Using Ghalib’s line as the title for its editorial on HRD minister Arjun Singh — it draws on something the poet is said to have remarked about his rival, Zauq — Kolkata and Delhi-based Akhbar-e-Mashriq (April 17) says: “bana hai sheh ka musaheb, phire hai itraata” (being the king’s sycophant, he is showing off). Singh has recently talked of Rahul Gandhi as prime minister. Says the paper, “in these hard days of back-breaking price rise, the Congress needed some sincere healers and relievers of the pain. It did not need flatterers and sycophants bent on rocking its boat instead of salvaging it... Wisdom and experience say that the naakhuda (rower) is not changed in a whirlpool. If any decision on these lines is taken, it would directly be a vote of no-confidence against the personality and working of the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.”

Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Dehradun-based Sahafat has described (April 18) Arjun Singh’s chant about Rahul as ‘Raag Darbari’. It recollects how Singh could not stomach P.V. Narasimha Rao’s elevation to the PM’s job and launched a new party, Congress (Tiwari), along with some others, while maintaining his loyalty to Sonia Gandhi even then.

Delhi-based Jadeed Khabar (April 17) recalls former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi’s earlier signature campaign for Rahul as PM. The Congress High Command had expressed its anger at that campaign. This time the disapproval of the campaign is not that intense, the paper has noted.

Delhi’s daily Milaap (April 20) writes, “if new names are brought up to prove that Manmohan Singh is not worthy of the post, it would be shameful for the Congress party. The whole country knows that no decision of the government is possible without Sonia Gandhi’s approval. Then how can Manmohan Singh be deemed to be separate from the Gandhis?”

... contd.