Backing his stand

The old guard in the Congress was taken aback when Rahul Gandhi, reportedly at the suggestion of Ajay Maken, visited the JNU campus to join the Left parties in expressing solidarity with the students. Many senior Congressmen feared it might be construed as support for those shouting slogans in favour of Afzal Guru, a terrorist who was hanged during the UPA regime for his role in the Parliament House attack. However, in Ahmedabad, Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel said he was in complete agreement with Rahul Gandhi on the JNU issue. He added that it is not right to dub someone anti-national just because he has an ideology, which is at variance with the thoughts of a political party. Patel’s statement was seen as an indicator that Sonia Gandhi has given her nod of approval for Rahul’s action.

Down in the dumps

The IAS officer closest to Narendra Modi when he was CM of Gujarat was K Kailashnathan, who was his additional chief secretary from 2006. When Kailashnathan retired in 2013, he was given an extension and appointed as chief principal secretary. The bureaucracy was surprised that Modi did not get him to Delhi to work with him when he was elected PM. Instead he passed him on to his successor, chief minister Anandiben Patel, on the understanding that he would help her run the state. However, Patel has since become suspicious of Kailashnathan, as she sees him as being close to her political rival

Amit Shah, and she has gradually sidelined Kailashnathan. It remains to be seen whether Patel will give Kailashnathan another extension after May.

Special visa service

It is difficult for a Pakistani to get a visa from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. But recently, the Indian High Commission was specially opened on Saturday, a holiday, so that some favoured individuals could get a visa post-haste, to come to India to attend the birthday party of their cousin. This special treatment was accorded to close relatives of vice-president Hamid Ansari.

Kashmiris kept out

The Delhi Police’s speedy arrest of the JNU Students’ Union president for sedition, and dragging their feet over the arrests of the Kashmiri youth who had actually raised anti-India slogans and in favour of convicted terrorist Afzal Guru, may be for tactical reasons. Mehbooba Mufti is still in talks with the BJP over the formation of a government in J&K and she has made it clear that it would be embarrassing for the PDP if any Kashmiri student was arrested.

Diplomacy duel

The MEA is hosting a conference in Delhi in early March, titled the ‘Raisina Dialogue’. Comparisons are inevitable with the conference on counter-terrorism organised by the India Foundation, with the government of Rajasthan as co-hosts in Jaipur earlier this month. The India Foundation conference was attended by Pranab Mukherjee, Ajit Doval, Rajnath Singh, Suresh Prabhu and S Jaishankar. Foreign delegates included the chief executive of Afghanistan, deputy foreign minister of Iran and deputy PM of Malaysia. The foundation’s clout is that it is run by BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and Shaurya Doval, NSA Ajit Doval’s son. The MEA conference, co-sponsored by the Observer Foundation, has yet to line up as impressive a list of speakers.

Imperial presence

The AIADMK kitty is overflowing, thanks to the big demand for nominations to fight the upcoming Assembly elections on a party ticket. There are around100 applicants for each of the state’s 234 constituencies and every prospective candidate has to first deposit R10,000 to be considered for scrutiny. Jayalalithaa’s method of selecting candidates is truly imperious. All the hopefuls from a particular area are herded into one room and prostrate themselves when Jayalalithaa enters. She greets them with folded hands and after two minutes, disappears into her office.

Sales tactics

Baba Ramdev’s sales staff have decided that the BJP office on Ashoka Road is a fertile ground for promoting its goods. They work on the assumption that a lot of the party cadres and visitors to the office are admirers of the yoga guru. So whenever there is a crowd at the office, two vans surface on the road near the entrance and do brisk business selling honey, biscuits noodles and tea under the Baba’s brand name. Sometimes, a stall is set up on the office premises.