West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has always had a cordial relationship with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but she has never warmed up to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi although the Nehru-Gandhi scion goes out of his way to be polite and friendly to her. Like several other regional satraps, Ms Banerjee basically does not take Mr Gandhi seriously. It was the same when She came face-to-face with Mr Gandhi at the tea party hosted by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar after his swearing-in ceremony in Patna recently. Mr Gandhi greeted the West Bengal chief minister enthusiastically but she put him down in her inimitable style. After exchanging the mandatory pleasantries, she suddenly turned around and asked him: “Mummy has not come mummy should have been here.” While
Ms Banerjee’s remark was a deliberate attempt to tell Mr Gandhi that he still has some growing up to do, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah did the same but more in his capacity as an elder and family friend. When he found Mr Gandhi fraternising with his party colleagues, Mr Abdullah advised him to use this opportunity to socialise with leaders of other political parties. It was only then that Mr Gandhi started mingling with the other guests.
As leader of the House and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, respectively, Arun Jaitley and Ghulam Nabi Azad are often required to take on each other during debates. If their sparring in the House gives the impression of long-standing political rivalry, it is far from the truth. In fact, Mr Azad and Mr Jaitley go back a long, long way. The finance minister’s father-in-law, late Girdhari Lal Dogra, a senior Congress leader of Jammu and Kashmir, had appointed Mr Azad as a Youth Congress leader. And when Mr Jaitley got married, his baraat commenced from Mr Azad’s house in Sunehri Bagh Road.
The ceremony took place at a bungalow on Kamraj Marg, presently occupied by solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar. Now one of the functions for Mr Jaitley’s daughter’s wedding was specially hosted on the lawns of this bungalow. The sangeet ceremony is to be held at his lawyer friend attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi’s residence while most other functions, spread over 10 days, have been planned at the finance minister’s sprawling Krishna Menon Marg house. The country’s who’s who — bigwigs of the corporate world, the legal fraternity, politicians, media barons and sportspersons — are all going to be in attendance at what promises to be Delhi’s “big fat wedding”.
Playback singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo has a genuine problem. Although he is a junior minister in the ministry of urban development, nobody takes him seriously. Like Bhojpuri singer and Bharatiya Janata Party MP Manoj Tiwari, Mr Supriyo is constantly requested to sing one of his popular numbers wherever he goes. Mr Tiwari had proved to be a big hit during the recent Bihar poll campaign because he drew huge crowds which would not allow any rally to proceed till the singer entertained them with his songs. While Mr Tiwari’s performances were requested by fans,
Mr Supriyo, on the other hand, is invariably asked to sing at official programmes. It is not just ministry officials but, more recently, even senior minister M. Venkaiah Naidu asked him to begin an official conference with a song. What makes matters worse for Mr Supriyo is that he has to perform free of charge while his contemporaries command a hefty fee for their performances.
When Mr Supriyo complained to finance minister Arun Jaitley about the financial loss he was suffering, the senior BJP leader, who left a lucrative legal career to join the government, consoled him, “Don’t worry, we are in the same boat earlier I would get paid to argue but now I have to do it free.”
Former Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh had transformed his Lodhi Estate bungalow into a plush property which included a swimming pool on the specially-designed terrace garden. It was no surprise then that there was a scramble for the house when Mr Singh vacated the place after the end of his Rajya Sabha term. It was first said that the bungalow had been allotted to minister of state for small and medium industries Giriraj Singh, but the new occupant is still to take up residence there.
When some MPs made enquiries about the bungalow recently, the urban development ministry’s estate department only said that it was yet to be allotted to anybody. According to the political grapevine, the place is being kept vacant for Mr Singh in the belief that he is set to get back his Rajya Sabha seat after his imminent return to the SP fold. The problem is there are no signs of Mr Singh’s homecoming. Meanwhile, the much-coveted bungalow, now barricaded, has become a virtual ruin.
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist
