Decks, not desk, cleared

Incidentally, Janardhan Dwivedi was given such short notice to vacate his office in the Congress headquarters to make way for Gandhi that his charts and other material were still in the room when Gandhi arrived.

Yuvraj’s vizier

If Rahul Gandhi has emerged the yuvraj of the Congress, then Jairam Ramesh sees himself as his vizier. For Ramesh, the hours he has spent in Parliament listening to debates and chatting with Gandhi, who sits in the row immediately behind him in the Lok Sabha, have paid off. Gandhi, who worked for the Monitor Consultancy Group, is impressed by people who mouth management jargon and have a World Bank approach to development. As convener of the newly set up group that looks into future challenges, Ramesh will be in charge of what could turn out to be the Congress’s key think tank, which will set the agenda for both the party and government. Some even describe it as the cabinet of the next government.

Last ditch stall

BJP President Rajnath Singh is fighting a rearguard battle to stall L.K. Advani’s total takeover of the party. With key office-bearers of the RSS making it clear that they are not taking sides in the BJP’s succession struggle, almost all those who matter in the party have switched to the Advani camp. The only two still with Rajnath are Suresh Soni and Bal Apte. Vajpayee’s letter to the national executive indicating that he should not be ruled out of the reckoning came as a bolt from the blue for the Advani camp, since Vajpayee had offered verbal assurance that he was not in the running for the prime minister’s post...