delhi farmhouse haven
Sasikala, the foster sister of AIADMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, recently made a two-day trip to New Delhi and speculation is rife about its real purpose and intent.
Many people believe it was to raise resources in the wake of the elections as it is common knowledge in Chennai that the AIADMK is facing a severe funds crunch. However, when a businessman sent an aide with a handsome donation to be handed over to Jayalalithaa, she summarily sent the emissary back. The message was loud and clear: whoever wants to make a donation must appear in person and hand it over personally to Jayalalithaa.
What is known to have transpired during Sasikala’s visit is that she visited Jayalalithaa’s newly-built farmhouse in the Vasant Kunj area of South Delhi. She stayed at a five-star hotel and gave instructions to the Vedic pandits, engineers and interior designers about the finishing touches, colour schemes et al. It is all being done according to the precepts of vaastu.
Apparently, Jayalalithaa wants to spend some time in the farmhouse after the heat and dust of the general election settles.
Rajnath’s on a roll
stage set for victory
When BJP president Rajnath Singh finally settled on a Lok Sabha constituency – Ghaziabad in western UP – he needed a man of political substance to make a dent in this prosperous belt. He found a socialist veteran, former MP and Jat leader, Satpal Malik, and started touring the region with him. In return, Malik was promised a party ticket from Meerut and asked to start nursing the constituency.
While touring with Malik, Rajnath figured out veteran politician Ajit Singh’s strength vis-a-vis the numerically and otherwise powerful Jat voters of Ghaziabad, and won him over as, in the case of the latter too, the BJP is more politically suitable than the Congress. To woo Yadavs and other Backwards, Rajnath fielded lightweights against Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kalyan Singh in the Mainpuri and Etah Lok Sabha constituencies, respectively. Sources say he also ensured, through a controversial Thakur of the Samajwadi Party, that Mulayam did not field any candidate from Ghaziabad.
Assuming that Brahmins would be divided between the BJP and BSP, the only front left unmanaged was the Vaish community. To win them over, Rajnath’s men, in an organized and methodical manner, advocated the right of a Vaish to contest from Meerut. RSS bigwigs at Nagpur were concerned that the defeat of the BJP president would send wrong signals nationwide and so a Vaish candidate was duly put up.
As for Malik, he became a casualty of the craft of constituency management.
Jaya versus Maya
why amma’s pitching for pawar
Sharad Pawar, the old warhorse who has had several homecomings in the Congress and is currently chieftain of the Nationalist Congress Party, apparently wants to make one last bid for the office of Prime Minister. He has built a rapport with all political parties and leaders, irrespective of ideology. Interestingly, AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa has taken up the cause of Pawar being the Prime Ministerial candidate of the fledgling Left-promoted Third Front. And, though Pawar has refrained from making public his longstanding ambition, friend Jayalalithaa has sounded the bugle.
Left leaders are watching keenly as they want to see the back of Manmohan Singh because of the Indo-US nuclear deal. But the lobbying for Pawar might cause fissures in the Third Front because of Mayawati’s Prime Ministerial aspirations. The Left parties, especially big brother CPI(M), have been insisting they will decide on their Prime Ministerial candidate after the elections when the arithmetic becomes clear.
It is clear Jayalalithaa is working overtime to keep Mayawati at bay as the AIADMK leader has a reputation for being a better and more capable leader as far as governance is concerned.
Mohsina’s karma
ambition proves undoing
With ND Tiwari and Arjun Singh – the two stalwarts of the erstwhile Tiwari Congress – having been cut to size in Congress politics, it’s now reportedly the turn of the third one, Congress General Secretary Mohsina Kidwai. Her qualifications – relation to India’s first Home Minister, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, and her association with the late Chandrajit Yadav since her formative years – have lost their appeal owing to some misinformation being circulated by her to keep party leaders and workers confused.
Sources say the gossip doing the rounds is that she once declined the offer of a Cabinet post made personally by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, that Rahul Gandhi wanted her to become Political Secretary to Sonia, and that she has been promised a berth in the next UPA government. Alarmed at her ambitions, party leaders have started digging out once again tales of her role as MP from Meerut when intermittent rioting over three months (May-July1987) resulted in hundreds of deaths. She reportedly never ventured out to control the riots and provide relief to the victims. Party workers believe that the seeds of the Muslims bidding goodbye to the Congress were sown then and there, well before the Babri Masjid demolition.
The party high command has taken a serious view of all this and, once the Lok Sabha elections are out, the third wicket of the Tiwari Congress could well fall.
