Minister left high and dry
Bihar excise minister Abdul Jalil Mastan created a stir when he called those opposing prohibition “mad”.
Earlier, he had reacted to a sharp drop in tourist arrival since prohibition thus: “It’s good. Tourists make the state dirty.” A friend of Mastan in the BJP reminded all that Nitish himself had said those who want to drink were unwelcome.
But Congress leaders sympathise with him. “A major policy decision was taken to impose total liquor ban but Mastan did not get credit,” a senior Congress leader said. “How else does he get into newspapers then?”
How tweet!
RJD leaders are talking about a tweet by Lalu Prasad that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal retweeted. “Kejriwal had claimed that Lalu ‘pulled and hugged him’ after a picture of Lalu embracing Kejriwal during the swearing-in of the Grand Alliance government last year went viral. But with Kejriwal now retweeting Lalu’s tweet, there is a definite connection between the two,” said an RJD leader. The RJD has a love hate relationship with Kejriwal, who warms up to Nitish but ignores Lalu.
Mad scramble
There has been a mad scramble to congratulate chief minister Nitish Kumar, who became the party’s national president for the second time on Tuesday. RJD chief Lalu Prasad led the revellers, being only too happy to see Nitish’s predecessor Sharad Yadav go. But BJP leaders appear unmoved. “It’s like declaring yourself a landlord in your own house,” said a BJP leader. “We are waiting for Nitish to become PM. We’ll certainly congratulate him then.”
Shotgun laments
The BJP’s Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha declared in Jamshepur that he would have been in the Congress had Indira Gandhi been alive. BJP leaders in Patna are amused. “Perhaps we should encourage him to go to the Congress by stressing that Madam Sonia Gandhi is also a great lady,” said a BJP MLA, stressing that they have stopped taking Sinha’s statements seriously.
“Perhaps he was predicting his own political future, as he knows his days in the BJP are numbered,” said another BJP leader.
