Opinion 24×7 call response
Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravis mobile phone number is freely available on the net and he receives all sorts of phone calls at all hours of day and night.
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24×7 call response
Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi’s mobile phone number is freely available on the net and he receives all sorts of phone calls at all hours of day and night. The plus side to this inconvenience is that he is better informed than most of his Cabinet colleagues. For instance,Ravi was practically the first to know about the plight of Indians in Libya since he received a telephone call at midnight from Rosemary,a Keralite nurse,pleading for government help in getting her and her colleagues out of the war-torn country. Recently,an unknown caller telephoned Ravi and asked him whether he was aware that the Fly Dubai airlines had been granted landing rights for Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Ravi was ignorant about the deal and when the Director Civil Aviation was summoned he,too,claimed he was unaware of any such contract. Ravi promptly cancelled the permission for the UAE airlines,leading to a diplomatic incident. The UAE foreign minister protested and brandished a letter of clearance signed by a junior official in the directorate. It was only after much to-ing and fro-ing between the MEA and the Civil Aviation Ministry that Fly Dubai was permitted to resume services on these routes.
Lost in translation
The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) was the key decision making body in the face off between the government and Baba Ramdev. However,when the CCPA was forwarded the letter written by Ramdev’s aide Acharya Balakrishnan at the Claridge’s hotel promising the yoga guru would not undertake his hunger fast,none of the members could read the letter. Dr Manmohan Singh,Pranab Mukherjee,P Chidambaram,S M Krishna,A K Antony,Dayanidhi Maran and Farooq Abdullah could not follow the highly Sanskritised Hindi used by the acharya and had to rely on Kapil Sibal and Subodh Kant Sahay to translate what he had scribbled.
Only lead role
Seven months ago,J Jayalalithaa urged the Congress to ditch the DMK and align with her. Now the new chief minister of Tamil Nadu is no longer interested in joining the UPA. She calculates that after the next parliamentary poll,the AIADMK will win a large chunk of the state’s 39 parliamentary seats and her support will be essential for any formation that wants to form the government at the centre. This time around,Jayalalithaa does not want to be in the supporting cast but play the lead role. Her coy response with an appreciative smile when asked about the possibilities of her becoming prime minister at the recent Delhi press conference was a clear give-away. Jayalalithaa now talks of transforming Tamil Nadu into Singapore. Learning from past experience,Jayalalithaa has also become more accessible to the media and holds a weekly press conference. During her recent visit to Delhi,Jayalalithaa’s fans bought space in leading newspapers to invite the Tamil Nadu’s czarina to ‘Lead India,Save India,Save Indians.’
Not quite so amiable
Despite a reputation for amiability,Nitin Gadkari has managed to rub three senior party leaders,L K Advani,Sushma Swaraj and Gopinath Munde,the wrong way. (The Congress last week tried to play up the differences by asking the same three to tick off Gadkari for his remark against Sonia Gandhi and corruption.) Advani is annoyed because he is not always consulted before key decisions are taken. He was not in the loop when Gadkari announced that B S Yeddyurappa would continue as chief minister of Karnataka. Nor was he told about the dharna at Rajghat against the crackdown on Ramdev’s followers. And Advani’s demand that Uma Bharti be brought back into the party was kept on hold for three months. Swaraj is irked with Gadkari contradicting her in public more than once. Gadkari’s feud with Gopinath Munde is the most serious. With Gadkari trying to fill the BJP pradesh committees in his home state with his nominees,Munde is seething.
Is Delhi listening?
Poor judgment calls from Delhi are creating problems for the Congress in several states. In the forthcoming Jamshedpur by-election,B Gupta,an MLA formerly with the Samajwadi Party,was chosen to contest the parliamentary poll ignoring the superior claim of P Balmuchu,a tribal leader and longtime Congress loyalist. In Nagaland,the AICC,on the advice of the party in charge of the state,Luizinho Faleiro,has reinstated I Imkong without consulting the pradesh Congress,which had expelled him for six years only a month earlier for anti-party activities. In Meghalaya,18 of the 28 Congress MLAs threatened to leave the party and join the NCP because of their growing resentment against Chief Minister Mukul Sangma.
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