When the party turned its back on master strategist and a politician’s politician Digvijay Singh and took the reins of UP from him and handed them over to Madhusudan Mistry who is supposed to be extremely close to Ahmad Patel, Diggy Raja didn’t give up. The minute he was given the responsibility of Andhra Pradesh, he made a phone call to late YSR Reddy’s wife and Jagmohan’s mother and reminded him how he was close to YSR at one point in time. Thus, Diggy talked about am unannounced understanding between Jagmohan’s party and the Congress, but he did not get any substantial assurance from Jagmohan’s mother on the same. His mother Vijay Lakshmi gave the excuse to Diggy that she will first have to speak to her son who is in prison and only then will she be able to consider extending the hand of friendship to the Congress. Whereas the truth is that Jagan’s mother is in constant tough with Congress’ master player Ahmad Patel and has also met him in Delhi on several occasions. Which means Jagan’s mother is making calculated moves in the game between two Congress biggies.

Away from wishes, wishful thinking, and speculation, a new stage is about to be set between the JD (U) and the BJP. The bitterness that comes from estranged relationships is becoming more and more evident. Nitish and Company has decided a course of action for itself. The BJP may be crying bitterly over the broken relationship, but this time it is not ready to kneel before Nitish. Some Vibhishans from the BJP itself are trying all they can to help Nitish. But a section of the BJP is also ready to give back to Nitish in kind and on target will be the clean and honest image that Nitish has built with the help of media. A rebel leader from the JD (U) tells without wanting to be named that the Central government is looking at ways to investigate Nitish’s Mauritius connection. This politician even reveals that this socialist leader has a significant share in the several five-star hotels that are being constructed in Mauritius, investments have been done, there is a lot of business interest but until there is some clinching evidence in terms of documents, even the BJP won’t say anything about it. Not even on the fact that Nitish is speaking too much.

The BJP may have been left with a bad taste in its mouth with the goings-on in Goa, but come Sunday and the party members got the trump card in the form of NaMo. It is also not a secret anymore that Advani camp can’t stand the sudden rise of Modi’s fame; Advani was down thus with an upset stomach and could not go to Goa. Those supporters of Advani who did manage to go to Goa to handle the matter were “late”. With his smart management skills, Modi has turned the tide in his favour. So the issue no longer is whether Modi will be given the task of managing the Prachar Committee or if he will be launched as the BJP’s face for the coming Lok Sabha elections. At the party’s working committee meeting, it was decided that the party will not be able to contest the coming Lok Sabha elections without Modi. Thus, in the coming days, several warriors of the Advani camp may change sides in the days to come.

The government is playing its own role in fanning the fire of Indian Paap League, that is the IPL. To pressurise Srinivasan to resign, BCCI’s treasurer and secretary have also stepped down and now the vice-president is also on his way out. If everyone is alike in this game of cricket, why is the Congress employing double standards? On the one hand, the Congress people are attacking Srinivasan directly, and are protecting its minister and IPL Commissioner Rajiv Shukla. Actually, the Central government is wants to give a shock to the DMK party, and so it is aiming at Srinivasan, who is considered to be close to the DMK. Maybe that is the reason so many days after the fixing scandal, Congress minister Jyotiraje Scindia gave a statement and asked Srinivasan to resign. And in any case, the IPL is a hen that lays gold eggs and Sharad Pawar is an active participant in the league. Where Scindia is concerned, he has a clean image and the Congress may announce him as the candidate for Madhya Pradesh’s chief minister by August-end.

Indian Paap League today has little to do with cricket and has become a casino and in the current scenario all have become gamblers. If Srinivasan gets framed, Dhoni might feel the heat, too. It will be interesting to watch whose wickets will fall. BCCI Chief Srinivasan’s resignation may come at any time, although IPL Commissioner and Central Minister Rajiv Shukla is trying hard to save him. Where the UPA government is concerned, it is in a fix because he doesn’t want to face Sharad Pawar’s ire by supporting Srinivasan. For a while now, Pawar has been trying to get Srinivasan out and strategising for the same. Not only does Sharad Pawar have a strong influence on the Mumbai Police, but even controls it to an extent. No wonder the Mumbai Police was extra active when it came to action against Srinivasan’s son-in-law Mayappan. Pawar also has good relations with the Tamilsovereign lady Jayalalithaa and India Cement’s Srinivasan is her enemy number one because he is considered to be close to Karunanidhi. That is the reason there are several cases against him in Chennai, and there is an FIR against him in Andhra Pradesh due to his closeness with Jagan Mohan Reddy. While several investigations are on in states regarding match-fixing, but the quickness with which Delhi Police Commissioner has reacted has surprised many. Sources reveal that whatever is happening with the IPL has left Rahul Gandhi pretty upset, and he has even let his mind be known on the party forum that politicians should not play around with sports. Is Shukla ji listening?

