Delhi Confidential: Moving out

Former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit will finally be vacating the bungalow on Motial Nehru Marg on February 20.

Former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit . (Photo: IE)

who occupies a sprawling bungalow on Motial Nehru Marg will finally be vacating the house on February 20. Dikshit was recently served a notice by the Urban Development Ministry and she had been asked to comply by the said date. Said to be a prime property, ministry officials said UD Minister Kamal Nath’s office was getting direct requests for the bungalow. No name has been finalised though.

LOST IN TRANSLATION
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s “yeh ganjon ko kanghe bech dalenge” (they will sell combs even to the bald) remark at the AICC session — to argue that the Opposition was good at “marketing” — had many non-Hindi speakers scratching their heads in confusion as people burst into laughter at Talkatora Stadium.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was seen asking Mukul Wasnik what exactly Rahul meant. She was not alone though. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, it seems, also did not get the joke. Sonia’s political secretary Ahmed Patel was seen explaining it to him.

Story continues below this ad

FELLOW SEARCH
EVEN as the government’s term nears the end, the second term of one of its contentious initiatives is set to begin. The tests and interviews for the second batch of the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship ended this week and a merit list with the selected fellows is due soon. The programme was in the midst of controversy last year when a Fellow was scrutinised by the police for his suspected ‘Naxal links’.This time, the entry into the fellowship has been made tougher with a common entrance test on the lines of CAT.

INVITE, WITH RIDERs
A wedding invitation that has come from the erstwhile royal family of Mewar has many of the invitees puzzled. The high-profile wedding of Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, son of Arvind Singh Mewar, set to take place in Udaipur on January 24 has been preceded by an invitation that has a long set of instructions for guests, starting from emphasising that the invite is non-transferable and going on to say that a photo ID card shall be required for entrance. Guests have also been forbidden from taking photographs from certain public areas within the City Palace but have been given the leniency to take pictures from where they have been seated when the ceremony commences. Also, while guests have been discouraged to bring presents for the function, they have been given details in the invite on where to deposit the ‘token gift’ in case it is brought.

ALL EYES ON ADVANI

Former Karnataka CM B S Yeddyurappa, who recently returned to the BJP, attended the BJP national executive. There was no announcement of his re-entry into the national executive after he rejoined the party this month. But his attendance is not unauthorised as former BJP CMs are ex officio members of the national executive. Given L K Advani’s reservations against Yeddyurappa’s return to the party fold, all eyes are now on Advani’s Sunday address — just in case he makes public his mind on Yeddyurappa’s re-entry.