killed on the spot. Now the Sanghis have been advised that they should not carry any firearms to their programmes and should simply forget about firing from them. So now the guns of the Sanghis have fallen silent and if anything is still spitting fire it is their tongue. As the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat declared in Rajgir that he was in two minds on whether to send his 50 pracharaks to BJP or not. Even the breath of BJP is on hold as it is fearing what if Bhagwat were to really send these pracharaks to the party.