Left-Out SecretariesThese days once the Union Cabinet clears a specific proposal, the secretary of that ministry is called in for media briefings on the Cabinet decisions to give a brief presentation on the matter.K.The cops told him that he looked exactly like Ram Vriksh Yadav, the main accused in the Mathura clashes. He had barely emerged from the waters after taking the holy dip in the Ganga at the Dashashwamedh Ghat when a group of policemen swooped down on him and whisked him away to an undisclosed destination. The matter being of extreme public interest, it garnered all the media attention, with Mr Lavasa and finance minister Arun Jaitley facing all the questions. Basanta bhai (Basanta Panda) is our leader. Since Yadav’s lawyers had claimed that he was still alive, they had arrested him for verification. If insiders in the Congress are to be believed, Mr Roy’s remark has come as a great relief for the Congress leadership, as most of the elected representatives had ruled out any chances of joining the BJP.Maurya was shocked into silence and when he gathered his wits, he asked the cops why they had taken him into custody. The two leaders were stopped by the anchor and others present in the studio.A crafty and shrewd politician as he is, Mr Pradhan got this opportunity at the recently-held BJP state executive meeting. The two leaders were together in the studio of a local channel to debate the appointment of Asha Kumari as in-charge of the Punjab Congress, who hs been convicted in a land grab case.Leaders present in the meeting had no difficulty in understanding how Mr Pradhan was shooting more than two birds with one stone — assuaging Mr Oram’s feeling, holding his protégé Basanta Panda in high esteem and sending a message across party workers that he is not as ambitious as they think. The infuriated Mr Sharma punched Mr Bali and the two got involved in a scuffle and exchanged abuses.Punjab ready for the fightWith Punjab in election mode, the political parties in the state are getting ready for the fight, in some cases quite literally. The US, it seems, is waiting for Didi..Though the Cabinet that day also cleared the National Mineral Exploration Policy and the Model Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Bill 2016, and the mines and labour secretaries too were present in the briefing to field questions related to the two matters, they were relegated to the background as hardly any mediaperson showed interest in the subject.Maurya kept pleading that he belonged to Ambedkar Nagar and had wholesale hex coupling nuts never even visited Mathura but the cops would not listen. While the matter was hushed up, it came out as another panelist present spilled the beans. In fact, Ms Clinton was so impressed by her meeting with the stormy petrel of Indian politics that even after her return to the US she praised her. He said: “I and Jual bhai (Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram) are small fries as far as the BJP Orissa unit is concerned. Time magazine included her in its prestigious list of 100 most influential women of the world. If he asks us to do one hundred sit-ups, we’ll immediately follow his instruction without any objections. The veteran Congress leader also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal in the same breath.While Mr Saikia was trying to find out, a veteran Congress leader, Gautam Roy, whose wife and son also lost the elections with him, came before the media and said ex-chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s reckless remarks was the cause of the party’s defeat. Last week, when the Union Cabinet cleared the much-awaited recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, finance secretary Ashok Lavasa briefed the media on its details through a presentation. Sharma, who is also a chief parliamentary secretary, and Congress leader Gurvinder Singh Bali.Killing many birds with one stoneOften criticised for allegedly “hijacking” all powers of the state BJP unit and getting his protégé Basanta Panda elected as president of the Orissa BJP unit ostensibly to smoothen his path to become party’s chief ministerial candidate in 2019 Assembly elections, Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan was looking for an opportunity to counter the “impression”. Trinamul Congress leaders are waiting for the day when their Didi will break bread with the US President at the White House.America callingWhen US undersecretary of state for political affairs Thomas Shannon met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna (the state secretariat) last week, he extended an invitation to her to visit Washington. Ours is a disciplined party.Lookalike Trouble Here & Now Lookalike TroublePramod Maurya, a farmer from Ambedkar Nagar, was in Varanasi on a pilgrimage. The channel later held the debate with the two leaders and it was telecast. Later, after the textile industry package was okayed by the Cabinet, the textile secretary too explained the nitty-gritty of the package to the media.A police team was later sent to Maurya’s house in Ambedkar Nagar to collect documents related to his identity. A case in point is a squabble in a TV studio between Akali legislators N. In fact, she had visited the United Nations headquarters in New York donning her trademark cotton sari and rubbers chappals. Later, US ambassador to India Nancy Powell met the chief minister not once but twice, and on both occasions invited her to the US.Last month, when the Cabinet cleared the aviation policy, the civil aviation secretary gave a detailed presentation before the media. In fact, some Congress veterans who lost elections have been trying to engineer a defection in the party for their smooth entry in the BJP. In May 2012, she was invited by no less than charismatic US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to visit the US. Mr Oram and a few other veteran and experienced leaders have been sulking for quite some time now over their marginalisation in the party’s organisational affairs. Both bureaucrats therefore did not get any opportunity to give presentations related to their proposals and when the briefing ended, they quietly left the venue along with other officials and ministers. Ms Banerjee suddenly became extremely popular in the US in May 2011 after she dethroned 34-year-long Left Front government. In her first tenure as chief minister, Ms Banerjee visited Bangladesh, Singapore and the UK. Now the Congress has alerted its newly-elected MLAs to be at a safe distance from such “opportunists”. Then Mr Bali also made general allegations of land-grab against Mr Sharma. Obviously Mr Saikia started consulting his MLAs to know their mood and all of them denied the media reports. Exactly a year ago, the US-India Business Council invited Ms Banerjee to visit the US to showcase West Bengal as an ideal investment destination. What the cops told him shocked him further. Mr Sharma, who is also a real estate baron, reportedly lost his cool when Mr Bali pointed that `1 crore is pending as electricity bill at a project of Mr Sharma’s firm. No one perhaps remembers that Ms Banerjee had once visited the US in 1998.Rumours that divideThe worst phase for the Congress in Assam was said to be over with party losing Assembly elections, but suddenly the local media was flooded with news of a split within the Congress. It took more than 30 hours before Maurya was allowed to go and the SSP confirmed that it was a case of mistaken identity. With the demise of Assam Congress president Anjan Dutta, the responsibility of taking note of such developments has come on the shoulders of Congress Legislature Party leader Debabrata Saikia.”Party leaders present in the meeting looked at Mr Oram’s face to know his reaction. This is the not the first time that Ms Banerjee had received an invitation to visit America
