Preferred mould

In sharp contrast to their backbiting party colleagues, Pranab Mukherjee, Manmohan Singh and Ahmed Patel adhere to the Gandhian philosophy o...

In sharp contrast to their backbiting party colleagues, Pranab Mukherjee, Manmohan Singh and Ahmed Patel adhere to the Gandhian philosophy of speaking no evil, seeing no evil and hearing no evil. And these attributes have stood them in good stead. All three are great favourites of the party president Sonia Gandhi who has entrusted them with key responsibilities rather than their more high profile colleagues. Despite his years Pranab Mukherjee is on virtually every committee and the party’s favourite draftsmen. (Mukherjee has the ability to put into words what he senses the party president would like him to incorporate). Political Secretary Ahmed Patel faithfully implements whatever task Gandhi assigns to him without asking questions and has no personal agenda. Similarly, Singh is considered honest and dependable.

Significantly, all three are on the key four-member committee which liaises with the Congress’s poll allies. Another in the same mould who does not have strong views or pushes himself is Shivraj Patil who was made deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha.

Row row fallout

The vibrations over Amar Singh’s spat with producer Karim Morani and Shah Rukh Khan for not being allotted front row seats at the Zee cine awards in Dubai are still being felt. Shah Rukh, because of his stature, can afford to remain unruffled, but a rattled Morani issued a groveling full page apology and explanation to Amitabh Bachchan and Singh for his ‘‘grave error of judgement’’ in assuming that his VIP guests would be better off in the J row along with the other stars and special invitees. The organisers had assumed that there could be a security risk in placing the VIPs in the front row seats with the general public. Singh and Bachchan arrived before the other special invitees and thought they were being downgraded deliberately when they found nobody important sitting besides them.

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It was left to the outspoken Mahesh Bhatt to stand up and defend the honour of the film fraternity. In an article, Bhatt hit out at power-drunk politicians overly concerned about a trivial issue of seating arrangements. Bhatt has never been afraid to speak out and in the past has made public his views on controversial subjects like Rajneesh, Bharat Shah and the underworld when the rest of his biradiri opted to remain silent. Bhatt who received a large number of congratulatory calls acknowledges that his support was ‘‘under the table.’’ Singh, meanwhile, dismissed Bhatt as a self-serving sermoniser who should be ignored.

Aam aadmi, khas parivar

The Congress replaced the garib in its theme slogan of ‘‘Congress ka haath, garib ke saath’’ with ‘‘aam aadmi’’ since it felt that the new expression had more voter appeal. The BJP plans to do a take-off on the Congress’s commitment to the poor. ‘‘Aam aadmi (ordinary individual) lekin khas parivar (special family)’’ is to be the crux of the counter offensive.

Give him a hand

The delay in announcing the names of candidates of the anti-Jayalalithaa front in Tamil Nadu was because of opposition to P Chidambaram being fielded from the Shivaganga seat. The resistance to Chidambaram’s name came not from the Congress but from his former colleagues in the TMC and the DMK. Karunanidhi nurses a grievance that Chidambaram had ignored him for long. Moopanar’s followers believe that Chidambaram betrayed Moopanar when the late TMC president was in the reckoning for the prime minister’s job during the UF regime. Sonia Gandhi wants the prodigal son to return but insists that Chidambaram first merge his party with the Congress and fight the election on the hand symbol.

Coloured view

Celebrating holi with the prime minister is a decorous affair. Those who lined up to greet Vajpayee were far too much in awe to mess up his spanking white dhoti kurta. It was only the PM’s foster family and close friends who took the liberty of spraying colour. After greeting each visitor the PM invited them to sample the chat, pakodas and other delicacies laid out for guests. At DPM Advani’s residence, the mood was more exuberant and raucous with a DJ, dancers, a lavish spread, tables with plates of gulal and hoards of revelers from ministers to party workers. Advani’s daughter Pratibha entered into the spirit of the occasion and playfully threw a whole bucket of coloured water on Shatrughan Sinha who danced and sang along with Manoj Kumar, Nitish Kumar and Shahnawaz Hussain.

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Sonia’s holi, like the prime minister’s, was restrained. Most visitors greeted her with flowers rather than colour. Later some grumbled privately that while it is customary on holi to offer refreshments to your guests they were not even given a glass of water at the party president’s house.

Silent spokesperson

Sushma Swaraj was appointed BJP spokesperson along with Arun Jaitley to supplement the two regulars on the job, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Prakash Javdekar during the poll campaign. Unlike the other three spokespersons, Swaraj’s voice is almost never heard at the party office. One of her rare public utterances was over D P Yadav’s induction when she remarked that ‘‘the BJP is like an ocean, all kinds of rivers flow into it, they don’t affect its cleanliness.’’ Considering subsequent developments clearly the party’s cleansing effect was not as potent as Swaraj had assumed.