When the CBI raided the office of Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Hindalco office situated at Parliament Street, it found Rs 25 crore in a safe. Apparently, a diary was also found there, and it had all the record of where what money was spent, how it was debited and credited, especially details of how much donation was given to which political parties. But the “Caged bird that sings” got one thing wrong here. Without getting Photostat copies of the same, it handed it over to the Income Tax department. And now the CBI is having to expect help about some crucial information from the ED and Income Tax Department.

Including a former mayor from the BJP, a number of dissatisfied politicians from the BJP and the Congress are knocking on the doors of Aam Aadmi Party for the upcoming Assembly elections in Delhi .All the prominent leaders who didn’t get tickets from their parties are contacting Arvind Kejriwal either personally or through their associates. Kejriwals’ own votes may not be too much but he is high on confidence and he has told the Congress-BJP dissatisfied politicians that AAP will give party tickets to only those who are not tainted. Now finding such politicians in today’s Indian political scenario can’t be an easy job.

Manoranjana Singh’s name attracted headlines first when she married Congress heavyweight Mangat Singh, a minister from the north-east who was considered to be close to Narsimha Rao. With time, she became the chairperson of NE Television owned by Mangat Singh. When the Sharada Chitfund scam in West Bengal got attention, Manoranjana Singh’s name cropped up here, too. After issues with her husband for many years, Manoranjana has carved out a path for herself and now wants to enter the arena of active politics. She wants to contests the elections from Tejpur or Silchar in Assam from the BJP’s ticket. For the past few days, she is said to have come close to former BJP President Nitin Gadkari. Manoranjana’s ties with the Sangh go back a long way because her father K N Gupta was an efficient and  able journalist who believed in the Sangh philosophy. He edited Motherland, considered to the Sangh’s mouthpiece, for a long time. Yet, a few days ago, people were nothing less than shocked when they saw Manoranjana Singh share the stage with the likes of Sangh head Mohan Bhagwat and BJP’s Gadkari in Nagpur. If a woman is seen in a Sangh programme, sharing centrestage with the Sangh head and former BJP president, you can imagine the extent of her influence.

The corporate world is shocked because of the way the CBI has filed an FIR against Kumar mangalam Birla in the Coalgate matter. And in a way, a few voices against the Congress are raising their voices. Its first effect is being seen on the election donations; the corporate world is spending money for the BJP with both hands, but is clenching its fists tight when it comes to the Congress. Kumarmangalam Birla has 35 per cent shares in a media company. Kumarmangalam’s son has come back from New York armed with a media management degree and his aim is to become a media baron. Keeping his son’s wishes in mind. Kumarmangalam was about to give him 51 per cent shares of this media company so that he could control the company. For a while now, this media group’s three channels and a multi-language news magazine has been taking an anti-government and anti-Congress stance. Once in a while, the news anchors would directly attack the Congress crown-prince Rahul Gandhi, too, and this was just not going down well with the Congress. Sources reveal that several warning were issued to Kumarmangalam from the Congress so that his channel mends its ways, but Kumarmangalam washed his hands off the affair saying he did not control the media group at present. Thus, the Congress and the UPA government started to feel that Kumar, too, has an anti-Congress and pro-Modi take and a political strategy was drawn to teach him a lesson. Setting Kumarmangalam as an example, the Congress wants to pass on the message to another top industrialist who has a big share in several media groups that he get over his Modi love while there’s still time, or he could face the same fate as Kumarmangalam.

Playing the biggest hand of his political career, Narendra Modi has carefully planned his every move keeping the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in mind. Team Modi has spotted 250 such Parliamentary seats where the BJP may have a good chance to win. A survey team of Modi is doing an in-depth step-by-step survey of these 250 seats. The main agenda of this survey is to look for the candidates for these constituencies. Candidates who are confident of winning these seats will not only get tickets from the party but also a sum of Rs one crore. The candidate will then have to draw out a weekly summary report and will also be given more financial help as and when needed. Modi has made it clear to his people that able candidates will face no paucity of funds. It is believed that Modi has estimated his election budget to be about Rs 700 crore.

On Friday, the country saw the Congress’ biggest political drama ever at the Press Club in Delhi, but the cheering and claps were subdued. The bigger question was why the crown prince could not explain why the Eureka moment didn’t hit him when he attended every meeting about the Ordinance about tainted politicians not being allowed to contest the elections? Why did he have to rubbish the Ordinance after it was passed by his own party? At the last moment when the danger of being imprisoned for five-10 years regarding the fodder scam came close to Lalu Prasad, his then advocate Kapil Sibal came up with a fool-proof idea and put all this capabilities into the drafting of this Ordinance, which was then passed by the Cabinet. Which means the sentiments of the Supreme Court were kept on the side and a new arrangement of the new Ordinance emerged, which said if any of the lower courts, even the high courts, announce these politicians to be guilty, the Ordinance will be able to get them a stay. This means that their membership in the Parliament will not be disqualified; they will come to the Parliament, although they will not get their salaries, will not be able to vote but will be able to contest in the next elections. This is when the Supreme Court clearly states in this Prevention of Corruption Act that there can be no stay on conviction. The Supreme Court had ruled that if the politician is found to be guilty, his membership will be revoked and he will not be able to fight the next elections.

