London is all ready for the affluent Indians. Hotelier Suresh Nanda, Ruia brothers (PRashant Ruia is already in London for the past fortnight) of the Essar Group, Goenka and Shahid Balwa are to arrive there soon. Controversial people like Lalit Modi, Asif Balwa, and Angshuman Mishra are already there.

When a group of six BJP members took a flight to Bengaluru from Delhi, they had no idea that their flight will be such an eventful one. All these politicians were heading for Yeddyurappa’s grand daughter’s wedding reception and these leaders were – Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Ramlal, Ananth Kumar and Balbir Punj. Ananth Kumar started with the discussion that the names of six MLCs from Karnataka should be finalised then itself, to which Gadkari said that this required the Parliamentary Board’s approval. Ananth Kumar told that apart from Venkaiah and Mulri Manohar Joshi, all leaders from the Parliamentary Board had been spoken to. Venkaiah could not be contacted because he was away in Turkey, and Murli Manohar Joshi was languishing in Ganga Ram Hospital under surveillance of the doctors and it was not thought appropriate to disturb him. What followed was a big guffaw of laughter in the aircraft, which reverberated with it for a long time.

P Chidambaram has never been the media’s darling. But no one knows what he was made the media planner for the GoM in UPA-2. These meetings were once held in either PIB or at Ambika Soni’s residence. The UPA completed three years on May 22 and there is a big publicity budget to mark the occasion. What is surprising is that the entire matter of publicising the completion of three years of the government has been given to Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram. Ironically, both ministers have locked horns with the media more than once.

The Sangh has made it clear to Nitin Gadkari while handing him the second tenure that he has to prove his authority this time. He has to prove that he is here not only because of Sangh’s backing but also because he is a fearless President of the party. The Sangh also wants that Gadkari should take bold decisions this time. For instance, the Sangh wants that those BJP leaders who are more than 75 years of age, such as Advani, Joshi, Yashwant and Jaswant, should not contest the next Lok Sabha elections. Instead of letting such senior leaders contest elections, they should be like mentors giving a chance to young blood. Clearly, this is a big decision by the Sangh and to execute it, Gadkari will need a lot of moral courage and will power.

The power corridors in Delhi are rife with talks about the new Chief Election Commissioner. The names in the race include Central Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Verma, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar, and Delhi’s Chief Secretary P K Tripathi. It will be interesting to see whose star shines brightest.

The end of this year may see the court passing a judgement on the crucial 2G spectrum auction. Most of those charged are on tenterhooks, and several of them may be punished. Several of them are already working with all their might to evade persecution. Ruia brothers who won the Essar group are convinced the Prevention of Corruption Act can’t apply to them.

When Mamata arrived in Delhi to meet Sonia and the prime minister, she found it important to first meet SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. Mamata anyways stays in constant touch with Mulayam Singh and it is believed that the real strategy for both the leaders concerns the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Mamata’s personal request is that Netaji, that is Mulayam, should come forward as a kingmaker in these elections. The moment CPM found out about Mulayam and Mamata meeting, Sitaram Yechury called up Mulayam and asked for Netaji time to meet Prakash Karat. That very day, Mulayam had a long chat with CPI-M Chief Secretary Prakash Karat. During the conversation, Karat repeatedly reminded Netaji about the friendship between the two parties how a new entry (Mamata) should not be the reason for any rift between the two. Netaji is an old hand at politics and he assured Karat in the same tone and way that he had used with didi earlier in the day.

On the day of Akshay Tritiya on April 24, the elder son of top businessman Gautam Adani, Karan Adani, got engaged to Paridhi Shroff. The wedding may take place in February next year. Karan has a management degree from Purdue University in the US, and Paridhi is a law graduate. Her father Sairal Shorff has the country’s biggest law firm called Amarchand Mangla Das Corporate, where nearly 550 are on the payrolls. Sairal is also considered to be close to the Ambani families. The engagement ceremony was attended by Narendra Modi, Keshubhai Patel and Central ministers such as Sushil Shinde and Prafful Patel.

Nitin Gadkari’s second son Saran Gadkari’s wedding has been fixed. Gadkari is getting his son married to a girl from a simple family from Nagpur. Gadkari had got his elder son married among great hoopla – business honchos and stars had flown down for the wedding, two-three chartered flights were also booked for bringing politicians from New Delhi. Gadkari came under a lot of fire because of this, and so it is believed that this time, the wedding ceremony will be considerably simpler. Gadkari’s younger son works for Justice Dalbir Bhandari’s son-in-law, who is from the Lodha Group.

APJ Abdul Kalam has clearly stated that he will enter the Presidential elections only if all political parties agree to his name. The Congress is never going to support his nomination. Keeping this in mind, the Congress is working on pressing forward the cases of Pranab and Hamid Ansari.