The saffron party has more or less finalised names for those who will contest the elections from Haryana. General V K Singh will contest from Bhivani, Kuldeep Bishnoi from Karnal, Rao Inderjit Singh from Gurgaon, Om Prakash Dhankar from Rohtak and Krishnapal Gujjar from Faridabad. Because of not reaching a decision for a Gujjar representative, the treasurer of Haryana BJP Yuva Morcha Yashvir Dagar, Ratan Lal Kataria, MP from Ambala, while Krishna Gehlawat, who has just joined the BJP after leaving the Congress, is asking for a seat from Sonipat, but since Vinod Sharma is there, Gehlawat’s ambitions to contest from there may come to nought. 

Once considered to be extremely close to Lalu Prasad, Ramkripal Yadav’s issue is with not just the fact the Patliputra seat was taken away from him. A number of other political reasons are being cited for the same. After all, Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti went all the way to Delhi to pacify uncle Ramkripal and in a rare gesture of magnanimity, offered him the Patliputra seat, too. But by then Ramkripal had connected with the BJP, thanks to Ram Vilas Paswan. A decision-making meeting had been held with BJP President Rajnath Singh by then. It is being said that Ramkripal had anyways made up his mind to quit the RJD, but due to some financial reasons, he was finding it tough to leave the party. 

Will do anything for 272-plus. The BJP is trying with all its might to realise Narendra Modi’s dream. Each seat is being focused upon; new partners are being welcomed into the NDA; those who are angry are being pacified; despite all the opposition to inducting B S Yeddyurappa back in the party, the BJP has given him a vital role in Karnataka for the Lok Sabha elections; BJP has also acquired the few seats with the alliance between  B Sriramulu’s BSR Congress, Karnataka. With this alliance, the Reddy brothers, too, can openly support the BJP; Sriramulu comes from the Naik community and he is influential in Karnataka’s Bellary, Koppal, Raichur, Gadag, Chitradurg and Maharashtra as well. So two groups have invariable been formed in the BJP – one is Sushma and Advani’s group, which is against tainted people being inducted into the party; and the second is the Modi group, which believes in including everyone and having them join for the ride. 

Congress’s senior leader, who’s intimacy with 10 Janpath is the reason behind  his ministership in Haryana government, the man who owns two television channels and dozens of 5-star hotels, yes you guessed it right, the same Vinod Sharma was spotted at Rajnath Singh’s 38 Ashoka Road residence along with his channel chief Deepak Chaurasia. Sources say that he wants BJP ticket from Karnal, and when he was told that the party has already given the seat to its ally Haryana Janhit Congress, since then the man has his eyes on Kurukshetra constituency, where the business tycoon Naveen Jindal has been contesting polls on Congress ticket.

Stunning facts were unearthed as the CBI raided properties of India’s leading meat exporter Moin Qureshi. The agency has not only put under the scanner Moins’s wife Nasreen Quereshi, a domicile of Pakistan who has earned  Page 3 fame, but also the businessman’s high profile connections in Delhi, London, Paris and Dubai. Also under scrutiny is Moin’s stake in a Paris showroom owned by the fashion-designer daughter of a former CBI Director. In addition to this, Moin’s suspected close-knit relations with a Congress woman connected to 10 Janpath, her brother-in-law and three key ministers in the UPA government is being scanned at microscopic level. Among the three ministers, one Congress state minister belongs to UP, supposed to be palsy walsy with Rahul Gandhi; another ‘wealthy’ minister belongs to MP who has hold several key positions in the Manmohan Singh government. The third minister under scanner is an NCP leader who belongs to Maharashtra. The tapes of Moin’s conversations with these people are already with  the investigating agencies. This whole episode is somehow linked to London where Moin paid a hefty amount to Dorchester Hotel in cash. Hotel managers, smelling something is wrong, alerted British intelligence department and Moin is under surveillance since then.

His altercation with Sonia Gandhi proved costly for Sahara chief Subrata Roy. The bugle for the Sonia versus Sahara battle blew when the patriotic Sahara chief said in 1999 press conference that “a woman owing her origins to a foreign country should not become the Prime Minister of this country,” which struck home Sonia, when the UPA was formulated in 2004, Sonia ‘briefed’ Chidambaram about two people, one being Narendra Modi and the second name was Subrata Roy. In UPA cabinet when Prem Gupta was held the portfolio of Company Affairs, he was assigned a work plan to shut the Sahara business, and how Chidambaram will present a government notification that its 100 per cent mandatory to allocate Sahara’s funds in the RBI bond. UPA government succeeded in its tactics whereas the difficulties kept escalating for Sahara. SEBI chairman UK Sinha’s appointment was with the same willingness, and was given a second-term as a return gift. So for the better days to come, the Sahara chief will have probably to wait for a new government. 

What made Lalu-Paswan’s years-old friendship break away at the drop of a hat to the extent that Paswan jumped directly into the laps of his arch-rival, Narendra Modi. If sources are to be believed if someone had major issues in joining hands with Lalu, it was Paswan’s son Chirag Paswan who is also a Chairman of Lok Janshakti Party’s parliamentary board . Chirag was upset over Lalu’s Lieutenant Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s comment in which he called Ram Vilas’s party worth fighting only “two-and-a-half” seats in Bihar, understanding the seriousness of the situation, Lalu sent his trustworthy man Abdul Bari Siddiqui to Paswan’s Delhi residence to apologize, but Chirag maintained that Lalu’s partymen abuse socially, but apologize in dark, what message does this send across? Apart from this, Lalu was willing to give Paswan just four seats, whereas BJP agreed on seven. Paswan is confident of winning five seats Lok Sabha elections. Therefore, Paswan dumped the lamppost out of his bungalow, hoping for the lotus to blossom.  

Ever since 2001, fashion-designer, activist and filmmaker Muzaffar Ali has been organising Jashn-e-Khusrau, the Sufi musical fest, about which former CM Sheila Dixit had been perceptibly excited. But after the change of guard in the national capital, Muzaffar Ali could not gather courage to ask A. K. Kejriwal, then new Chief Minister, for donation to organise Jashn-e-Khusro to keep the mystical communion and Muslim tradition alive. Clever enough, Muzzaffar Ali tweaked the dates and postponed it till April that was a regular March affair since 2001. Wary of how the situation would work out, Ali should now go to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jang, an active artist who has performed the roles of Tughlaq and Akbar in plays.

As the elderly Gandhian, Anna Hazare, changes his tune, Aam Aadmi Party turns to Gandhigiri. Close on the heels of Anna praising Mamata Banerjee and agreeing to campaign for her in Lok Sabha polls, Arvind Kejriwal felt tossed away and rushed on a hunt for Gandhians. Without wasting any time, he banked on Rajmohan Gandhi, thus Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson was his answer to Anna’s Banerjee. Rajmohan, notably, has been known for trying his hands at every side of politics. In haste, AAP announced that Rajmohan Gandhi will contest polls from Delhi. And why not, to counter the elderly Gandhian, AAP’s Gandhi will be more available for the media in Delhi.

With the Reserve Bank of India announced to withdraw completely all series of currency notes of higher denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 prior to 2005 before 31^st March 2014.  The Centre has made clear its motive: it wants to flush out black money, circulate more cash through banking system, bring more money in government treasury, and curb use of unaccounted money during elections. But a big question remains unanswered: what will happen to these notes after March 31?