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| Tough job |
Akhilesh Yadav may have won many admirers when he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at such a young age, but he is quickly finding out that being taken seriously by senior colleagues is quite a difficult task. The young CM does not like being addressed by his nickname, Tipu, at official gatherings and state cabinet meetings, but his cabinet ministers are not inclined to call him “Sir” or “mukhyamantrijee”. When some top bureaucrats who work closely with Akhilesh gently chided party bigwigs for addressing him informally, the hapless CM was flooded with complaints about how babus were trying to ‘strain’ chacha-bhatija ties. But Akhilesh’s woes do not end there. He reportedly spends a couple of hours each day working at his computer. But his hands-on approach towards his job is often misconstrued, and he is accused of wasting time playing games online or chatting. Looks like Mulayam Singh Yadav’s old grouse against the use of computers may have returned to haunt his son.
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Valentine’s Day may be months away but love blossoms around the year for some people. The newly appointed minister of state for human resource development, Shashi Tharoor, and his wife, Sunanda Pushkar, were the star attractions at a reception hosted by the external affairs minister, Salman Khurshid, and his wife, Louise, in honour of their niece’s recent wedding. Tharoor and Pushkar reportedly looked deeply in love, and were holding hands. At one point, when something fell into Pushkar’s eyes, Tharoor gently blew air into them in order to relieve her distress. The couple stood very close together, oblivious to their surroundings. Another guest, observing them from a distance, apparently whispered “Buri nazar wale tera munh kala”, while blessing the couple. With such well wishers everywhere, Tharoor and Pushkar need not pay any heed to disparaging comments from certain quarters.
Amidst the gloomy economic climate and frequent accusations of corruption, the recent cabinet reshuffle threw up some much-needed light moments. There was a hilarious mix-up over the portfolios allotted to Jitin Prasada and Jitendra Singh. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had reportedly told the principal secretary to give the young “Jiten” charge of the defence ministry as a minister of state. But the official communication of the news reached Jitin Prasada. Jitendra Singh, who is a close associate of Rahul Gandhi, took the matter up with him immediately. Sonia Gandhi intervened, and the matter was cleared up after she called the PM.
Even more curious was the case of N.T. Ramarao’s daughter, Daggubati Purandeswari. She probably rued the fact that she spoke too soon. In her home state, Andhra Pradesh, Purandeswari went the whole hog, telling news channels that she had been made the minister of state for commerce and industry (independent charge), soon after she got the news from the PM. This, however, must not have gone down well with members of parliament from the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, for 10 Janpath was soon inundated with protests and threats of resignation. Eventually, Anand Sharma, who had been ready to move to the ministry of external affairs, was retained. Last heard, Sonia Gandhi was apologetically telling Purandeswari that things did not work out as they had been planned.
A new joke is doing the rounds in the corridors of power. After it came to light that Nitin Gadkari’s driver, Manohar Panse, is a director in several of the Bharatiya Janata Party chief’s companies, it is being said that most drivers, peons and clerks are demanding directorial posts in companies.
The joke has become very popular at 24 Akbar Road, the national headquarters of the Indian National Congress. Party leaders are snidely saying that they are in trouble after the truth about Gadkari’s driver was revealed. This is because drivers, peons and clerks no longer want to talk to anybody from the Congress; they only want to keep in touch with the BJP or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Footnote
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Saif Ali Khan’s blushing new bride, Kareena Kapoor, was the star attraction in Raipur, where she had gone on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the creation of Chhattisgarh. Such was her charm that the Jharkhand CM, Arjun Munda, could not resist waxing eloquent on her beauty. He likened Kapoor to the brief spell of rain in Raipur when he said, “Yeh bheege badan mein tera muskurana, bijli ke mausam mein bijli girana...” He was cheered on lustily by Nitin Gadkari and the Chhattisgarh CM, Raman Singh. One wonders what Saif would have had to say to that.
