Uttar Pradesh should have been the richest state in the country, riding on the boom in the real estate industry. Going by the barrage of text messages flooding mobiles, and the advertisements in newspapers, on TV and FM, the towns of UP – particularly Noida and Greater Noida – appear to be celebrating a round-the-year “property sale festival”.
Yet, it is not so. According to government rates, the builder has to pay Rs 800-1500 per square foot – that too in 10 to 15 years’ time – depending on the size and location of the plot. The UP government gets 10 percent of the official rate upfront while the builder can pay the rest over a decade or so. The flip side is that the builder has to pay up Rs 11,000-15,000 per square foot immediately as unofficial peripheral charges. This “unofficial” system also stipulates that 40 percent of the total deal has to be paid upfront and the remainder after the formal letter of allotment. Chief Minister Mayawati, the coloniser of UP, knows well how to play this game.
Adarsh not Chavan’s nemesis
shifted loyalty from patel to diggy raja
If you think Ashok Chavan, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, lost his job because of the Adarsh Society scam, you are wide off the mark. He could have survived the scandal worth a few crores if he had not commited a political gaffe by shifting loyalty from one big boss to another in the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Pawns shifting loyalty is not something that is forgiven by the political masters.
Chavan was a known acolyte of the AICC Ahmed Patel, who is also political adviser to Sonia Gandhi. But, in an effort to cosy up to the emerging party chieftain, Rahul Gandhi, he shifted allegiance to Digvijay Singh, the powerful General Secretary of the party who has the eyes and ears of the young leader. Unfortunately, that didn’t go down well with the bosses in Delhi. And all they needed was the Adarsh Society scam to cut Chavan down to size.
Patel the perfectionist
inspects talkatora ahead of plenary session
Winter had begun making inroads into Delhi but at the Talkatora stadium, the youngsters of the Congress party were sweating under the heat of floodlights and the scrutiny of their big bosses around the midnight of November 1. The Congress’ plenary session was to be held the next day and preparations were on in full swing. Moti Lal Vora, Janardan Dwivedi, Oscar Fernandes, Jagdish Tytler, Jai Prakash Agarwal and Ahmed Patel were all present to give the final touches.
Patel meticulously made rounds of the kitchen, press room, VIP rooms and the main hall, ironing out even minute flaws. Checking the route Sonia Gandhi would take to unfurl the party flag, he saw an open sewer hole near the dais and barked orders to cover it.
By the time he left, it was already 1.30 am but he informed everyone he would be back in a few hours to make a final inspection. Patel takes no chances and his personal touch delights the Congress’ functionaries no end. Kiran Walia and Rajesh Lilothia, the young MLAs from Delhi, were watching attentively from the sidelines, learning how the big bosses work.
Kalmadi blames PR guys
Saharashree shown on tv
In a recent review of what went wrong at the CWG, former Games Committee boss Suresh Kalmadi blamed the failure of the PR machine rather than the rampant corruption. One reason was that Kalmadi received a call from 10, Janpath expressing displeasure that Subrata Roy of Sahara had been prominently shown on TV with the guests of honour during the gala opening. Subrata “Saharashree” is not exactly popular with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi because of his association with Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Kalmadi blamed the two main PR advisers, hired for the occasion, who were instructing Doordarshan to focus cameras on certain personalities. One was Rajiv Desai, formerly of Hill & Knowlton and now with Comma Advertising, who was once part of the Rajiv Gandhi camp. But the main person on whose advice the TV coverage honed in on Saharashree is believed to be Harinder Singh, the chief honcho at Percept who has been media adviser to the Sahara group for a long time.
