Although Punjab Congress leaders admit that Captain Amarinder Singh is their best bet for next year’s Assembly elections, old worries about his laid-back style of functioning have resurfaced. It was precisely for this reason that a large section of Congress workers got disenchanted with the former maharaja during his last stint as state party chief.
The old complaints about his inaccessibility have started doing the round once again. A frustrated Punjab Congress leader recently described Capt. Singh as their party’s Schumacher who, he said, always arrived on the racing track with a band of flunkeys who then proceed to check out his car and make all the necessary preparations for the forthcoming race. Capt. Singh, he said, is also surrounded by a similar coterie whose members have been entrusted with the task of “fixing his turban and his kurta” before he steps out in royal style. Worried party leaders maintain that Capt. Singh will have to shed his old lifestyle and hit the road to meet the challenge posed by Aam Admi Party.
Minister of food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal and her husband, deputy CM Punjab Sukhbir Singh Badal, hosted their annual lunch for MPs and media persons at their Delhi residence last week. And, as always, typical vegetarian Punjabi fare — the state’s signature dishes like sarson ka saag and Amritsari choley — was served. Keen to ensure that the food tasted authentic, the hosts had made arrangements to ferry the ingredients, including the water to cook the choley in, all the way from Punjab. But their plans ran into a hitch. T
he vehicles carrying the water from Amritsar got stuck in Haryana because of the blockade by Jats. Mrs Badal pleaded with the cooks (also from Punjab, of course) that they should use Delhi’s water to prepare the choley but they were adamant on Amritsar water.
Mrs Badal then sent an SOS to her husband who directed the Punjab Police to escort the vehicles to Delhi. The water finally reached their residence late on Monday night and it was only then that the cooks got down to preparing the famous Amritsari choley. Needless to say, the food was a big hit.
Concerned about the arrested JNU students, many Left leaders have made trips to Tihar Jail. However, CPI leader D. Raja need not have worried. On reaching Tihar Jail, he discovered that two senior officers there are former JNU students.
They greeted Mr Raja warmly. Mr Raja got another surprise when he found out that a large number of officers and other staff hailed from Tamil Nadu. They immediately started conversing with the CPI leader in Tamil and assured him that “their boy” Kanhaiya Kumar was being looked after. Clearly, regional ties and old bonds have their uses.
BJP leaders cannot stop poking fun at Rahul Gandhi and CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury after they were seen together on the JNU campus. Taking a swipe at Mr Yechury, a BJP leader was overheard commenting that he is more comfortable with Congress leaders than with Prakash Karat. It is no secret that Mr Karat and Mr Yechury have serious disagreements over CPM’s ties with Congress.
Jokes apart, the BJP has no complaints about the proposed Left-Congress tie-up. As a result of this development, its relations with Mamata Banerjee have improved in recent weeks. Ms Banerjee made it a point to greet PM Modi on his last trip to WB. Finance minister Arun Jaitley also had a chat with her when he visited Kolkata. This is good news for the BJP because it needs more friends in the RS where the Modi government is in a minority. On the flip side, the BJP’s growing proximity to Mamata is also an admission that the party is in no position to take on the TC in West Bengal.
Tailpiece: Finance minister Arun Jaitley to CPM leader Yechury after his speech on the discussion on the JNU row and the Patiala House violence in RS. “It is interesting to note that you are now quoting the NYT …is it your new Das Kapital?”
