Heard: Five ‘Modi ministers’ have been sidelined, both in the party and in government. Two are from RS, three from LS.
Overheard: Prez Mukherjee explaining to Bangladesh Prez Abdul Hamid, who was smoking, how he gave up cigarettes.
Mumbai
Banking on Adani
An almost rude question at a media summit required finance minister Arun Jaitley to play cleverly defensive on the question of Gautam Adani’s embarrassingly visible breakfast with the PM in Australia, at which the chairman of SBI Arundhati Bhattarcharya looked like a hapless invitee. Jaitley said PSU banks were not under any government influence when it comes to lending; he also said borrowing from Indian banks was still rather expensive. Perhaps a jibe at the RBI governor! His convoluted answer, that at this stage, Adani’s was merely a loan application at SBI, did not quite convince the audience. Now news has been leaked that the said loan hasn’t yet been sanctioned by SBI. Adani, meanwhile, is steering clear of Delhi to ensure that undue influence is not visible in any way. His only recent public outing was to the Vibrant Gujarat Summit where he has been a loyal attendee.
Delhi
Between cut and lip
Asked if Kejriwal’s AAP could dislodge her, Sheila Dikshit famously snapped, “Kejriwal who?” But defeat is a great teacher of humility. So when the former Delhi chief minister said, apropos of nothing, that the Congress could support AAP if it fell short in next month’s elections, the party top brass was understandably miffed. Senior leader B.K. Hariprasad was dispatched to enquire why she made such a statement. When Dikshit tried to ward it off, saying it was a slip of the tongue when confronted by a swarm of TV cameras, Hariprasad told her point blank that five channels had been invited by her for lunch, at which she’d given a detailed soundbite; it was not an off-the-cuff remark. The Gandhis do not want more trouble before Delhi elections, so no formal notice was issued to her.
Chennai
Pongal of hope
She remained silent during Deepavali. Christmas and Eid came and went. As did the dawn of 2015. But for Pongal, former Tamil Nadu CM J. Jayalalitha sprung into life and issued her first signed press statement greeting the people of the state. AIADMK leaders and cadres, ever so eager to spot the signals from Poes Garden, see hope in the year ahead. Puratchi Thalaivi, they aver, remained silent all these few months as she was smarting under her conviction in the disproportionate assets case. The Pongal turnaround, they believe, means she sees relief in the air.
Kolkata
Bar Counters
While the nation’s attention is on Subroto Roy of Sahara, still in jail, it seems Golden Tobacco Company tycoon Sanjay Dalmia has been arrested in a cheating matter. Gautam Khaitan, of a noted legal firm, is also behind bars for dealing a bit outside his legal briefs, with specific reference to the VVIP chopper deal. While public opinion is divided about whether Roy’s confinement was strictly legal, the case of the other two big boys has gone unnoticed. Do examples like this, lingering on beyond UPA-II, reveal a determination on the part of the Modi administration to ensure that wrongdoing does not go unpunished? Or is it merely the courts recognising that our systems are too full of holes and crying out for justice, as an incoming chief justice lamented last week?
The Insnider
