PRABHU CHAWLA -Journalist - TV Anchor - Speaker (www.prabhuchawla.com)
पार्टी छोड़ने का कोई इरादा नहीं: यशवंत सिन्हा
बीजेपी के तमाम अहम पदों से इस्तीफा देने वाले यशवंत सिन्हा ने कहा है कि वे पार्टी में ही रहकर इसे मजबूत करने का प्रयास करेंगे. 'आज तक' के कार्यक्रम 'सीधी बात' के दौरान यशवंत सिन्हा ने जोर देकर कहा कि पार्टी छोड़ने का उनका कोई इराद नहीं है.
DOES Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati have a mole in the Human Resources Development ministry? Some senior government officials seem to think so. Their fear is that there are many more moles lurking around in the corridors of other ministries waiting to lay their hands on major central government initiatives and their worst fear is that Behenji's army of snoops may even get their hands on sensitive files. Their suspicions were reinforced after she made a series of decisions in the state education department and last Thursday morning called a press conference in Lucknow to announce that all students who manage to attain minimum pass marks in Class Ten must necessarily be promoted to the next class. A day later, the Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal made a similar proposal to do away with board examinations for Class Ten. Babus in the central government are waiting to see when the mole will strike again and where.
Vajpayee may step in to save party
THE fratricidal war in the BJP is showing signs of becoming bloodier. Happenings in recent days suggest that all those who were personally handpicked by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for their proven calibre are being selectively targeted by the rootless wonders that form the current ruling clique in the BJP. The sacking of Uttarakhand Chief Minister B. C. Khanduri is just the latest example. He was among the best performing ministers in the Vajpayee government and his stint as minister for surface transport during which he oversaw the construction of a large part of the Golden Quadrilateral won praise from even the then opposition Congre
ss. At a meeting last week, when Uttarakhand BJP MLAs were asked to give their opinion on a new chief minister for the state, 25 of the 35 BJP MLAs were in favour of Khanduri’s continuation in office. And though it is the BJP Parliamentary Board that is authorised to take decisions pertaining to change of chief ministers, Venkiah Naidu announced Khanduri's removal without even a formal meeting of the Board.
I am told party chief Rajnath Singh selectively informed a few “ like- minded” Board members and kept out others like Jaswant Singh, who was at the forefront in seeking accountability for the party's crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. The party's famed GenNext leaders appear more like a Losers’ Team now but they seem determined to retain their vice like grip over the party and muzzle all dissent. But the challengers are unlikely to yield, even if it means their expulsion from the party. Their aim is to ensure its revival through inner party discussion and protect the party's constitution in both letter and spirit.
Mr Vajpayee has kept a safe distance from his squabbling partymen but I understand he may not choose to be a mere onlooker for long. Though confined to bed, he is expected to step in. A mere signal from him could neutralise the lethal ammo that the warring factions have stockpiled.
Our leaders also need holidays
THERE was a time when holidays were a luxury that politicians seldom indulged in. It was Rajiv Gandhi who broke the trend when as prime minister, he periodically took holidays with his family in Lakshadweep, Kovalam or Goa. But these were private affairs and seldom did even denizens of his holiday destinations come to know that VIP visitors were in town. Even now, both Sonia and Rahul often get away from the hustle and bustle of Delhi for rest and recuperation at unknown destinations. After weeks of hectic campaigning in the torrid summer heat, even the fittest deserve a break. But like the best plans of mice and men often going awry, holiday plans of our leaders have also been laid low by factors beyond their control. Elated, yet tired after rescuing the Congress party virtually single handedly, young Rahul Gandhi, an avid cricket buff, had taken off for a holiday, hoping to eventually catch up on some of the World T20 cricket action.
Like the rest of the country, he had hoped India would defend the cup and he be able to tell his grandchildren some day that “ I was there when Dhoni and his men won the cup”. The early exit of the Indians means that Rahul must now wait.
After leading what is perhaps his last campaign for the BJP, LK Advani too deserved a holiday and took off for picturesque Coorg where he and family checked into one of the finest jungle resorts. But the family's dreams of living in splendid isolation were soon shattered because his admirers wouldn't leave him alone. The BJP media cell sent a private family picture of Advani and his family members attired in Coorgi dress to hundreds of journos in Delhi. Knowing Advani as I do, I can vouch he keeps such pictures only for his private albums — and perhaps a future book. But there are those who firmly believe their survival depends on projecting Advani and don’t mind stooping so low as to publicise a private holiday to retain their own relevance.
MOST of the union ministers, with all their accumulated experience, are going about their work with clinical precision. But now they are veering around to believing that one should not only be doing a good job, but also be seen doing that and the key to success here involves finding the proper medium and reaching the right audiences.
And nobody is happier than the Information Officers attached to various ministries from the Press Information Bureau of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Ministers are no more banking solely on their Private Secretaries to pass the good word to the media and are taking along IO's who are more familiar with journalists covering the beat than their PS's.
Though Kamal Nath has been doing this for long, other ministers are now beginning to follow suit. This week, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal is off to Germany for an international conference and the PIB official in charge of the ministry is also travelling along with him.
Foreign travels of ministers and their secretaries are cleared by the PMO which has in the past stipulated who could accompany a minister and who could not. But with many ministers — including some from the alliance partners — now demanding that IO's be added to their entourage, the PMO has suddenly become very accommodative, wishing everybody bon voyage.
