Pre-Truth – snappy, witty and significant snippets from the world of politics and government.
Work eats into Paswan’s southeast Asia getaway
Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Ram Vilas Paswan was vacationing with his family in Singapore when an urgent call from Delhi summoned him back home.
Paswan had left for a 10-day trip to the southeast Asian country on 8 June. However, days into his vacation, he received a call from union social justice and empowerment minister Thaawarchand Gehlot about an “important meeting” on reservation in promotions, which the Supreme Court recently allowed.
As a result, Paswan returned to Delhi in the wee hours of Wednesday, and is now planning to join his family in Singapore again on 14 June.
Akhilesh Yadav doesn’t share his mattress
After vacating his official bungalow in Lucknow, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is now staying at the state government’s VIP guesthouse.
However, Yadav isn’t using the mattresses provided by the guesthouse and has brought his own. The Samajwadi Party president reportedly doesn’t like to sleep on a mattress that has been used by others, and has been heard saying that he just couldn’t use one BJP leaders had slept on.
Congress poll aspirants have eyes on Rahul’s iftar party today
It is not easy to get an audience with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, especially if you are a ticket aspirant.
However, some party members keen to contest the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh assembly election this year-end are eyeing a chance in the iftar party Rahul is hosting Wednesday.
Senior leaders invited to the iftar hope the feast will offer them a chance to chat with Rahul to push their case and get a leg-up on their rivals.
There’s a scramble for tickets in the Congress units of both states, especially Rajasthan, where the party senses a good chance to win. Given the multiple power centres in these states, leaders feel it will be best if they are able to speak to the Congress president directly once, and the iftar party presents an opportunity to do just that.
India’s prized missions up for grabs this year
This is perhaps a unique year for the Indian Foreign Service, with several key ambassadorial positions in some of India’s largest missions set to fall vacant in 2018.
India’s envoy to Russia, Pankaj Saran, was appointed the deputy national security adviser in May, leaving the slot in Moscow empty, while the extension granted to India’s ambassador to the US, Navtej Sarna, ends towards the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the Indian envoys to the UK, Japan and China — Y.K. Sinha, Sujan Chenoy and Gautam Bambawale, respectively — are all set to retire over the next few months.
With such vital ambassadorships up for grabs together, it will be interesting to see who the BJP government favours in its last year in office before the 2019 polls.
When Manpreet Badal offered newspaper a lesson in journalism
Miffed by a factual error in a story about him, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal sought to offer The Tribune a lesson in journalism this week.
The regional daily recently carried an article addressed to Badal that asked him to give up his agriculture power subsidy. The minister wrote back to the paper, informing the editor that he had given up the subsidy on 3 May 2018. The soft-spoken estranged cousin of SAD president Sukhbir Badal ended his message with a polite “thank you”, but added a postscript: “The reporter’s and columnist’s work ethic demands that you get the other side’s version before publishing. A subeditor’s code demands that they do not create a banner headline out of a mischievous barb. An editor’s duty demands that such blunders are not published. A special request to The Tribune, please do not subsidise your 137-year old legacy.”
The men who always knew China would tide over Tiananmen
The attention that Indian and Chinese leaders are giving each other these days in Wuhan and Qingdao and Delhi almost blocked out the 4 June anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Nearly 30 years later, China is a much stronger country. But it is a measure of India’s understanding of China that, at the time, key officers in the Indian embassy at Beijing had predicted that the people’s outpouring against the Chinese state would soon blow over. Shiv Shankar Menon went on to become India’s foreign secretary and national security adviser, Vijay Gokhale is the incumbent foreign secretary, and Gautam Bambawale, India’s ambassdor to China.
Niti Aayog meet latest battleground for miffed BJP ally
Since the Telugu Desam Party quit the National Democratic Alliance, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu has been leaving no stone unturned to hit out at former ally BJP and PM Modi.
The Niti Aayog’s fourth annual general council meeting from 14-18 June is the latest battleground. Although the schedule for the meeting, to be chaired by PM Modi, was finalised a while ago, the TDP has now, in a letter to the thinktank’s vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, sought its postponement.
The reason: Since Eid falls on 16 June, Naidu will be required at the state headquarters to attend functions during the festive season. Just a few weeks ago, Naidu, once a supporter of Modi’s policies, had said at the TDP’s annual conclave that the PM’s governance model was a threat to minorities in India.
Tirupati ‘politics’ on Supreme Court threshold
After Ujjain Mahakaleswar, Puri Jagannath and Kerala’s Padmanabhaswamy temple, the matters of another temple’s management is set to land up in the Supreme Court — Tirupati. But this one has political stakes too.
The Andhra Pradesh government is planning to file a caveat in the SC on behalf of the temple’s newly-appointed head priest, Sri Venugopal Dikshitulu, who replaced 70-year-old Ramana Deekshithulu, said to be backed by the BJP and the YSR Congress.
Ramana’s tenure ended after the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the temple management, introduced 65 years as the retirement age for head priests. A week later, Ramana repeated his allegation that a stolen pink diamond, which had adorned an idol of Lord Venkateshwara, had landed in the vault of Sotheby’s, the multinational auctioneer. In the wake of the allegations, the TDP had hit out at opposition parties for “politicising temple affairs”.
(By Kumar Anshuman, Apurva Vishwanath, Ritika Jain, Jyoti Malhotra, Pragya Kaushika, Ruhi Tewari, Chitleen K. Sethi)