On September 21, some top CBI officials had a meeting at Central minister Kapil Sibal’s residence in Deli. Other than Ahmad Patel, Kapil Sibal and Narayan Samy, the meeting was attended by CBI’s Special Director Salim Ali. The meeting was later attended by the CBI Director himself, which is when Salim Ali left. During the meeting, Kapil Sibal frankly told the CBI officials present that a charge sheet has to prepared against the white beard (Narendra Modi) and black bread 9Amit Shah) at any cost. Different aspects related to the Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin case was also discussed in detail.

Congrss Number Two Rahul Gandhi may not have come up to the mark in political oratory, but no one can blame him for trying to clean the Congress’ image and change its character and workings for the better. Rahul had some doubts over the 11 names that have been nominated by the party for Delhi’s Assembly elections. The report card about the Assembly members that Rahul had got showed these people to be steeped in corruption. So the Congress vice-president cancelled their tickets; most of these were considered to have gotten the hand of protection of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. So once she saw these peoples’ tickets being cancelled, Sheila went and requested Sonia to intervene. Sonia is a seasoned politician and she assured the chief minister that the names of these 11 will be included in the next list; but several of Sheila’s own will have their ticket cut for sure.

Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party is playing a game of extreme communal polarisation for the coming 2014 Lok Sabha elections. And what a strange coincidence it is that the state government tried to raise a fire from the embers of the Muzaffarnagar riots by releasing the statistics that are against the very rules of humanity. The government statistics state how many Hindus died in the riots and how many of them were Muslims. When the SP government came under fire because of this, Mulayam tried to defend Akhilesh government saying that the data was revealed at the administration level, and that he has no knowledge about this. The same way, arresting the sadhus and sannyasis during a VHP march and arresting BJP politicians and throwing them in jail is part of the same strategy.

After calling the Ordinance that was to save tainted ministers as nonsense, Congress’ angry young yuvraj went for a painting exhibition by artist Ambika Jain. According to a pre-decided schedule, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi was to stay there for a mere 10 minutes buthe got so lost in the art on display that he didn’t even realise that he was there for one-and-a-half-hour. Several paintings at the exhibition touched Rahul’s heart so much that he stood there looking at them for a long time. Let’s hope this colourful exhibition also helped Rahul differentiate the coloured foxes from others.

The SP has found a new Amar Singh in Naresh Aggarwal. He not only has several friends in other political parties, he doesn’t like to hide that fact from anyone either. This October on his birthday, Aggarwal organised a grand party at his residence in Hardoi. The event was marked by the presence of several political party leaders. The most shocking presence was that of Central Parliament state minister Rajiv Shukla. He cancelled his prior appointments for the day in Delhi and took a chartered flight to Hardoi with Ashok Chaturvedi who was once assistant to Amar Singh. He also had a great time laughing it up at the jokes of Raju Srivastava, who has been announced as the SP candidate from Kanpur. Earlier, too, pictures were all over the media with Srivastava and Naresh Aggarwal hand-in-hand with each other. Like Naresh Aggarwal, Rajiv Shukla, too, doesn’t believe in the political caste system and thus has good friends from parties such as the BJP, BSP and the SP.

When a delegation from the BJP met the Honourable President to protest the Ordinance, Pranab da’s take was quite contrary to his previous avatar. He spoke to Kapil Sibal and Sushil Kumar Shinde in the presence of the BJP leaders and told them about his views saying that such an Ordinance will hurt the sentiments of the Supreme Court and a situation of face-off may arise between the executive and the judiciary. Thus, Dada said it clearly that he will be sending back the Ordinance to the government without signing it. The minute the President’s intentions were known to the Baba party, they wrote a new script for the crown prince.

Now in order to appease the US, the country’s prime minister is trying to clip the wings of National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon. What is otherwise the reason that Menon is meeting Sonia and Rahul Gandhi so frequently? The same Menon who liked to keep a distance from the media is inviting journalists for interactions and is giving them briefs about internal security and foreign policy. Menon is also upset with the prime minister because the PM has placed four envoys on his head. PM’s special ambassador S K Lamba is, in any case, already taking care of the Afghanistan-Pakistan matter. Shyam Saran has been given the charge of the US-Indo Nuclear Deal for Climate Change. Former Cabinet Minister Ashwini Kumar is taking care of Japan. On the other hand, Rakesh Sood, who has been India’s ambassador to Afghanistan and Nepal, has been made a special ambassador for the disarmament and non-proliferation. On the other hand, Menon has always been of the opinion regarding Sood that he has made India and Nepal’s relationship go from bad to worse. What was it then that Manmohan wanted to reward him for? This is the reason Menon got an unofficial restriction against Sood to sit in the South Block and arrangements were made for him to sit in an office near Patel Chowk. The matter was solved after the prime minister intervened and an office was made ready for Sood in the South Block. Although Menon is going with the prime minister to the US, Manmohan Singh is also taking S Jayshankar along with him, who will also be the next Indian ambassador to the US. Menon has been India’s ambassador in China and has good knowledge of Chinese and Chinese diplomacy. So his natural inclination is more towards China than the US and this is what the American lobby does not like.

