Chatterbox: Indira-nising the Mahila Congress

Indira-nising the Mahila Congress

The first official engagement Rahul Gandhi attended after becoming party president was a Mahila Congress event. The organisation has recently been taken over by Sushmita Dev, former union minister Santosh Mohan Dev’s daughter. Her brief is to turn a group of ‘Ladies who Lunch’ into a laboratory for talented and charismatic women leaders who can find a place in the parent organisation. In line with her task, Dev’s first conference was on the theme: “Indira Gandhi: I Am Courage”. At the end of the programme, Rahul Gandhi was given a photograph of Indira Gandhi by famous photographer Raghu Rai as a return gift. Something tells us Dev will go far.

 
The political game of scams

Is Madhu Koda’s conviction in the coal mine allocation scam going to be the next big scam story the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would use to put the Congress in the dock? “With Koda’s conviction, the misdeeds of the Congress, and the UPA-I government, have been exposed,” said Piyush Goyal, senior BJP leader, railways, and coal minister. Apparently, a powerful Congress leader was instrumental in propping up Madhu Koda as the chief minister. “Subsequently, the government in Jharkhand was being run by Congress leaders in Delhi,” Goyal said. In Jharkhand, senior minister in the ruling BJP government, Saryu Rai said: “We have sympathy for Madhu Koda. He did not know what would be the result of what he was doing. Every government and politician should take a lesson from this episode so that they do not adopt the path of Madhu Koda. Others were behind the scandal.” Who were the others?