Calling Elvis
With the lobbying for tickets for the Lok Sabha elections on, there are rumours about various prospective candidates. One of these is about a leader who is seemingly always in telephonic conversation with a party top shot in New Delhi. But the trick is that there is no one on the other side. The fake conversation is organised just to impress the visitors and fellow leaders. Now, when the news is traveling via grapevine, its speed is fast. Most people are well aware of the pseudo-calls ‘dialled’ by this leader, so his phone is a subject of much ridicule now.

Changing tunes
If a week is a long time in politics, then a year is an eternity. So it seems in view of the fickle opinions of some of the state’s leaders. About a year ago, leader of the BJP in the Haryana Assembly, Ram Kumar Gautam, used to script paeans for Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda despite belonging to the rival camp. But of late, Gautam has started finding more virtues in BSP’s Mayawati. On the other hand, the Independent MLA from Ateli in Mahendragarh, Ram Naresh Yadav, who had refused to lend support to the Congress unlike other Independent MLAs in the state, now thinks there is no better politician in the state than Hooda. This change in tunes could be attributed to the sudden vacancies in the Congress after the departure of the entire Bhajan Lal family. Similarly, the BJP leaders who swore they would never have alliance with the INLD are now holding joint rallies.

Old releases
Ever since the Central Vigilance Commission, taking a stern notice of the ongoing ‘controversial’ mega projects in the city, ordered a probe, bringing most of the former and present senior bureaucrats of the city under suspicion, the Chandigarh Administration has launched a ‘face-saving’ exercise. Every alternate day, a ‘controversial’ project is picked up and months-old press-releases are issued by the Public Relations Department, on the instructions of the senior officials, with nothing new in such releases.