Sink or swim

Some would say 75 is too old to learn how to swim; but then others would say that you?re never too old to learn a new skill. Arjun Singh, however, is not one to waste any time over such delicate philosophical problems. But swim he must ? the doctors have advised him to do so for a nagging pain in the knee ? so he has had to find a way out. Of course, it?s debatable whether what he does ? walk in the shallow end of the Air Force swimming pool for half-an-hour ? can be called swimming. Trust a politician to find the easy way out, and Singh?s more of a politician than most. But it must be said that the raja of Rewa is a good patient and doesn?t give his doctors as much trouble as some others, for example, Raman Singh, the Chhattisgarh CM. The BJP leader had broken his hand trying to help party heavyweight Lakhiram Aggarwal. The problem is that the former is a doctor himself, an ayurved to be precise, and he feels he knows better than the allopaths who?ve been asking him to take rest and have painkillers. But neither are his herbal pills working ? ask his wife who can hear him moaning in pain in his sleep. But then, a politician is never one to agree he is in the wrong.

Out of the frame

Congressmen, it is clear, think that Sonia Gandhi can direct the rising and setting of the sun. But if Naghma thought that dropping madame?s name was going to get her a role in a film, she was sadly mistaken. More so because the actress, who had joined the Congress just before the last general elections, was angling to play the boss lady herself on screen. Her commitment to ?Congress ideology?, she told the noted director, put her claims above that of the Preity Zintas. What about her not-too-thin frame that especially disqualified her?

Falling apart

In the circumstances, sacking Madanlal Khurana was probably the worst thing LK Advani could have done. For barring Sahib Singh Verma and a few others in the Delhi BJP, Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan, Jaswant Singh and all the other heavyweights in the party are either neutral or opposed to the move. Not that anyone sympathizes with Khurana. In fact, the general consensus is that he allowed his frustration with the party for not giving him the Rajya Sabha nomination from Gujarat to get the better of him. But removing him will only compound the party?s problems in Delhi, say those who oppose Advani. The veteran saffronite is said to be speaking to the Delhi Congress, including Sheila Dikshit, and even Mulayam Singh Yadav. The BJP can only keep its fingers crossed, hoping that Khurana?s loyalties to the sangh will prove too strong for him to consider going over to the enemy camp.

Dead men tell no tales

Where Netaji is concerned, the Indian government, it seems, can never do anything right. For sometime ago, there was criticism in the media that there was no official representation from Subhas Chandra Bose?s native land at a recent memorial service organized in his honour at the Renkoji temple in Tokyo. But there couldn?t have been any, could there? In fact, the Indian government can do nothing that would imply that it conceded that Netaji, who would be 110 today were he to be alive, was actually dead. Damned if you do, damned if you don?t.

Third time lucky?

Never say die, that?s the spirit of Vishwanath Pratap Singh. The original Third Front man, he hasn?t stopped dreaming of a non-aligned movement that is aloof from both the Congress and the BJP. Was that what was behind the former PM?s confabulations with left luminaries ? Sitaram Yechury, AB Bardhan, D Raja, et al ? to pressure the government to come up with a national slum policy? The intention, no doubt, is noble, but will it bear fruit?

Landed with the bill

As an actor, Govinda has good practice in being a politician and playing to the gallery. So it?s not strange at all that he suggested that his driver seek government help in paying his medical expenses after having announced, for the benefit of the TV cameras that gathered after his car met with an accident, that he would pay them himself. But the driver, Abdul Jameel, is now rueing the fact that he went to a plush private hospital instead of a government one after having taken Govinda at face value. Now he must pay for his gullibility.

Professional tricks

There is only one ?professional? politician in the Orissa cabinet. No, this is no comment on the politics of the state but a bare statement of facts, as stated in the Orissa Reference Annual-2004, brought out by the state government?s information and public relations department. Against the column, profession, in the official bio-data of ministers given in this book, only one minister has admitted to being a politician. As for the rest, there is a surfeit of lawyers ? ministers Prafulla Ghadai and BB Harichandan, speaker Maheswar Mohanty and his deputy Prahalad Dora, some agriculturists, a few social workers and businessmen, and even a writer, the CM Naveen Patnaik himself. Such a mish-mash of talents and specializations must be wonderful for the state, only it isn?t manifestly so. Or do most MLAs in Orissa have other reasons to refuse to accept that they are politicians, first and last?