Legal battles go haywire

During the heydays of the fodder scam, BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi and water resources minister Lallan Singh were brothers-in-arms when it came to legal battles.

Both of them were petitioners in the case with the common goal of prosecuting RJD chief Lalu Prasad. Lalu used to call them mukadmebaaz (habitual court-goers). However, the changed political equations threaten to change all this. In a public statement, the BJP leader recently blamed Lallan for neglecting embankments, leading to their breach and flooding of large areas. The minister said the BJP leader should get his facts right and threatened a defamation case.

"There will be no out-of-court settlement," the minister declared. Modi reacted by taunting the minister to withdraw a case related to former chief minister Rabri Devi's statement about the relationship between Lallan and Nitish Kumar.

"If anyone has reasons to smile, it is Lalu. The two persons he dubbed as mukadmebaaz are now on the verge of fighting a legal battle among themselves," said an RJD leader.

It's catching on

A government advertisement with chief minister Nitish Kumar's photograph on Teacher's Day created ripples in political circles. The objective was to extend good wishes to teachers of Bihar, but wrongly used the word " upekccha (negligence)" where apekchha (expectation) was intended. Deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav declared that action would be initiated against those who issued the advertisement without checking it. But BJP leaders were amused. "There could be no better example of how the company one keeps affects the character of a person," said a former BJP minister, recalling that the Governor had made health minister Tej Pratap Yadav take the oath again for making the same mistake (pronouncing upekccha as apekchha). "It's now catching on," an ex-minister joked.

More racquet than finance

After his return from Rio in August, finance minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui is reportedly enthusiastic about a conversation he had with Nita Ambani. He had sought her help in promoting badminton in the country. Siddiqui is national vice-president of Badminton Federation of India and a keen player. He is also president of the Bihar Cricket Association. But not everyone shares Siddiqui's enthusiasm for games. "He must extend the same enthusiasm to his department as the state's finance is facing challenging times," said a secretariat official.