Bending Over Backwards
Tamil Nadu CM, M Karunanidhi, who threw a sulk recently when the Prime Minister was in town, knows that even if he boycotts Dr Manmohan Singh, bending over backwards to please Congress President Sonia Gandhi is the way to do business with the grand old party. So when it was her birthday last month, he sent an obsequious greeting to Sonia Gandhi. Now he has renamed the 300-year-old government General Hospital (GH) after Sonia Gandhi’s late husband Rajiv Gandhi. It was here that the former Prime Minister’s body was brought when he was assassinated at Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991. But it’s taken 20 years for the Congress to think about asking and some months of reflection for the CM to concede. Both parties could care less that many things are wrong at the GH and the latest is that with the third and only lift out of order (the other two have not been working for months), patients are being wheeled up on their stretchers even up to the sixth floor for surgery. But since politicians are into empty gestures, Karunanidhi made one and it was lapped up by the Congress. The CM must have figured with his impending trip to New Delhi on January 29, during which he has a meeting with Sonia Gandhi, he should have something solid to give her so he can corner more seats when they both begin their preliminary talks on seat adjustments.