Keeping in mind the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, JD-U has made up its mind to say goodbye to NDA. Nitish is looking for a third of a fourth front and is said to be interested in joining one of them. The problem is that all the parties that want to join these fronts have leaders who have aspirations to become the next prime minister, be it Mulayam or Nitish Kumar.

After her routine check-up in the US, Sonia Gandhi returned to India on September 9 on a Jet Airways flight. A few days later, BJP President NitinGadkari, who was returning from Canada after a vacation, also took a Jet flight. So does this mean that the heads of two biggest parties in India prefer Jet Airways to Air India? All thanks to Prafful Patel. For he let a private airline such as Jet flourish at the cost of government-owned Air India or Indian. And why did he do that? Is that a secret anymore?

At least, the Congressmen in UP have found the person who gives all the information of the political situation in UP to Rahul Gandhi. It is none other than the Parliamentarian from Rajasthan, Harish Choudhury, who is spending a lot of time in UP nowadays. And the local leader who sucks up to him gets a good review from him, while the others are put in a bad light. Sources reveal that it is Harish Choudhury’s report that Kanishka Singh forwards to Rahul and the poor young man trusts the report with closed eyes.

Congress strategists have also decided that they will rest only after they are they have put the blame on the BJP that it is not letting the Parliament function. This means that the Parliament will not be dismissed and this temple of democracy will open its gates everyday and the members will continue to rant and rave. And the Congress seems to be telling the country that they want the Parliament to function; it is the Opposition that is against it.

The entire Opposition and a group of the Congress is busy trying to investigate who are really the beneficiaries of Coal-gate. Primary investigation has thrown up three names – Tata, Jindal Power (owned by Congress Parliamentarian Navin Jindal), and the third person is Abhijit Jaiswal, who is said to be a close relative of Coal Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal. Sources reveal that these people were given allotments on February 27, 2009, because March 1 was falling on a Sunday. The notification was passed on March 2, and the scam of Rs 38,000 crore is about this.

What is the difference in the celebrations at Rashtrapati Bhavan then and now? Everyone knows such organised occasions were taken care of by the military secretaries. Who takes care of this in the present President’s tenure is known to all. All the excitement meant a few things were ignored and the BJP got a chance to make a mountain out of a molehill. They are still asking that if the UPA chairperson’s seating was done next to the President’s, why was the NDA chairperson made to stand? Clearly, these questions are significant, not only from the protocol point of view, but according to Constitutional tradition as well.

On Sunday itself, a contingent of Congress leaders went to see Deshmukh in Chennai. It is believed that this is being done in accordance with Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi’s wishes. The group will include Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Parliamentary Affairs State Minister Rajiv Shukla and the all-powerful Ahmed Patel. The group took at an 11 am flight to Chennai and will come back to Delhi the same day.

A decision by the court may be on the cards need week regarding Mulayam Singh’s case of disproportionate assets; it is also the week for the vice-presidential elections. Netaji himself is praying for a relief since the case also features the name of Akhilesh and Dimple. Netaji is hoping that at least his son and daughter-in-law will be spared he too will somehow be acquitted in the case.

Pawar would often threaten the Congress that if it makes things difficult, he will leave the Congress at the Centre and Maharashtra and will help the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the BJP in forming their governments. But the minute both brothers Uddhav and Raj patched up and a political alliance of sorts between the two could be seen, Shiv Sena issue a statement saying, “There has been a coalition with MNS and both parties will contest the next elections together.” Now Pawar’s carrot and stick had both been taken away.

Sources reveal that the wife of Abhishek Verma, an arms dealer, met the wife Central state minister Pallam Raju’s wife, but before that, she also met two other young political leaders – the Congress crown prince and Abhijit Mukherjee. It is even believed that it was the Congress crown prince who asked Verma’s wife of foreign descent to meet Pallam Raju. The matter was about making the black-listed Swiss company Sig Sauer worthy of a tender. According to sources, Verma’s wife has already confessed in her conversations that she had given $5 lakh to the minister’s wife for the job.