The biggest difference that is being witnessed between the rules of UPA-I and UPA-II is the activeness of Pranab Mukherjee. His political activism these days has even surprised his political opponents. The
big-wigs of the UPA-I such as Lalu, Mulayam, Shibu and Ramvilas used to meet UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi with their problems or issues directly during the first term of the alliance, but in UPA-II the reins have gone into the hands of Pranab. He now directly meets the alliance partners and talks out the issues; his activism has particularly increased after the last `cut motion’ in the Parliament.
Recently for the Prime Minister’s dinner, he had directly called up Mayawati, but the wily and clever Mayawati had refused to come. And she told Pranab that her participation in the dinner will not send the right message among the BSP supporters. So, `behnji’ has also sent her message clearly to the Congress.

On the occasion of UPA-II completing its first year, the Prime Minister will be hosting a grand dinner for his alliance parties on May 22. But the biggest concern of the PMO is about Mamta Banerjee.
She has the maximum number of MPs among the alliance partners in the UPA and clearly her dreams, politics and expectations are also equally big. She has already fallen out with the Congress in the civic
elections of Kolkata. So ever since the PMO learnt that Mamta won’t be attending the dinner, the most important agenda on Dr. Manmohan Singh political menu has been to make the annoyed `didi’ come around. So a Bengali officer in the PMO, Jaideep, has been given the charge of pacifying her. Jaideep is close to Mamta and is on good terms with her. This Bengali officer told Mamta that if Trinamool would boycott this dinner of the Prime Mnister then it would send a wrong message to the other constituent parties of the UPA. So `didi’ has now understood and while she may not attend the dinner herself, but one of her ministers of state Dinesh Trivedi could represent Trinamool in this dinner.

Who knows what happened that the fear of mosquitoes began haunting the Prime Minister all times of the day and night. From 5 to 7 Race Course Road or from the residence to office of the Prime Minister, mosquitoes have become synonymous with terror these days. Even otherwise the memory of Nana Patekar’s dialogue “ek machar saala … ’’ must be still fresh in your mind. Committed to the security of the Prime Minister, SPG has also opened a front against the mosquitoes. Every other day a
complaint is lodged with the New Delhi Municipal Council. Congress persons even say in muted voices that NDMC has been somewhat lethargic in this matter. Prime Minister’s dear son-in-law had suffered from dengue last year, therefore his concern about mosquitoes appears quite justified.

If Lalit Modi is to wash clean the stains of suspension then he would have to muster the support of at least 10 of the 30 BCCI members. But for the time being Modi appears to be in trouble. He is also not being able to get the support of BJP ruled States. Anurag Thakur from Himachal and Arun Jaitley from Delhi have shown him their thumbs. Narendra Modi is also walking away from Lalit Modi. So in the end Modi only appears to be getting the support of I.S. Bindra of Punjab Cricket Association. Bindra, as it is, is an old time ally of Modi and during his IPL reign if Modi had to settle scores with someone all he
needed to do was to needle Bindra and then Bindra used to take the cudgels on his behalf.

Remember that Suhel Seth of Page 3 who would in panel discussions on every news channel tear to shreds Mamta Banerjee and her Bengali politics and use very strong words against Mamta. But rich in relations, Suhel through his friend Tarun Das has managed to make inroads into her heart. So he has become the Chairman of the Publicity and Campaign committee of the Railway Ministry and immediately on the lines of the “in board’’ magazines of the airlines, his first agenda is to launch a new magazine for the rail passengers. It should be remembered that the original idea of launching such a magazine was of
the BJP MP and editor of The Pioneer, Chandan Mitra. During the days of Lalu, Chandan’s file remained gathering dust on the table of Lalu’s favourite OSD Sudhir Kumar but this idea of launching a magazine could never get the green signal from Lalu. But now it seems, Suhel’s move has clicked. And his ambitious train has started running fast in the Railway Ministry.