THERE couldn’t be two political parties so unlike each other as the BJP and the CPI( M), yet from the goings on within both this past month, it would appear they are twins who emerged out of the same womb. 
tchiks at AKG Bhavan, the senior- most leader has gone on a holiday, presumably hoping that the problem would vanish on its own by the time he returns. It was perhaps just a coincidence, that on the very day that the CPI( M) Politburo met in New Delhi for the first time after the elections to discuss the poll rout, the BJP’s National Council also met in the capital. 
EVEN after spending close to half a century in politics, Pranab Mukherjee still appears to have the enthusiasm and energy of a long distance runner who can’t wait for the marathon to start. Twenty five years after he presented his last Union budget in 1984 as finance minister in the Indira Gandhi government, Pranabda is back in the same office. On July 6, he will present the first budget of the UPA’s second innings. It is a personal milestone for him as well, since it will be the fourth time that he will present the annual national housekeeping statement that is eagerly looked forward to by corporate czars and the aam aadmi alike. 
that he plans to unveil. So while both the aam aadmi and the corporates are keeping their fingers crossed on the actual contents of the budget, my information is that he is placing a premium on the political inputs. All of which leads to me to believe that, with the Congress still in election victory mode, the budget document may turn out to be a voluminous Thank You note to the poor and the lower and middle classes who stood massively behind the UPA. Knowing the general mood in the country and to some extent Pranabda’s own strong beliefs, I have the feeling that when he unveils the budget, the corporates may not exactly be whistling with joy. Pranabda will, in all probability, focus on placing more money in the hands of the lower and middle classes so that they have the power to purchase. A firm nonbeliever in the “ supply creates Predecessor: PC its own demand” theory, his emphasis will instead be on demand creation which has always been a guiding testament for him. He is said to have identified over a dozen sectors where he is likely to unleash a multi- crore spending spree to create lakhs of jobs. The tax cuts and other such incentives that business leaders are looking forward to may not materialise to the extent of their liking and you can be sure India Inc will not be sending him Thank You notes on the evening of July 6. He won’t mind either. From experience spanning half a century, he knows corporates are not the best allies. 
an report was tabled. 
MYTHS don’t die easily. But in less than three weeks after the UPA’s surprise victory in the 15th General Elections, Sonia Gandhi has managed to explode many myths that had grown around her and prove the skeptics who felt she was an introvert and a misfit in politics, wrong. All the Cassandras — yours truly included — are gladly eating their words and will have no hesitation in conceding that she is the best thing to have happened to the Grand Old Party at this moment in its long history. The finest of professionals will find it hard to match her public relations’ acumen; she is the Great Communicator who manages to convey her messages without even speaking. 
Independence; the first foreign born to become leader of the Lok Sabha and perhaps the only politician to reject the office of the Prime Minister, something she did not just once but twice. Her eyes, I presume, are now set on another: the first mother to preside over her son’s coronation. 
than by launching an offensive. So while his party leaders in Delhi indulged in a fratricidal war where nobody is likely to end up a winner, Modi, who is now halfway through his third term as chief minister, has decided to take on the Congress by playing on Gujarati pride. 
YOU can tell a lot about the state of an organisation by just looking at its headquarters. At 11 Ashoka Road, the BJP’s Central Office, the neon lights that shone on giant cutouts of the party’s top leaders don’t even come on anymore. It could be a case of a simple short circuit which the electricians there haven’t been able to detect. Quite like the disconnect between the party and the majority of Indians, which its leadership failed to detect, bringing the party to this pass. 
xcept the party where one ceased to exist long ago. 
जमाना अब युवा नेतृत्व का है: अमर सिंह
मुलायम सिंह यादव के बेटे अखिलेश यादव को सपा की कमान सौंपने के मुद्दे पर अमर सिंह का कहना है कि अखिलेश उनके बेटे जैसे हैं इसलिए अगर बेटा बाप से आगे निकले तो ये खुशी की बात है. उन्होंने कहा कि जमाना अब युवा नेतृत्व का है.
a vote catcher. Will the project lead to friction between the alliance partners before the state assembly elections that are due in March 2011? The shipping and transport portfolio is now with the Congress whose debutant minister GH Vasan is the son of the veteran Congress leader GK Moopanar and is being projected as the future face of the Congress in the state. At the Centre, the tussle over Sethusamudram is being dealt with by the shipping ministry as well as the culture department, which is now directly under the control of the prime minister. Equally signicantly, V Narayanaswamy, also a Tamil and a Gandhi family loyalist, is the minister of state for culture. In the last government, Baalu had frequently clashed with Culture Minister Ambika Soni at meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs where the two ministries gave diametrically opposite viewpoints. Baalu once even put the government in a bit of a spot after his ministry filed a highly controversial affidavit in the Supreme Court. 
IN THE system of government that we have, the prime minister should ideally have the final say in the selection of his cabinet. In reality, that seldom is the case. During the last two weeks, while the process of cabinet formation and portfolio distribution was on, there was ample evidence of the prime minister’s helplessness in choosing his team. For over 12 days, a lot of haggling, hassling and bargaining went on. It was convenient for Congressmen to blame it all on the power struggle in the DMK. Truth be told the problem was within the Congress itself. 
n the party and that the collective might of the Congress chief, the prime minister and Rahul Gandhi was all that was needed to steamroll all opposition. While it is true that the DMK made the inclusion of certain ministers and their portfolios nonnegotiable, the problem was compounded by the internal pressures within the Congress and the part played by party satraps from some of the states. As proof, you need look no further than the inclusion of seven former Congress chief ministers in the cabinet, not to speak of two from the allies. The latter of course are beyond the control of the High Command, but it is the inclusion of some of the ex Congress chief ministers that raises eyebrows. 