Michael Steiner, Germany’s ambassador in India is known for his special diplomacy skills. It is the same Steiner who invited Narendra Modi to his residence for lunch and to keep the event a high-profile one, he also sent out invitations to ambassadors of other countries. The delicious smells of the meal and the news about the event reached far and wide. So far that Congress’ crown prince Rahul Gandhi could contain himself no longer and made a quick call to Steiner, inviting him over for tea. The Gandhi family has close relations with this German ambassador. Steiner’s wife especially gets along well with Sonia Gandhi. That is because the German ambassador’s wife has relatives in Italy and the both are often seen speaking to each other in Italian. When Michael Steiner reached Rahul’s home for tea, Rahul promptly asked him what opinion he had of Modi and what kind of a person he was. What the clever diplomat said surprised even the Congress crown prince. About NaMo, Steiner commented, “I thought I was going to meet a lion but he turned out to be an extremely insecure person.” But obviously, Rahul was beside himself with joy when he heard this.

The way CBI has been in a mess regarding the Coalgate scam and it is there for anyone to see. But the CBI is just not ready to learn from its mistakes. There have been several question marks on the way the CBI functions, because of which the court asked the investigative agency to file the affidavit yet again. The body was also warned that this time the court should show the affidavit to no one else but the court. Sources reveal that a new one was prepared by the CBI director. Again, if sources are to be believed, the CBI director had an appointment with the attorney general on May 1 at 7.30 in the evening. It is believed that there was a serious discussion about the report between the two. You can well imagine where the report went from there.

The Congress may cry itself hoarse that the law minister will not resign, but the law minister himself knows the mess he is in and the legal mess it involves. The court has clearly told the CBI to file a fresh report along with an affidavit saying that the report has not been shown to anyone. Sources reveal that no less than 11 people were present at the meeting the law minister had called to see the report. During the meeting, Ashvini Kumar was pretty upset with the CBI director’s status report. Angry, he made some uncalled-for remarks about the CBI director’s understanding of legal laws. He then made corrections to the report personally. Later, the Opposition leaders especially the BJP party members got hold of all the three versions of this report. One was the original report drafted by the CBI, the other that showed corrections by the law minister and the third was the final report that was presented to the court.

With his unique style and candour, Narendra Modi has found several industrialists in Kolkata to be his ardent fans. His meeting with industrialists was a big hit. Some of them admired how much he remembered, while others were impressed by the degree of homework he had done. What had happened was about six months ago, a delegation of industrialists from Kolkata had gone and met Modi looking for a possibility of setting up units in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Now at the meeting in Kolkata, Modi not only remembered his meeting with the industrialists and addressed them with their names, but also remembered their business proposals. On the contrary, Mamta is either talking to someone else at such meetings, or looking at her watch. Even worse, her predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had even addressed Wipro chief Azim Premji as “Adam” Premji!

Did the Congress have a role to play in the hustling and jostling that was faced by Mamta Banerjee and her Finance Minister Amit Mitra by the SFI at Yojana Bhavan? Otherwise what was the reason the security officials at the venue did not pay heed to one demand by her Mamta? When Mamta’s car approached the main gate of Yojana Bhavan, there was a big group of SFI and CPI-members and they surrounded Mamta’s car. At that time, Mamta called an official in the venue from the car itself asking them to open the main gate so that she could go inside. But the security officials told her that she should use the other gate since the gate was locked and they didn’t have keys to the same. But Mamta didn’t agree to using that gate. Both Mamta and Amit were heckled and attempts were made to tear off Mamta’s blouse, while Amit’s kurta was torn. Both of them were also wounded and Mitra was immediately taken to AIIMS, where the doctors confirmed that he didn’t receive any internal injuries but he has suffered a heart attack before, and they wanted to be careful. Didi herself got admitted to a hospital in Kolkata for a check-up and Mamta said she wouldn’t be coming to Delhi as the place wasn’t safe anymore.