The UP government in its previous incarnation had appointed 10 Information Commissioners, of which one was Arvind Singh Bisht. And who was he? Well he happens to be the father-in-law of then Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav’s adopted son Prateek. Given that stature of having the backing of the boss, Bisht naturally threw his weight around. Yet, every time the Chief Information Commissioner of the state would proceed on leave, he would give charge to one Mr Gupta, not Bisht. As such, Bisht took umbrage at this and had a faceoff with the boss himself. Bisht said that being the senior-most, it is he who should be given charge. But the CIC shot off that since all the Information Commissioners had been appointed on the same day, the mare fact that Bisht’s name, alphabetically only, tops the list does not make him the senior-most. An enraged Bisht thus knocked the doors of the court, but the latter slammed that door on his face, rubbishing his claims.

The once flamboyant and high-flying Jay Panda is all at sea suddenly, all the time lost in his thoughts. The leader of the Biju Janata Dal, now estranged from party boss Naveen Pattnaik, is known to have been knocking on the doors of the Central BJP for quite some time now. There are strong rumours that he recently had even a crucial meeting with PM Narendra Modi. Sources reveal that during the tete-a-tete, Panda reminded the PM of his clear edge in foreign affairs, and that he has been the president of the Indo-US Friendship Forum for the past 10 years. Panda, it seems, is all geared up to join the BJP. Jay had apparently desired that he be made a junior minister in the ministry of foreign affairs. And sources also says that the PM had been open to give him a plum post. But now he has been given a much lesser assignment of heading the FICCI friendship forum. He is now tasked to build relations with Germany and Israel. Poor Panda, from a haloed dream of being a minister, he is now a mere manager.

The fight for TRPs in two news channels, Arnab Goswami’s Republic and his former employer Times Now has been reduced to a slender margin of 24 points. Naturally, the shrieking Goswami realises that merely singing saffron nationalism will not pay off, and hence he needs to do something different. Media sources say that any day now a major sting operation is likely to shore up the TRPs of Republic.

Lal Krishna Advani, the man reputed to have rebuilt BJP from the scratch, is now a wounded soul. Sources say that before proceeding on a holiday to Kerala and thence to Puducherry, he had resolved to meet three top men in his organisation. To start with, the PM. But he was told that the PM is out on one of his frequently frivolous foreign formats of self-aggrandizement, so he could meet the PM only once he is back, till his next foreign detour, of course. Party boss Amit Shah, the second man in Advani’s list, also did not meet him, saying he is busy on internal tours across the country. Advani was assured that once the Boss was back, he himself would make a trip to Advani’s. And Nagpur said that since the RSS was holding one of its key sessions, Advani could wait, please.
Experienced as he is in the ingratitudinal ways of the political world, Advani realised that the party he had nurtured with his blood and sweat through those years of its being in the political oblivion is no longer his keeper.

It is well known now that Rahul Gandhi has failed to mark even a scratch on the political whiteboard of the country, and yet he is still the Crown Prince of the Congress party. After all, a mother’s throbbing heart listens to no political wisdom, isn’t it? So now, with the ailing Mom Sonia sinking into deeper malaise, it has been decided that “Pappu” will take over the party’s reigns formally in October. The search party is out for the Grand Conference’s venue. Most covet the Talkatora Stadium, which has become something of an article of faith with the Congress, having held several of its showpiece conclaves there.
The contrarian view that has emerged is that the Maha Anointment Conclave should be held in Karnataka capital city Bengaluru; first because the party is in power in the state and second, because it is the youth ‘geek’ capital of the country. The final decision rests with Pappu himself, and it will be announced just after he returns from the embrace of his maternal grand mom in Italy, where he is now.

