Bedi In Soup

Having tweeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as ‘Dhritrashtra’ (blind father of 100 Kauravs), team Anna member and former cop Kiran Bedi has invited trouble for herself. Comparing Singh with Dhritrashtra did not go well with one Inderjit Singh Bhatia and he filed a case against Bedi in a court in Indore. Bedi termed Singh as Dhritrashtra and accused him of protecting tainted ministers in his government. Bedi will have to be present before the court on June 22 when the case would be heard. Commenting on this development a senior Congress party worker said that Bedi would know that our ‘Dhritrashtra’ could see who was writing what on twitter.

Silencing Pranab?

Displaying concerns over falling industrial output, Finance Minister Pranab Mukharjee says that it is now imperative to take actions and send positive signals in the investing community. The recent data showed that the industrial output grew by 0.1 per cent in the month of April. Mukharjee also rubbished reports that rating agency S&P may downgrade India as investment destination, saying: “We are making efforts to bring growth back on track. The government is taking specific steps to bring growth back.” To this one journalist said, “But the foremost move of the government is to send you in Rashtrapati Bhawan.” Another journalist said jokingly that it was part of the move to comfort investment community.

‘Bahu’-Bali

Close on the heels of Dimple Yadav’s victory from Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, young BJP leader Varun Gandhi is also mulling to field his wife Yamini Gandhi against Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna from Sitarganj assembly seat in Uttarakhand. Yamini hails from Bengal and considering sizable Bengali population, the party may ask her to fight from Sitarganj. Learning that BJP may ask Yamini to file nomination for the elections, a Congress party official quipped, “For Dimple it was easy as other parties did not field their candidates but here Congress does not have that option. To remain in the Chief Minister’s chair, Bahuguna has to win this election, so we can’t oblige anyone.”

Tailpiece

The saffron party has realised that it does not have much say in the Presidential elections and has started devising strategy to field candidate for Vice Presidentship. The names that are currently being considered are of Jaswant Singh and Murli Manohar Joshi. However, there is no confirmation on any name but the party has started reaching out to other political parties for support. Apparently when senior party leaders approached Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and requested for support on Vice Presidentship, the Samajwadi party chieftain retorted, “I too wanted to come to you to support Professor Ram Gopal Yadav for the Vice President’s post.”