Red tea disappears from CPI den

The colour of the tea served at Ajay Bhavan, the hub of the CPI activities in the state, was red (tea without milk) till the other day. But the trend seems to have changed of late. When the CPI leader A.B. Bardhan was in town recently, former CPI MP Jalalluddin Ansari offered reporters tea with milk. “We have been drinking lal chai (liquor tea) for ages and losing in elections. From now on, we will have tea with milk,” Ansari said. he CPI once had a very strong presence in Bihar and even held the position of the main Opposition party in the Assembly. Its political fortunes nosedived in the mid-1990s. Today, it has just one MLA. “By that theory, the CPI leaders of Bihar should have had quit drinking lal chai years ago. They need not have waited for a debacle in Bengal,” a senior politician said.

Highly ambitious

Suspended JD(U) MP Upendra Kushwaha has finally said it. “If Nitish Kumar aspires to be the Prime Minister of the country what is wrong if I want to be the chief minister of the state,” he recently said. The JD(U) leaders were quick to point out that Nitish has repeatedly said he was not an aspirant for the top job. “Kushwaha can dream if he likes but it is his ill-founded ambition which has led him to where he is,” a senior JD(U) leader said. Political observers here pointed out that the chief political rivals of Nitish Kumar — Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan — had declared in public that they wanted to be the Prime Minister of the country. itish took jibes at the two prime ministerial candidates in the recent past, who faced their worst electoral debacle in the last Assembly polls. “Kushwaha has now openly declared that he is the chief minister in-waiting in Bihar. He ill follow Lalu and Paswan and become perpetual CM in-waiting,” the party leader said.

Fond memories of swanky raths

The flagging off of a swanky air-conditioned rath by chief minister Nitish Kumar for the signature campaign for special status to Bihar has refreshed the memories of top-rung leaders criss-crossing the state in air-conditioned vehicles for electioneering in the mid 1990s. Inspired by the late Andhra Pradesh chief minister NT Rama Rao, Lalu Prasad came out with his Gareeb Rath. Former Union minister Raghunath Jha rode on Kisan Rath, former Union minister Akhilesh Singh travelled in Brahmarshi Rath. “All these raths had air-conditioned bedrooms. But they are now almost out of use because the leading politicians prefer choppers instead of hitting the roads. Sometimes they give these raths to their followers for party programmes,” a senior Congress leader said.

Short and to the point

Chief minister Nitish Kumar is reported to have cut his speech at the Planning Commission meet short. With so many leaders nd speakers waiting to speak, the meeting would have continued till night had all the eaders given long peeches,” an official said, pointing out that the cultural show would have been cancelled in such a case. The official hoped that all leaders would follow Nitish in keeping their speeches short nd to the point.