More on our `high-flying' Deputy Chief Minister: Gopinath Munde sure knows how to mix business with pleasure, even making headlines in the process. And not just when he's holding up planes.

He was invited recently to attend the marriage ceremonies of a relative and a partyman's son in Nashik. In a spurt of sincerity evidently intended to impress the hoi-polloi, the deputy CM brushed the customary airdash aside and instead, took the train.

The `gesture' didn't go unnoticed. Munde himself made sure of that, when he encountered some mediapersons at the venue.

Good deed over, he grabbed a government plane on the way back to Mumbai. So much for being a man of the masses.

While at Nashik, Munde decided to pay a surprise visit to the Nashik Road police station and the Central prison. He summoned Director General of Police Arvind Inamdar from Mumbai and Inspector General (Prisons) T Shrungarwal from Pune. Inamdar flew in on the government plane from Mumbai to Nashik (the sameplane which took Munde back to Mumbai).

The trio then visited the police station and the prison. Munde had already instructed the concerned officials to organise a press conference with a view to ensure publicity. After all, he was on an official business tour.

He returned to Mumbai after ordering an inquiry into the illegal renovations they discovered at Nashik Jail.

However, basking in the media glare, the deputy CM missed out on a crucial detail. He forgot to issue an official written order to the jail superintendent directing the dismantling of illegal additions and changes made in the jail complex. Last heard, jail superintendent Ram Jadhav was still awaiting official orders to remove the expensive tiles in 11 isolated cells...

Agro-Politics

It was not officially announced as the Congress Party's answer to the Manohar Joshi government's Agro Advantage expo held in Mumbai recently. However, Krishi 2000 held in Nashik last week managed to acquire its quota of political colour.

Theconvenor of the expo, Sanjay Nyaharkar, a Congressman who is in the business of advertising, chose to invite party leaders, instead of agricultural experts, for the inauguration and the concluding ceremonies. For the inaugural function, he invited Chhagan Bhujbal. But Bhujbal played truant and former Congressman, now Minister of State in the Joshi cabinet, Tukaram Dighole, had to be roped in to cut the ribbon.

For the concluding function, the convenor invited former Congress minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who took the opportunity to talk, what else, politics.

He not only shredded the Shiv Sena-BJP government to bits but also predicted its downfall in the next Assembly polls.

He also provided a whole new perspective on agro expos. While there was gardi (crowds) at Agro Advantage, Deshmukh admitted, there were dardis (genuinely interested audiences) at Krishi 2000. Exultant roars, applause, and Deshmukh took a bow.

According to the convenor, the exposition was a ``grand success'' with aboutsix lakh people visitors. Some of the exhibitors (most of them pesticides manufacturers) might have later made a beeline for the bank, but after the talk of ``providing modern technology to the farmers,'' nobody thought it fit to list at least one major modern appliance provided by the exposition. And how was it different from a commercial trade fair with the entry fee being Rs 10 per head?

Lost In Singapore

Nashik Mayor Ashok Dive recently went on a tour to Singapore. Before he left, the civic administration contacted its counterpart in the island city to arrange for a ceremonial reception on his arrival at Changi Airport. But horror of horrors, the Nashik Municipal Corporation was thrown in a tizzy when it got a phone call from Singaporean authorities saying the Nashik Mayor was nowhere to be seen. They left their number with the NMC, as well as the place where they were waiting to receive him, in case Dive called NMC.

Dive did, within minutes. There was nobody at the airport to receive him, hesaid, bewildered.

The NMC officials told him about the call from Singapore and gave him the necessary directions. And Dive finally got his ceremonial welcome.