Is the US upset with Manmohan Singh? The prime minister is going to the US with his entourage this September 25. The Indian politicos got a little hot under the collar preparing for the trip when they were told by the American administration and the White House that the US President Barack Obama will not be available to meet the Indian prime minister during this tour of his to the country. After a lot of coaxing and cajoling, Obama agreed to meet Manmohan for 15 minutes during lunch. Actually, the US is miffed for two reasons more than anything else. One, it feels that India’s new National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon is more pro-China and anti-US. Two, the US feels that the kind of eagerness that was shown during UPA-I regarding the nuclear deal is now on the backburner during the UPA-II regime. The deal may have gotten a formal go-ahead but the UPA-II is not making any attempts to execute it. For a few days, the US has started to openly show its displeasure. For instance, Obama spoke to Russia and China about the Syria matter but didn’t think it deemed any merit to speak to India about it. Forget Obama, there was not even a phone call from the state secretary to the Indian administration. America’s real reason to be angry with India is giving importance to other countries rather than the US when it comes to trade. In the recent defence deals, India has given priority to countries such as France, Germany and Israel rather than the US. We bought far more aircraft from the French Company Airbus than American company Boeing. There have been bilateral trade agreements with China and India is making attempts to improve its relations with Russia. These are issues that the US can’t get its head around.

Digvijay Singh might contest the coming elections from two seats in Madhya Pradesh – Vidisha and Sagar. Diggy has made his intentions about contesting from Vidisha public, and he wants to contest against BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. But Sushma herself doesn’t seem too keen to contest elections from Vidisha against Diggy Raja. If Diggy does indeed come to Vidisha, Sushma may change hear seat to New Delhi or Faridabad. Or she might just contest the elections from both places.

Sonia-type role for Advani; No. 2 promise to Sushma
The RSS has worked out a blueprint to achieve unanimity on Narendra Modi as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate by promising a meaty role to each of Modi’s detractors in the event of the BJP-led NDA coming to power.

Sources say the RSS has stepped in to placate the Advani camp and other Modi detractors as it wants complete unanimity when NaMo’s name is announced after the parliamentary board meeting this Friday. As per the RSS’ formula, if Modi forms the government in 2014, Advani will enjoy the same powers that Sonia Gandhi exercises as UPA chairperson.
The RSS has held out a promise to the BJP patriarch that he will be made the chairperson of the NDA with the same advisory powers that Sonia enjoys in the present regime.

Sources say that the RSS blueprint promises to take the initiative for making Murli Manohar Joshi the next President of the country. Like Advani, Joshi, too, has reservations over Modi’s PM candidature. As for Sushma Swaraj, the RSS plans to make her No. 2 in the Modi Cabinet by giving her Home or Defence portfolio. Another leader Nitin Gadkari has not opened his cards over Modi’s candidature.
The Sangh leadership, which is close to Gadkari, intends to win him over by giving him back the BJP chief’s job. However, that will anger the present president Rajnath Singh, but the RSS has plans to placate him by offering him a meaty role in Modi’s Cabinet. The Advani camp fears marginalisation once Modi’s name is declared as the PM candidate. However, the Sangh wants to assure the leaders that it has chalked out an important role for all of them.

At the RSS-BJP meeting which concluded on Monday, Advani reiterated that Modi’s name should not be declared before the Assembly elections are over. According to sources, he said that there were about 40 seats in Madhya Pradesh where Muslim voters played an important role. In normal circumstances, the Muslim voter either voted for the BJP or remained neutral.
However, he fears that the announcement of Modi’s name before the polls will drive the Muslim voters towards Congress, thereby affecting BJP’s chances. However, the Sangh is determined that the BJP declare Modi’s name before Pitra Paksh starts on September 19 and has made this clear to the detractors.

The Hand and the Elephant are striking up a new friendship in UP. Thanks to Madhusudan Mistry, who revved up the efforts to revive Congress in the state after the party’s responsibility in the state was taken over from Digvijay Singh. Mistry has had several rounds on decisive meetings with the BSP supremo. And both the BSP and the Congress have come to an ethical agreement of sorts about a coalition of before the elections. Only after that did Mayawati’s meeting with Ahmad Patel and Sonia Gandhi take place. The Congress has made it clear to the BSP supremo in a way that if such a coalition between the Congress and the BSP does take place, there will be no token coalition from the Congress and that the party will play a big role in the coalition. For instance, out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, it is being said that the BSP will contest in 45 seats and the Congress in 35. This seat suggestion has come from the Congress. So it is likely that after some minor changes here and there (50-30, for instance), a formal agreement may be reached upon by the two parties. And if that really does happen, it will be danger sign for the SP and the BJP because in Madhusudan Mistry’s recent survey, the Congress’ state is pretty fragile in UP. If the Congress decides to go all out on its own in the elections, it will be able to muster only four to six seats of the present 22 seats in the state. It is worth mentioning here that Mistry had given the report of the survey to Rahul Gandhi only one-and-a-half months ago.