Rahul Gandhi’s ascension to the Congress throne could well see him wearing a crown of thorns. As of now, he has not been able to make a clear place for himself under the political sun, even within his own party. Besides, his other friendly parties too are beaming signals that he is still not taken as a mature politico. Recently, when Bengal femme fatale Mamata Banerjee was in town to iron out issues on the coming prez polls, Pappu invited her for cuppa at his place. Mamata Didi, while accepting the invite, however, insisted that the venue to changed from Rahul’s residence to 10 Janpath. Didi’s logic was that she has been an ardent follower of Rahul’s later father Rajeev Gandhi. Besides, Didi said, she could be also meeting the ailing widow of Rajeev, Sonia, who lives there. Is everything so sentimental? May be Rahul will soon grow up as a kid who understands such political nuances!

Nothing seems to be going right with the Congress these days. Let alone friends, even political allies are turning their pushes into shoves. Scuttlebutt is that during a recent meeting at 10 Janpath on finding a consensual opposition candidate for the position of the next President of the country, Naresh Agarwal told her to quickly settle the matter of her son-in-law Robert Vadra. Agarwal said quite bluntly: “Unless you do that, it will not only cost the Congress but will also become a prickly bone in the throat of the allied parties.” Sonia, to say the least was taken aback at the abrupt change of discourse. Gathering her wits back in a few moments, sources say, she mumbled: “We are not involved in that, but I shall see!”
Insiders reveal that after Agarwal departed, Sonia told a confidante with a sigh: “Ah! These are the people who would once grovel to meet me… now look at them!”

Embattled within and facing a political encounter from without, the Aam Aadmi Party seems to be on the threshold of brand new self-realisation. That grand internal growth seems to have been fortified especially after Deputy CM Manish Sisodia’s short trip the CBI headquarters and back. In its core group meeting recently, the party has decided on abstinence: it will not contest the polls in Gujarat (which Kejriwal had vowed to sweep) and Himachal Pradesh. Kejriwal had been pushing the line that even if the party bags six per cent of the votes in these states, AAP will earn the stature of a ‘national’ party. But now there is a role reversal. Reason? Party mandarins feel that it should now focus totally on delivering good governance to Delhi before looking here and there.

The ruling party is hell bent on crucifying former home and finance minister P Chidambaram, and if sources are to be believed, the latter may soon face a court case on charges of sedition. Indeed, it has been some time since the maverick BJP politician Subramanian Swamy has been demanding a CBI case against Chidambaram on charges of sedition, and he has handed over what he calls incriminating evidence to investigating agencies. Swamy says that when Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Deve Gowda government in 1996, he had unilaterally given away the contract to print Indian currency notes to a British company, De La Rue. He had not even take the clearance from his own PM. The question is, is it purely coincidental that it was De La Rue which was already printing Pakistani currency notes? It is being averred that this gave Pakistan an easy access to the same kind of paper and use it to print millions of rupee worth of fake notes, which they flooded Kashmir with. PMO sources tell us that Modi had summoned finance minister Arun Jaitley recently and told him to carefully collect all the evidence against Chidambaram and hand them over to investigating agencies.

While Modi’s promised good times have eluded India, it sure is very bad times for the Congress party. First the party’s graph started hurtling down. And now the party’s mouthpiece, “Congress Sandesh” has reached a miserable state. This is reflected in everything, starting with the circulation. There was a time when the Rs 10 magazine had a subscription of nearly a lakh. Party sources gripe that today, it stands a measly 10,000. The condition of the scribes working in the magazine is also pitiable. They neither receive their salaries on time nor any other allowances. Once upon a time there was no limit to the petrol expenses these reporters could make. Besides, they were entitled to free meals at the office canteen. But since the era of demonetisation, for the first few months they received no salary at all. Though salaries have been revived now, they are always late. A senior party leader squarely blames the editor Girija Vyas and members of the editorial board, Jairam Ramesh and Salman Khurshid for this plight. Paranoid with this development, the publisher of the paper, party treasurer Motilal Vohra now sits full time in the office, scrutinises every article and corrects factual mistakes, and silently prays for the return of “Congress Sandesh’s” Achhe Din.