Kharge, Moily feel left out
Congress’ leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge and his colleague Veerappa Moily are miffed with their party colleagues in the Rajya Sabha, particularly P. Chidambaram for sidelining them on the GST Bill. Congress’ Rajya Sabha leaders did not bother to consult their senior colleagues in the Lok Sabha or involve them in the negotiations. So much that Moily complained to the government that they thought all the brains are in the Rajya Sabha. At the heart of the trouble is also the anger over the Congress high command’s refusal to drop Siddaramaiah as Karnataka Chief Minister. Kharge and Moily, both of whom belong to Karnataka think that they are much better administrators than the current CM.
Four Muslim MLAs join BSP
Three sitting Congress MLAs and one Samajwadi Party MLA have left their parties to join Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. All four are Muslims. It has to be seen whether Muslims combine with Dalits to bring Mayawati back to power in UP.
Rita wants to return to SP
Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the former Pradesh Congress Committee chief of Uttar Pradesh is unhappy that Sheila Dikshit has been selected the as the party’s chief ministerial face. Bahuguna Joshi, the daughter of Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna, is a Brahmin and thought that she herself could be the CM candidate. However, the Congress leadership is suspicious of her loyalties, especially since her brother Vijay Bahuguna has joined the BJP after he was not made the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. Now she does not want to contest from her constituency Lucknow, as she does not expect to win from there. But the party wants all sitting MLAs to fight from their seats or withdraw from the contest. Bahuguna Joshi is now in touch with Mulayam Singh Yadav as she wants to return to the Samajwadi Party. She is seeking a ticket to contest from Allahabad, her late father’s stronghold. She was the SP’s mayor for Allahabad.
Troublemaker Ramesh
The working relations between some senior government managers and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh have deteriorated. Senior ministers think that Ramesh was the person who tried to convince Sonia and Rahul Gandhi against the passage of GST Bill as well as the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, two key legislations of the monsoon session of Parliament.
‘No hospital visits’
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who is in hospital, has issued instructions that her partymen shpuld not visit her at the hospital. Gandhi fell ill during her Varanasi rally was admitted to the Ganga Ram Hospital. On an earlier occasion, her partymen had thronged the hospital, causing inconvenience to the other patients.
Babul Supriyo gets married
The wedding of Union Minister of State, Babul Supriyo was a gala affair, with the entire Cabinet and the who’s who of Indian politics attending. Babul Supriyo had put up most of his guests from the Bengali and Hindi film industries at Ashoka Hotel, where the reception was held. He had booked around 50 rooms for them at his own expense for one night and two days and even paid for their air tickets. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had arranged 10 complimentary rooms at Banga Bhawan as a wedding gift to the BJP MP from Bengal. But she did not attend the reception even though her MPs did. Even Baul Supriyo’s daughter from his first marriage, Sharmilee was missing from the function.