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August 9, 1999
 Cover Story
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Reading Their Mood
Delhi: An Air-India London-Delhi
flight last week had no dearth of VVIPs, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Soli J. Sorabjee and Margaret
Alva, among others. While most spent the long journey discussing the impending elections,
the former prime minister tried to catch up with some reading. Upon arrival, passengers as
usual made a beeline for the exit, only to be requested to remain seated -- "for
security reasons" -- until Rao had disembarked. As they returned to their seats
cursing under their breaths, Rao instructed his security staff to allow the passengers to
get off first. "Let them leave. I can read a few more pages," said Rao, winning
back his co-passengers' appreciation. VIP Moneybag
Hyderabad: Nara Bhuvaneshwari may be
the wife of Andhra Pradesh's hi-tech Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, but evidently
she does not believe in carrying plastic money. Returning to Hyderabad after a visit to
Chennai last week, she found that her handbag was "missing". While staff at
Naidu's residence began a frantic search of the car that brought her home, others rushed
to the airport to check the plane. At the airport, meanwhile, security staff who had
picked up an unclaimed handbag from an aircraft checked it to find, among other things, a
wad of 80 crisp 500-rupee notes. Since the claimant was a VVIP, proof was neither asked
nor given.
Distant Unity
Lucknow: The party was meant to send
the unmistakable signals that the BJP in Uttar Pradesh was closing ranks. Ultimately, it
ended up doing just the opposite. At the fete that state Housing Minister Lalji Tandon
organised recently, Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and the party's state President Rajnath
Singh shared a sofa in the front row but sat on either ends, not even caring to
acknowledge each other. So much for unity.
Coming Unstuck
Calcutta: The lifts at Calcutta's seat of
power, Writers Building, have seen the ups and downs in the lives of many of West Bengal's
leading politicians. They've been around much longer than Jyoti Basu has at the building,
which is saying a lot. But nine minutes last week has changed all that: Basu was stuck in
the VIP elevator for that period of time, and he was very angry. The state's PWD minister
is now proposing a Rs 60 lakh replacement plan for the elevators at Writers Building.
Apparently, running repairs over the years had meant that a lot of the elevators' original
parts were replaced with poor substitutes. These came unstuck, and Basu got stuck. |
