KEEPING TABS ON POWER POLITICS IN PUNJAB, HARYANA, HIMACHAL PRADESH AND J&K
MANN CAUGHT OFF GUARD
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state unit president Bhagwant Mann
has not only failed to check internal bickering in the party. But he also doesn’t want anyone to talk about the sniping
going on among senior leaders of the party. When he held a press conference in Chandigarh last week, a scribe asked the two-time Sangrur MP about the absence of Sunam MLA Aman Kumar Arora from some recent party meetings. He was not amused. “You guys keep counting the number of legislators present in our meetings. This one did not show up. That one kept away,” he said in an accusing manner. But what the comedian-turned-politician probably had not anticipated was a quick riposte. “Now that you have stopped counting, we have to keep count,” the journalist told Mann to guffaws all around. Arora was present and did talk about his ‘difference of opinion’ with some leaders on the drubbing the party got in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
DRAMA IN BATHINDA MC HOUSE
Punjab finance
minister Manpreet Singh Badal was saved
the blushes when the Congress councilors withdrew their no-confidence motion in the Bathinda municipal corporation. MC falls
with the limits of the Bathinda (Urban) assembly segment represented by Manpreet who has had a running battle with the Akalis. In the absence of several SAD-BJP members from the House meeting, Congress councilors not only passed multiple resolutions but also moved the motion, asking mayor Balwant Rai Nath to prove his majority. Sensing that they will not be able to muster the required two-thirds majority in the 50-member House, they withdrew it a day before it was to come up. A defeat would have been embarrassing for the party leadership.
AAP’S PRESSER BLUES
When Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal said, “please allow us to make mistakes, please allow us to learn”, he probably had not anticipated that his party colleagues in Punjab would take it very seriously. They just keep repeating their mistakes. When AAP state chief Bhagwant
Mann and other party leaders held a press conference on Wednesday at a bungalow allotted by the government to leader of opposition Harpal Singh Cheema to announce the party candidates for the bypolls to four assembly seats, there were no proper seating arrangements. The room was very small. Not only were Mann, Cheema, and party MLAs late by 25 minutes, other party leaders also tried to troop in. When the press conference ended, everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Their press conferences have been chaotic earlier as well, but AAP leaders do not seem to have learnt much.
TANWAR & HIS STUBBORN STANCE
Bickering in Haryana Congress seems to be an unending phenomenon. Former state unit president Ashok Tanwar who did not get support from senior party leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda when he was in charge chose not to attend the meeting of the state election committee in Delhi last week. Since his
ouster, Tanwar has adopted a stubborn stance while dealing with the leaders in command of the party set-up in the state. He recently said that he would extend co-operation to the extent he received from the senior leaders when he was the state unit chief. The Congress leaders in the state are incorrigible.
KHATTAR’S WITTY SIDE
Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was at
his wittiest best at a presser last week. Khattar came prepared to brief the media about the state’s fiscal health and the employment generation efforts of his government to blunt the opposition attack. As the CM was about to start his address, a senior journalist said, “Khattar saab, election aa gaye hain, aaj apse bahut baten karni hain”. But Khattar just wanted to talk on issues at hand. “Par mujhe nahin karni naa. Aaj sirf unemployment pe hi baat karni hai,” he said with a smile, meaning that he would not talk on any issue except unemployment.
KIRAN ON ‘FLAY HOODA’ SPREE
Former CLP leader Kiran Choudhry
who was replaced by Bhupinder Singh Hooda recently has been on a flay Hooda spree. Choudhry who is now the chairperson of the manifesto committee said that Hooda’s announcement to have four deputy chief ministers if the Congress gets voted to power in Haryana would not be included in the party manifesto. While Hooda had overstepped at his Rohtak rally by claiming that the promises made by him would be a part of the poll m anifesto, Choudhry’s take on four deputy CM’s is clearly an overture to lock horns with the ex-CM since such matters are never included in poll manifestos.
A CLEAN ACT BY THAKUR & COMPANY
To mark the birth anniversary of Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a cleanliness drive of statues of prominent leaders in Shimla. Chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, his cabinet colleague Suresh Bhardwaj, Lok Sabha MP Suresh Kashyap, BJP state unit chief Satpal Singh Satti and mayor Kusum Sadrate climbed up the ladders with buckets in hand to clear the statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Dr BR Ambedkar, main architect of the India Constitution, and first CM of Himachal Pradesh Dr YS Parmar. Thakur while climbing the ladder showed signs of acrophobia, the fear of heights.