The cold war between the Big B and King Khan is hotting up. Amitabh Bachchan was piqued that Shah Rukh Khan had reprised his Don role in a new movie of that name. But what really put the fat into the fire is Shah Rukh stepping into Bachchan’s shoes for the Kaun Banega Crorepati show.

Bachchan withdrew from the show he made famous when he suddenly fell ill last year. After he recovered, Star TV re-negotiated with him for another 150 episodes in a fresh contract. The snag was that the channel insisted Bachchan first complete the pending 26 episodes, for which it had paid in advance. When negotiations broke down, an annoyed Bachchan dispatched a cheque as refund for the unfinished episodes.

Star then turned to SRK, who after initial reluctance, agreed to step in, particularly when the price per episode has more than doubled. At this point Bachchan reportedly had second thoughts. But by then it was too late. Star had finalized the deal with SRK in Australia.

Mind your language

Such strong language was used in heated exchanges in Hindi between chairperson of the Congress media committee Janardhan Dwivedi and party spokesperson Satyavrath Chaturvedi at the AICC that some fainthearted members of the media cell fled the room in embarrassment.

Dwivedi who tends to speak like a headmaster was remonstrating with Chaturvedi, who took offence. Chaturvedi pointed out that Dwivedi might be chairperson of the committee but he was a senior Congress member and former general secretary. He had agreed to the job only because of his deep respect for Soniaji.

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