Sweet tooth for spokespersons

Chief minister Nitish Kumar appears to have developed sweet tooth for spokespersons of other political parties, especially the RJD. ormer law minister Shakeel Ahmad Khan, who joined the JD(U) last Friday, was the spokesperson of the RJD for a long time. Bhim Singh and Shyam Rajak, who defected to the JD(U) earlier, were also spokespersons of the RJD. Even former RJD MLC Ram Vachan Rai, who joined the JD(U) recently, addressed news conferences of the RJD a few times. “Even MLC Sanjay Singh was at one time the spokesperson of the LJP,” a seasoned politician said. A section of JD(U) leaders insisted that the trend was to “snatch the voice of the political rival”. “The RJD and LJP spokespersons are completely unknown to the public,” a JD(U) leader said. But another section of the party resented loyalists being pushed out of the organisation.

Modi tour flip-flop

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi was supposed to go to Bangalore to attend a conference and his office promptly released a press note to this effect. Within a couple of hours, another note was issued declaring Modi’s trip had been cancelled under some “unavoidable circumstances”. According to sources, Modi was asked to not to go to Bangalore because of the controversy surrounding the former chief minister of that state, B.S. Yeddyurrapa. “There were fears that the reporters might seek Modi’s reaction to the episode. Also, chief minister Nitish Kumar was talking about the resignation of the Karnataka chief minister,” the source said. The sudden cancellation of Modi’s trip to Karnataka made the tongues of officials and BJP leaders wag. “Poor Modiji. He loves trips to Gujarat, Delhi and Bangalore. It was unfortunate that Yeddy was in the soup when Modi’s trip was planned,” a BJP leader said.

Late realisation

The RJD chief, Lalu Prasad, said chief minister Nitish Kumar fancied himself as the future Prime Minister of the country. “At one time there was so much hype about me being the future Prime Minister,” Lalu said. In fact, Lalu himself had declared that he would be the Prime Minister one day. But after four consecutive electoral defeats, he seems to have dumped that wish. “Laluji had been projected the prime ministerial candidate from Bihar for a decade. Now, he realises that he has been replaced by Nitish,” a JD(U) leader said.

State ministers envy Krishna

India’s foreign minister S.M. Krishna is an envied man in Bihar after his meeting with his Pakistan counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar. As newspapers splashed the photo of the Pakistani minister, the state secretariat was abuzz with talks about the visit of the minister and approving her looks. The state ministers envied Krishna. “I wish it had been me instead of Krishna,” a young minister of the Nitish overnment said. “The envy is natural. Ministers and ignitaries with such faces do not often come to Patna,” said another minister.