This indeed is a million dollar question – why is Digvijay Singh indeed so against BJP leader Sushma Swaraj? Sources reveal that Diggy Raja has made a deal with Narendra Modi without outsider knowledge. Gujarat’s prominent industrialist Gautam Adani had a big role to play in Modi and Diggy coming closer. Adani has extremely close relations with Modi. Within the Congress, he has good relations with Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh and with Sharad Pawar and Prafful Patel in the NCP. Diggy wanted his son-in-law Pranjay Aditya Singh to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Godhra in Gujarat; Diggy has four daughters. The second daughter Mandakini is married to Pranjay from the royal family Santrampur in Godhra. He needs Modi and his government’s help to get his son-in-law to win from Godhra. It was Adani who prepared the roadmap for Diggy and Modi’s friendship, where Diggy will have a perfect aim at all those who oppose Modi. In the current political scenario, after Advani, it is Sushma who spoke against Modi. So now she is on the Modi-Diggy radar. On the other hand, Diggy wants his son to contest the elections from his old Assembly seat in Raghogarh.

September 15 will witness a major show of strength between the two power centres in the BJP: campaign committee chief Narendra Modi and party veteran L K Advani. For, on the same day, both the rivals in the BJP will hold two public rallies just a few hundred kilometres from each other.

While Advani will hold a rally at Chaudhary Charan Singh College near Agra, Modi will address a huge gathering of ex-servicemen at Rao Tula Rao Stadium in Rewari (Haryana). The rallies have caused a friction between both the camps as both have deployed their generals to make their respective shows a huge success.

Advani is banking on BJP general secretary Varun Gandhi, who has displayed crowd pulling abilities in the past. On the other hand, Modi is banking on former Army Chief Gen (R) V K Singh, as Rewari as well as adjoining Jhajjhar, Mahendragarh and Hisar disctricts have huge presence of serving and ex-armymen. Gen (R) Singh will be one of the speakers at the rally.

According to sources, the Modi camp is also taking the help of Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) leader Kuldip Bishnoi, even though no formal alliance has been struck between the BJP and the HJC.

Modi’s confidant and in charge of UP, BJP general secretary Amit Shah, is upset with the Advani camp for holding the rally. Modi was forced to cancel his earlier scheduled rally in Mathura on October 2 because of Advani’s event.

Sources say that Shah summoned some of the UP unit office-bearers involved in organising the Advani rally and told them to cancel the show. But he was told that this is not possible as a lot of hoardings, banners and posters for the event have already been put up in the Agra-Mathura region. Consequently, the Modi camp cancelled the October 2 rally as it felt that it won’t be possible to mobilise an impressive crowd just 15 days after Advani’s rally in the same region.

The entire Haryana unit of the BJP has been galvanised for Modi’s Rewari rally. Besides, the party’s in charge for Haryana, Jagdish Mukhi, is monitoring the entire show from Delhi on a daily basis.

The game of “Give money, get ticket” is on in Delhi BJP. If reliable sources with the BJP are to be believed, a team under Delhi BJP’s in-charge Nitin Gadkari has identified at least 14 such Assembly seats in Delhi where the chances of party candidates winning the seat are dim. These include seats such as Gandhi Nagar, Matia Mahal, Narela, Vishwas Nagar, Babarpur, Bawana, Badarpur, Okhla, Jangpura and Najafgarh. Those wanting to contest elections from these seats are being asked to quote a price for the seat; each one’s reserve price was said to be Rs 5 crore, which was later reduced to Rs 2 crore. But despite this when there was a paucity of people coming forward to contest the seats, a new formula was worked upon. According to this new formula, a panel of 10 party candidates was made for one Assembly seat. Just to become a part of the panel, every candidate is supposed to cough up Rs 5 lakh. Those who want to the among the top three candidates for the seat are being asked to give Rs 25 lakh, and those wanting to be among top two have to give Rs 50 lakh. Which means an organised attempt is on for the wheeling-dealing of the seats.