Glasshouse

Digvijaya's Double Jeopardy

Trouble is brewing for AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh. After Goa, where the Congress failed to form the government despite a bigger tally than the BJP, Singh faces dissent in another state he is in charge of. The party's Telangana unit is peeved over reports that Singh sounded out state leaders on making Anumula Revanth Reddy, the TDP's working president in Telangana, the Congress's face for the 2019 assembly elections. Party workers are now gunning for Singh's head. Courting Trouble?

Kerala is all eyes and ears as the state's high court hears the SNC-Lavalin corruption case, in which Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan won an acquittal from a CBI special court in 2013. Unless the high court upholds the acquittal, Vijayan will have to step down. Even if top legal eagle Harish Salve, who has been hired to defend the CM, finds all the right answers in court, the ruling LDF cannot duck this Opposition query-just who's paying Salve's fees?

Raje's Dinner Date

Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje was so delighted with the state's 2017 budget, presented on March 8, that she promised to take principal secretary (finance) P.S. Mehra out for dinner. Raje also described finance secretaries Praveen Gupta and Naveen Mahajan as 'beauties'. For a change, officials need not curry favour with a CM.

Chair Man

When Rabri Devi had suggested that her son, Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, was chief minister material, Lalu Yadav's younger son said the top job belongs to Nitish Kumar. But post-UP poll results, Tejashwi has once again suggested that the next PM will be a Bihari. JD-U leaders, who want Nitish to be the Opposition's PM candidate, wonder if Tejashwi wants Nitish to leave Bihar for him. Nitish is yet to comment.

Much Ado, Mayor

Kolkata mayor Sovon Chatterjee had prepared for the worst on March 17, stepping up security at his office and posting a doctor. The trigger was the Calcutta High Court order for a CBI probe into the 2016 Narada sting operation, in which top TMC leaders, including Chatterjee, were shown allegedly accepting bribes. Chatterjee emerged from his office only after his party decided to appeal against the verdict.

Candid Corruption

On March 19, at the launch of a book in Guwahati, the BJP's Jorhat MP, Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, caused consternation by declaring that he did take bribes. All for public good though, he claimed-"to donate money for marriages and building temples". Tasa said the rural folk were a content lot but the 'suited booted' made high demands, so he took bribes to fulfill their demands. Is the PM listening?

Courting Trouble

Kerala is all eyes and ears as the state's high court hears the SNC-Lavalin corruption case, in which Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan won an acquittal from a CBI special court in 2013. Unless the high court upholds the acquittal, Vijayan will have to step down. Even if top legal eagle Harish Salve, who has been hired to defend the CM, finds all the right answers in court, the ruling LDF cannot duck this Opposition query-just who's paying Salve's fees?