After lying low for nearly a month over what was widely perceived to be a step down from the ministry of HRD, minister for textiles Smriti Irani has now started taking interest in her new portfolio. She announced her arrival with a politically-correct campaign for the promotion of handloom fabrics. Ms Irani got herself photographed in a handwoven sari, posted it on Twitter, tagged five people and tweeted “I support Indian weavers, here’s my #IwearHandloomlook”. But the minister had better watch out. While she has discovered the beauty of Indian handlooms, Ms Irani faces stiff competition from her party colleague and bête noire, Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Lekhi, who has been passionately involved in the promotion of khadi.
Ms Lekhi has even drafted designer Ritu Beri to design a line of outfits for Khadi emporiums in a bid to popularise the fabric and has been instrumental in the setting up of a Khadi emporium outlet in the Parliament Annexe building. Though she does not head a ministry, she is helping out Kalraj Mishra, minister for medium and small enterprises, as the Khadi Commission is under him. Finance minister Arun Jaitley calls them the “Khan market” group of young MPs and has named NCP’s Supriya Sule, as its chairperson. The reason: Ms Sule and a host of young MPs, including Sushmita Dev of the Congress, Nishikant Dubey of the BJP and SP’s Neeraj Shekhar are constantly out lunching when Parliament is in session.
And when they are not eating out, they often meet for lunch at Ms Sule’s residence. Sometimes, they are spoilt for choices — recently, they had to scurry from Ms Sule’s place to Shiromani Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujaral’s residence as both hosted a lunch on the same day. When Mr Jaitley mentioned these luncheons to Ms Sule, she was quick to point out that despite their outings, the young MPs attended Parliament regularly. When the SC recently ordered the Lodha committee recommendations on the functioning of BCCI be implemented, politicians involved in cricket administration were most unhappy as they would lose their positions in the sports body. Yet, nobody was willing to confront the SC or Justice Lodha although BCCI office-bearers constantly complain about them in private.
They never fail to point out that Justice Lodha and his team are working out of an expensive suite in a five-star hotel, all at the BCCI’s expense. Unwilling to antagonise the judiciary, the BCCI decided to outsource its fight to former SC judge, Justice Markandey Katju, who was hired, ostensibly, to oversee implementation of the Lodha report. But in reality, the outspoken Justice Katju was handpicked by the BCCI because he has no qualms about taking on the SC. It also helps that Rajeev Shukla, Congress’ MP from Rajya Sabha and IPL chief, knows Justice Katju. It was an open secret that it was Mr Shukla who had suggested Justice Katju to head the Press Council when the UPA-2 was in power. So far, Justice Katju has not disappointed the BCCI as he lost no time in denouncing the Lodha recommendations as “unconstitutional and illegal”. Having delegated its problems to Justice Katju, the BCCI is now sitting back and watching as the two ex-judges battling it out.
Recently, when Congress president Sonia Gandhi cut short her road show in Varanasi due to ill-health, it was arranged for her to be driven either to Gangaram Hospital or the AIIMS. In fact, arrangements were made at both these hospitals. But on the drive from the Delhi airport, Mrs Gandhi’s doctors said that she needed immediate care as her condition had deteriorated. It was decided to take her to the Army’s Research and Referral Hospital which is not far from the airport. Mrs Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmad Patel, immediately called Rashtrapati Bhavan whose team of doctors alerted the Army hospital as it obviously had no prior information about this VIP. President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee also intervened to ensure that Mrs Sonia Gandhi was attended to immediately.
