Most parliamentarians felt that the figure of Rs 25 crore quoted by the CPI general secretary, A B Bardhan, as the price for inducing an MP to defy the party whip in the trust vote was a gross exaggeration. After all, Amar Singh, according to the BJP, was willing to pay only three crores for opposition MPs to abstain.

Bardhan did not pick up the figure out of his hat. He got his information from Prakash Karat, who, in turn, was briefed by Mayawati. At least this was what Bardhan revealed to a group of journalists. The CPI leader was piqued when CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury distanced his party from Bardhan’s claim. Yechury took the high moral ground and said that the CPI(M)’s differences with the Congress were on ideological grounds and it did not want to be a party to attempts to malign the Government or the PM. Bardhan snapped that Yechury appeared ignorant of the ground realities. At a rally he had been asked by Karat to mention the 25 crore figure in his speech. The CPI(M) general secretary had got his information when he called on Mayawati.

SMS Baru

The departure of the PM’s media adviser Sanjay Baru this week will leave a vacuum in the PM’s media relations. Baru, a former journalist, who is taking up an academic assignment in Singapore, perfected the art of the informal SMS to convey what he wanted without making it official. On the day the Left withdrew support to the Government, he sent out an SMS to friendly journalists — “Liberation day”. To make clear that his boss was no pushover, he once sent a message, “The tiger has gone to Parliament in a defiant mood”. He described an opposition leader’s speech in parliament as “pathetic”. After the parliament victory on the trust vote he dispatched the message, “Singh is King”.

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