Laced with poison

Ram did not exist, long live Ram! The two are aeons apart, but the UPA government seems to have traversed the distance overnight. By next morning, the law ministry had not only linked the existence of all things to Ram, but was also ready to swear to have seen him. The straight face with which the claim was made, however, hid a tumultuous inside. The Congress, quite expectedly, launched a witch-hunt to nail the person or persons responsible for the goof-up on the ASI affidavit. And the needle of suspicion pointed towards the culture minister, Ambika Soni. But Soni claims that she had vetted a different affidavit, one which did not have the offensive paragraph. The culture secretary too insists that he has no knowledge of where the paragraph appeared from. His cluelessness is shared by the ASI director-general, who vouches to have sent to the law ministry an affidavit that bore no traces of the controversial section. At what point then did the mischief take place? Was it at the law ministry, headed by Hansraj Bhardwaj, who saw the matter less important than any other related to Quattrocchi-Gandhi and thereby did not bother to personally supervise it? Or was it someone in the ASI itself, where some babus are reported to be getting more and more restive about the restrictions imposed on them by the ‘secular’ UPA regime? A whodunnit that perhaps only Ram can solve.

Blame game

There is no putting down this woman. At a recent cabinet meeting, Renuka Chowdhury, women and child welfare minister, came down heavily on Kapil Sibal for a male vice. She made a strong case for the use of the immoral trafficking act against men visiting brothels. The lawyer in charge of the science and technology ministry argued that men could not be penalized for using a “service” provided by sex-workers. Sibal, incidentally, is Lok Sabha MP from Chandni Chowk, which houses the national capital’s red light district in GB Road. Mani Shankar Aiyar added fuel to the fire by wondering aloud if Sibal’s words had anything to do with the requirements of vote-bank politics. Chowdhury simmered again, asking Sibal point-blank now, “Who should be punished in flesh trade, if not the men?” Sibal tried his best not to get provoked into another verbal duel over this question.

Big B factor

The stage seems set for a major confrontation in UP, a Mishra vs Mishra. It all started with Mayavati making a Brahmin, Satish Chandra Mishra, her right-hand man. Mulayam followed by roping in Kripa Shankar Mishra from Ayodhya to woo the Brahmins. Mishra’s Sanatan Brahmin Party recently merged with the Samajwadis to give Mulayam’s Muslim-Yadav combination the Big-B factor, now that the other Big B, Amitabh Bachchan, seems to be fast distancing himself from the party.

Fee for a speech

In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress has failed to produce its party executive in two years. So the state Congress chief is busy appointing spokespersons to get the process going. By the last count, he had got 13 for the bi-weekly conferences. Now deputy spokespersons are being appointed, one a day. The result is a disaster. On an average, each day local scribes get five press releases saying five different things on the same issue. This is not all. Spokesmen have to shell out money for tea and snacks from their own pocket to entertain the media. This is apart from the Rs 1,000 they have to shell out to the party for using the conference hall. Great going!

Sitting not allowed

When in Rome, they say, do as Romans do. And when in Rajasthan, you must do as you would in a school that has Vasundhara Raje as its headmistress. That means standing up when the chief minister enters the room, or simply passes by. A journalist, obviously new to Raje’s state, was shocked when the CM’s minions gestured everyone in the waiting lounge of the Jodhpur airport — thankfully only a handful of Indians and firangs — to rise since the mukhyamantri was about to arrive, to board a Jaipur-bound flight. He refused to comply, as did a backpacking Britisher, unlike their fellow traveller, a Japanese, who performed the great Japanese bow with a flourish. For their act of defiance, two truant young men received a long spine-chilling glare from Madam CM.

Hardly a storm in the teacup

So what if so many of the state’s tea gardens are on the verge of closing down, Bengal still remains the name mentioned most in any discussion on tea in India. And now Deepa Das Munshi — wife of Priya Ranjan Das Munshi who has come a long way from the proscenium to the West Bengal assembly — has been nominated to the Tea Board. The board comes under the jurisdiction of the Union ministry of commerce, which has at its helm Kamal Nath — whose Calcutta connections include St Xavier’s College, CC&FC and Tollygunge Club. Add to this his great friendship with Priyada, and Deepa’s nomination seems only natural. Not that one had any doubt about the lady’s abilities, since she has been handling the Das Munshi household and her career as a social worker-cum-politician with equal ease. So this is by no means the first flush, but it promises to make a good cuppa nonetheless.