Despite facing a lakh political setbacks, Advani’s optimism is such that it refuses to go. Even after the mauling that BJP got in the last Lok Sabha elections, Advani’s unfulfilled ambition of becoming Prime Minister is still alive. There is a leader close to Advani, who also does a bit of fortune telling, and a few days ago he told Advani that it appears from a reading of the constellation and stars that the Manmohan Singh Government would fall within a year and the country would be pushed into a mid-term poll and in these elections BJP under the leadership of Advani would along with its alliance partners be in a position to form the Government. So when Advani’s ambitions got new wings, the Sangh also got alerted and in a haste it made the announcement that Narendra Modi would be the next prime ministerial candidate of BJP. Surely, this was a successful move of the Sangh to hurt Advani.

When the weather is so hot, then how can the political temperature be made to rise? Congress prince Rahul Gandhi had understood the mood and arrival of the weather quite well in his last trip to U.P. When only a handful of people were joining his road show and the heat of the sun was so much, what political ideas could have generated in the mind? But our saffron Gandhi Varun does not listen. He was so pleased by the numbers that had turned up for his last rally at Saharanpur that he has now turned to Rae Bareli. Or now he has set his eyes on Jaunpur to challenge his paternal aunt and cousin brother. This Sunday he is going to address a rally at a junior high schools in the Sujanganj area of Jaunpur district. Varun’s supporters claim that no matter ow much fire the sun spits, the crowds and the enthusiasm and fervour at Varun’s rally would be no less than what was seen in Saharanpur; this
when Varun and his people have not invited any central leader of BJP for the rally. So the tone and tenor of the rally would be very Varun-like. Has this youth leader of BJP really learnt to run by keeping pace with the frontrunner of politics. The success of the Jaunpur rally would provide an answer to this.

The darkness is yet to clear from several unexplained layers of the alleged Madhuri Gupta spy case and in the intelligence circles the debate has indeed started on whether this is the outcome of the internal tussle between the IFS and the IFS (B) lobby. Sources say Madhuri had in the past got quite close to an officer incharge of the
Raw desk. Then the two fell out and the matter came to such a passé that the senior Raw officer lodged a written complaint against Madhuri that she used to meet certain suspected persons and ever since Madhuri had come under surveillanc e in her service. But the moot question is did Madhuri have access to the `key classified information’ of the intelligence department? In the intelligence departments, the most sensitive files have “for your eyes only’’ written on them. On files that are less sensitive than these, are written the words “top
secret’’, “secret’’, “confidential’’ and then in the end “general’’. Madhuri did not even have access to those general files. During her posting to Pakistan, her duty only entailed preparing the English translation of the stories appearing in the Urdu newspapers. Sometimes, she would stay with the Indian High Commissioner as a translator. As far as the matter of leaking the list of the Indian spies is concerned, then this list of IFS officers is available all
over and those whose posting is not on the civil list come under the needle of suspicion. Therefore Madhuri was merely a small fish, the intelligence agencies are still to reach to the big player.

When the Income Tax and FERA raids took place, the papers of Videocon and Adani disappeared very mysteriously. It was then that Pawar’s son-in-law Sadanand Sule could breathe easy. Or else people were unnecessarily accusing him of having 25 per cent sweat equity in Videocon. The Income Tax department is now rebuking BCCI saying the bid papers handed over to it were no original. Scattered sources even insist that a copy of these original papers was seen with Lalit Modi. But now Modi is denying this. Is something brewing between him and Pawar?

In IPL or `Indian Paisa Loot’ there is a lot else apart from cricket that is played out. The civilised people can call it fixing in cricket parlance. So when Shashi Tharoor, who was busy trying to get the Kochi franchise for his people, contacted Sharad Pawar camp, he was told that since reserve price is going to be 225 million dollars so you bid 250 million dollars because Pawar camp was busy trying to help out the Videocon and Adani Group. Everyone knew which close relative of Pawar
had the 25 percent sweat equity in Videocon. The clever Tharoor got his franchise friends to bid for 333 million dollars and bagged the deal. Then a worried Pawar camp applied pressure on Modi that he change the packets for the bids. Modi went out of the meeting and on coming out he narrated the matter to BCCI president Shashank Manohar. Seeing the matters slipping out of hand, the Pawar camp summoned the Rendezvous franchise and told them to take a 50 million dollar profit
and leave the Kochi team or be prepared to bear the consequences.