The list of government positions for which an exception has been made has steadily grown over the years. It includes membership of the minorities and scheduled caste commissions as well as the National Commission on Women. Members of the Waqf Board, the Press Council of India, the coffee, tea and spices boards as well as the NCC and the Territorial Army are also exempt. So too are sheriffs of major cities and MPs appointed member of a mission sent out of India or appointed to a temporary committee.

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The move to disqualify Bachchan for being a member of the UP Film Development Council (UPFDC) seems in the above context to be petty and vindictive. A chivalrous and friendly Parliament which has made so many exceptions in the past can let Jaya off the hook, particularly as the UP Assembly had already deemed membership of the UPFDC not an office of profit.

Turned down earlier

Justice U C Banerjee, who was handpicked by Lalu Prasad Yadav to re-examine the Godhra coach fire even though an inquiry was already on by the Nanavati Commission, was earlier turned down for appointment as chairman of the Advanced Ruling Authority on Customs and Excise. Justice G B Pattanaik, as Chief Justice of India, had forwarded Banerjee’s name for the post, but the Finance Ministry had raised objections. Consequently, Banerjee’s name was withdrawn by Pattanaik’s successor Chief Justice V N Khare.

Kept in the dark

A senior official of the Election Commission informed an election commissioner that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hoped to be in Kerala and Tamil Nadu between March 4 and 6 and hinted that the election schedule should be announced only after the PM’s visit. The commissioner did not commit himself. On March 2, the Commission announced the schedule for elections to the five states where assembly elections are to be held, putting paid to Manmohan Singh’s visit, where the PM was expected to announce some populist schemes. Similarly Transport Minister T R Baalu had to shelve his plan to lay the foundation stones for some new roads in Tamil Nadu.

The Election Commission maintained such secrecy about the assembly poll schedule that until the dates were announced at a press conference, even its own officials were in the dark.

Constant gardener has left

The splendour of the garden at 28 Akbar Road, occupied by Bihar leader Satyendra Narain Sinha and his family for some 30 years, was legendary. The garden invariably won awards at all Delhi’s flower shows. The bungalow was first allotted to Sinha when he was an MP and later to his wife. After that it was transferred to Delhi Police and allotted to Sinha’s son Nikhil Kumar as police commissioner. Then the house returned to the MPs’ quota and was in the name of Nikhil’s wife Shyama Sinha, who by then had been elected to Parliament from the family pocketborough of Aurangabad in Bihar.

Unfortunately, the showpiece garden aroused quite a bit of envy. Several MPs staked a claim for the bungalow the moment Parliament was dissolved in 2004 on the ground that Shyama Sinha was not entitled to retain the house since she was not standing for re-election. Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha Charanjit Singh Atwal pulled rank and claimed the house. But when he examined the house from inside, his enthusiasm waned. The actual bungalow had been partitioned into two. The house is now with K Rahman Khan, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The garden has wilted away and the lawn is unkempt.

Gardens after all require a lot of work. It is not clear why the government was in such an unseemly haste to get the house vacated as Nikhil Kumar was elected to the Lok Sabha from the same constituency as his wife that year on a Congress ticket, and some leeway is normally given in such circumstances. As a result, Delhi has lost one of its landmark gardens.

Deputing work to deputies

Unlike most jobless ministers of state, the two junior ministers in defence are grateful to their senior Pranab Mukherjee for giving them work. Two days after the January 29 ministerial expansion, Mukherjee passed an order delegating responsibilities to both his two new ministers of state. Rao Inderjit Singh has been given charge of Defence Production as well as various service matters. M M Pallamraju is responsible for the welfare and resettlement of ex-servicemen, the Himalayan mountaineering institutes and the defence appeal committees for pensions. He is also on the board of governors of all Sainik and senior Kendriya Vidyalaya schools.

Eloquent silence

All major political parties took very public positions on President George Bush’s visit to India and the nuclear deal. Even former prime minister V P Singh put out a statement urging India to abstain from the vote on the IAEA. The only exception was the BSP, which made no comment on either the American President’s visit or the nuclear deal. The BSP’s silence is significant. The party claims it was preoccupied with recent developments in UP, but perhaps it does not want to alienate either minority voters or the upper caste Hindu voters by adding to the cacophony on the issue.