A saffron divide
Rival sections of the BJP in Udaipur went their separate ways while celebrating former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s birthday on December 25.
One group led by former home minister Gulabchand Kataria organised a lecture through his Sundar Singh Bhandari Charitable Trust to greet people on Mr Vajpayee’s birthday in Udaipur. A senior Sangh-backed leader and former minister L.K. Chaturvedi delivered the keynote address in the programme. Simultaneously, BJP national secretary Kiran Maheshwari organised a separate programme through the Deen Dayal Upadhayaya Smriti Manch to celebrate Mr Vajpayee’s birthday.
The parallel celebration in Udaipur elicited a snide critique from the Congress. “We are not surprised at their factionalism. First they employed their skill to divide people in the name of religion, next they drove a wedge between communities like Gujjars and Meenas. Now they are getting a taste of their own medicine,” said Congress worker Ravindra Singh Samour in Jaipur.
“I appreciate their honesty. They do not spare their own party,” he added for good measure.

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New year shocker

The New Year is promising to be not so happy for BSP legislators, keen to seek re-election in the February Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
After a party meeting and before leaving for their constituencies to begin campaigning, half a dozen BSP MLAs went to wish chief minister Mayawati a happy New Year. The legislators, who had come with bouquets, were about to leave the chief minister’s residence after wishing her when they were summoned back by a BSP functionary, who curtly informed four of them that their Assembly election tickets had been cancelled.
The legislators, shocked out of their wits, tried to meet the chief minister to convince her to let them contest polls but in the BSP there is obviously no going back on what Ms Mayawati decrees.
A day later, three ministers, again carrying bouquets, went to wish the chief minister a happy New Year. After accepting the wishes, the chief minister told them to meet one of her aides and sign some letters. The ministers were aghast to find that the letters they had to sign were actually undated resignation letters. With a heavy heart, they signed the letters and left.
Since then, there has been a visible decline in partymen queuing up to wish Ms Mayawati for the New Year.

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Political road rage
With the flow of tourists to Shillong rising, the police had recently launched the drive of towing away all vehicles parked in no-parking zones and ordered its traffic wing to slap a fine of `1,000 on vehicle owners violating traffic norms.
While enforcing the new norms, Shillong police personnel found that Saleng A. Sangma, the youngest Cabinet minister of Meghalaya, had parked his brand-new SUV with a beacon light at a no-parking zone and in their dutiful zeal slapped a fine on the minister. After paying `1,000, Mr Sangma left the scene quietly, only to get back at the cops.
During their drive cops also booked two MLAs, one of whom was Congress legislator Ronnie V. Lyngdoh, who heads the privileges and ethics committee of the Meghalaya Assembly. Mr Lyngdoh, caught parking his vehicle in a no-parking zone, was issued a challan and asked to appear before a traffic in-charge. The Shillong traffic police was feeling triumphant after throwing the book at lawmakers when the tide suddenly turned.
The next day traffic police personnel were summoned before a Legislative Assembly panel for booking legislators for violating traffic rules. However, their appearance before the House panel was excused after additional director-general of police Rajiv Metha rushed to the legislators and apologised on behalf of his personnel.

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Left’s payback
Sonali Guha, known as the enfant terrible of the Trinamul Congress, used to give a tough time to the police during street agitations organised by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee against the Left Front government at the drop of a hat. In 2001 Ms Guha entered the state Assembly as an MLA and started making life difficult for the ruling Left Front members, especially the then Speaker, Hashim Abdul Halim. She again won her Satgachia seat in 2006. Though there were just 30 MLAs from her party in the House, Ms Guha remained as fierce and feisty as ever. Whenever there was a face-off between the ruling and the Opposition members in the House, she was at the forefront. She would prod her party legislators to rush into the Well, surround the Chair and eventually stage a noisy walkout.
After the Trinamul Congress dethroned the Left Front Ms Banerjee, possibly displaying her profound sense of humour, made Ms Guha deputy speaker of the Assembly. Last week the Opposition Left Front members created a pandemonium in the House on the last two days of the Winter Session over the chief minister’s charge that the CPI(M) was spreading rumours about poison in drinking water in South 24 Parganas. “Boss, are you trying to pay us back in our own coin or is history repeating itself?” a bemused Ms Guha, made aware of her years in the Opposition, was heard asking senior CPI(M) leader Anisur Rahman.

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Twitter twists of lokpal
With the government not yielding to the threats of Anna Hazare, Team Anna has been tilting at windmills with the result that a number of derisive descriptions for Lokpal are swirling around on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Even before the Lok Sabha discussed and subsequently passed the Lokpal Bill, Arvind Kejriwal tweeted calling the Lokpal Bill a “thopal”, meaning one that is being imposed. Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha found “brokepal” more appropriate while condemning it.
Team Anna had earlier dubbed the government version of the bill as “jokepal”. A day after the Lok Sabha passed the Lokpal Bill, Mr Kejriwal had tweeted that this bill would kill democracy. Team Anna’s verbal inventiveness must be seen in the light of their anxieties over the crowd volume Anna Hazare’s protest drew in Mumbai and Delhi last week.
The latest tweet from Mr Kejriwal is a snide remark suggesting that they (the team) should bribe to get their Jan Lokpal Bill passed in Parliament. If you can’t beat them join them.