Moving on

The Congress jatra over, it is yatra time for the BJP (if tyag is the Congress buzzword, it is yatra for the sanghis, if you remember). The twin attack from the saffronites start on April 6. The RSS, one must say, had tried its best to dissuade LK Advani from hitting the road, and even invoked Sonia?s tyag mantra to inspire the opposition leader. But the man seems desperate to draw some attention to himself. Meanwhile, the yatra barometer shows disquieting features. Ananth Kumar, formerly Uma Bharti?s sarathi, has been upgraded to accompany Advani on his yatra (and Rajnath Singh is supposed to have fallen at the feet of Bharti?s spiritual guru at Udipi. Does that mean a yatra back to the saffron fold for the sanyasin?), while Rajnath Singh has got an equally enthusiastic Vijay Goel. There has been problems with the routes though: the Rajnath camp thinks Advani has the more high-profile states. Then there has been the rethink on the name of the yatras. From the national integration yatra, it is now the rashtriya suraksha yatra, for the BJP is supposed to be more serious about internal security than the issue of unity. A party MP was even heard mumbling, a little unsurely, that it would give the BJP an excuse to raise the Sonia Gandhi issue. What? And burn its fingers again?

Hide and seek

For the Congress, the situation down south is not too happy either. Messrs Veerappa Moily, the AICC gen-sec in charge of Tamil Nadu, and other AICC functionaries, are so mortified of J Jayalalithaa and her Karnataka counterpart, HD Kumaraswamy, that they held the process of selecting nominees for the TN assembly in the capital?s Andhra Bhawan instead of the Tamil Nadu House or Moily?s residennce at the Karnataka Bhawan. The explanation they gave was that the AIADMK leadership was supposedly working in tandem with Kumaraswamy to get an advance list of the candidates. Any takers for that?

Those who stayed away

There was a sudden rush of ministers to 10 Janpath to plead with madam to reconsider her decision to resign from parliament. What interested Congress insiders was not who called on Sonia, but all those who did not. Among those who stayed away was the Union minister for mines, T Subbirami Reddy, one of the four Congress MPs who holds an office of profit. Reddy heads the Tirupati temple trust and is yet to offer his resignation. Naturally!

Chicken feed

Why should the educated succumb to a media-fuelled panic about bird flu and force an institution like the India International Centre to abandon production of anything containing poultry? That was the question the Union health secretary, Prasanna Hota, posed to a senior IIC official the other day when, while ordering his lunch, he was told that all the listed chicken items were unavailable. Hota demanded to know the reason. The official merely mumbled that the decision was taken a month ago and till the ministry came out with an advisory, chicken items would stay off the menu. Over to Hota now.

With god?s help

When in India, do as the godmen do. That was the lesson Baba Ramdev taught the firebrand leftist, Brinda Karat (hopefully she learnt it). Members of the Janata Dal (United) know that bit already. Which is why they changed the venue of their national convention. It was supposed to be held in Patna, but before the preliminary bookings could be done, they realized the yogi was in town and holding a camp. The party shifted its venue to Rajgir promptly. But the president?s visit to Patna forced it to defer its meet for a fortnight, and this time it was done happily. When it is time for the meet, Baba Ramdev would have left town, allowing JD(U) to celebrate the occasion in style.

Living life king-size

The new chairman-cum-managing director in the Airlines House, Viswapati Trivedi, has obviously decided to live in style. First came the renting of a four-bedroom flat in one of the most expensive residential colonies in the capital, although Trivedi?s predecessors had been content with regulation government houses. Two spanking new Suzuki Balenos have also been allegedly bought for the MD?s exclusive use, together with two cellular phone handsets that have sent tongues wagging. Trivedi, however, is said to have settled for a ?uniform? allowance, besides a substantial entertainment allowance. Little wonder he has attracted the notice of the Central vigilance commission.

Difficult times

Unlike the first, the second tyag has had its pitfalls. Witness what it has done to the PM?s public image. The mess created by an overzealous PMO, a confused law and home ministry has done irreparable damage to the PM, who was already under substantial pressure over the Indo-US nuclear deal from the minority section of the party itself. Former Olympian-turned-politician, Aslam Sher Khan, is supposed to have hinted at ?narrow political gains? being made out of the deal. Then the tyag followed, and its details. Ahmad Patel, political secretary to madam, is supposed to have been the first to hear about her decision to resign outside the immediate family. Janardhan Dwivedi was apparently the second, for a statement had to be prepared. The PM was informed together with the defence and I&B ministers. But even before that, a telephone call had gone to the CPI(M) gen-sec, Prakash Karat. And yet the PM is known to have been opposed to the ordinance. The price of goodness, should we say?