Pre-Truth — snappy, witty and significant snippets from the world of politics and government.
MP tourism minister now a loan defaulter
Bank of Baroda has issued a showcause notice to Madhya Pradesh tourism and culture minister Surendra Patwa and many of his family members, declaring them wilful defaulters for loans said to run into several crores.
After it got no response from the minister and his family, the bank issued advertisements to this effect in newspapers. According to media reports, the family took the loan to set up a showroom but failed to pay the instalments.
The incident comes as the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government prepares for an important assembly election where he will seek a fourth consecutive term.
After Rahul Gandhi, time for Robert Vadra’s holy turn
Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s temple run – his most recent visit was to Jaipur’s Govind Dev Ji temple on 11 August — seems to have inspired brother-in-law Robert Vadra too.
On the occasion of Shivratri last week, the businessman visited a temple and performed ‘jal abhishek’ in Delhi, and now he is all set to pay obeisance at the Tirupati temple Thursday.
While Congress members were quick to defend Gandhi against rivals’ allegations that the visits were a ploy for votes, they are said to be extremely curious about Vadra’s temple trips.
Guess who got PM’s comment on Hari Prasad expunged?
After the recent election for the post of Rajya Sabha deputy chairman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech, made a caustic comment about Congress leader and opposition candidate B.K. Hari Prasad.
Even though he was not in Parliament at the time, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took the initiative to rally opposition leaders to protest against the comment.
He called RJD member Manoj Jha and urged him to approach Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu to get the PM’s comment expunged.
Although there was nothing unparliamentary about the word used by the Prime Minister, Naidu expunged it nevertheless to mitigate the scope for subsequent misinterpretation.
Also read: BJP may push own candidate once Harivansh’s RS term is over
All the Vice-President’s men
At 69, Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu is a fit man, a fact he attributes to his daily morning game of badminton.
He usually plays with parliamentarians, but they often get late, which is why Naidu has another set of players on standby — staff from his residence, including his cook and the driver.
No prizes for guessing the winning side.
A throwback photo this BJP MLA did not want to see
As public representatives, MLAs meet a whole lot of people, accept their memoranda of demands, and often pose with them for photos that sometimes find their way to social media.
One such photo-op from a couple of years ago has come back to haunt Manisha Chaudhari, the BJP MLA for Maharashtra’s Dahisar.
The photo features Chaudhari with Vaibhav Raut, a self-styled cow vigilante who was one of three people arrested by the Maharashtra ATS last week with a huge cache of weapons. The three, found to be associated with Hindutva outfits, are suspected to have been planning terror attacks.
The opposition has since been circulating the photo on social media to question the links between BJP legislators and the accused.
The MLA claims the photograph was taken when a group of people met her to request that the government reject calls to ban Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindutva outfit whose members, former and current, have come under the scanner for the murders of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi, and journalist Gauri Lankesh.
When Chaudhari informed chief minister Devendra Fadnavis about the controversy, she was advised to not let the campaign rattle her.
(Contributors: DK Singh, Kumar Anshuman, and Manasi Phadke)
Also read: How Rahul Gandhi & Kejriwal avoid each other; and the ‘three CMs’ of Karnataka