Narayanan unhappy
Home Minister P Chidambaram’s first priority appears to be proving himself to be a tough task master in North Block and also emphasizing that he is different from his predecessor, Shivraj Patil. As a first step towards this, he has broken all previous records regarding the number of meetings of officers convened in the Ministry.
His day starts with a meeting of the head of every security and intelligence agency, along with National Security Advisor (NSA) MK Narayanan. This unusual move of asking the NSA to be present at the meeting has come as an embarrassment to Narayanan. Earlier, it was always Narayanan who called a meeting of all the security and intelligence agency chiefs and chaired it. Now he is forced to sit with them and be treated on a par with them.
Sources say even a personal request to the Prime Minister to bail him out from this embarrassing situation has failed to yield any result.
Woe is Siddiqui
up minister in hot water
Nasimuddin Siddiqui, a powerful Minister in the UP government who is facing a CBI inquiry in the Taj corridor case, finds himself in quite a bit of trouble nowadays. Every time the CBI summons him for questioning, the Minister realizes afresh how little his power and status actually mean.
First, his aides and gunmen are not allowed to accompany him inside the CBI office. Next, he is made to wait until he is called inside. The wait can last from a few minutes to half-an-hour or more. Then, after he is called inside, he has to wait while a CBI officer examines the papers. Further, the officer calls the investigating officer who takes the Minister to his room and grills him. By the time the exercise is over, the Minister is a much humbled man.
Siddiqui is also facing the wrath of Chief Minister Mayawati over the BSP’s poor performance in the Assembly election in Delhi, where he was in charge. Siddiqui is the seniormost Cabinet Minister and holds several important portfolios like PWD, irrigation, housing, excise and so on. Mayawati has decided to penalize him in her own style, sources say. Watch this space.
Unabated joy over Patil exit
lalu triumphant
The series of bomb blasts in different parts of the country during the past year provided ample opportunity to some UPA leaders to question the performance of then Home Minister Shivraj Patil. Lalu Prasad Yadav was one such leader who wanted Patil to go for personal and political reasons but without coming out openly against him.
After the Mumbai attack, when everyone trained their guns on the Home Ministry, Lalu openly demanded Patil’s removal. He wanted the Prime Minister to immediately convene a Cabinet meeting and show Patil the door.
The PM did convene the meeting and a heated discussion ensued about Patil’s fate. Mysteriously, Lalu remained silent. He did not utter a single word against Patil. Thereafter, immediately after Patil’s removal, he could not hide his elation before the TV cameras.
A proactive Lalu knows that in case the UPA returns to power in the coming general election, Patil – who has ingratiated himself with the Congress President – is bound to occupy an important Ministry again.
Sharad Yadav’s dilemma
once bitten, twice shy
There is no love lost between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a member of the NDA, and George Fernandes, former convener of the NDA and a veteran socialist. Now both Fernandes and Sharad Yadav, president of the Janata Dal (United), have been representing Bihar in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha for many terms despite having roots in other states.
Nitish, a mass leader without whose help the duo cannot win an election in the state, does not like high-flying Delhi based leaders and wants to run the show with the help of grass-root politicians. Now that he is being recognized as a development-oriented Chief Minister, Fernandes is attempting to checkmate him by making Sharad Yadav the NDA’s working convener. But the latter knows that if he poses a problem for Nitish Kumar, he might not enter Parliament again from Bihar.
Lalu Prasad Yadav had kicked Sharad Yadav out of Bihar in the late 1980s for trying to remote control him. Hence Sharad Yadav is preferring to busy himself outside the state, wooing regional leaders like Chandrababu Naidu and Jayalalithaa.
