NEIGHBOURS' ENVY: Jogi (right) outdid himself in rebuilding a village in Modi's (left) Gujarat

Chief minister Narendra Modi is bending backward to whip up an election fever in Gujarat. And so is his Chhattisgarh counterpart Ajit Jogi. Not in his own state but in Modi land. Jogi has beaten the redoubtable state Congress chief Shankersinh Vaghela to kick-starting the party campaign in Gujarat. While every other Congress leader was in Delhi for the Kotla rally, Jogi was busy preparing for party president Sonia Gandhi's Gujarat visit. His Government has invested Rs 4 crore in rebuilding a quake-hit village near Rajkot and Jogi spared no efforts to showcase his administrative skills. He succeeded. Sonia reportedly told party leaders to "follow Ajit's example". If only the success was in Chhattisgarh!

Majority Lapse

In the labyrinthine North Block the left hand often messes up what the right hand plans to do. For the benefit of hordes of foreign journalists expected to cover the elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the I&B Ministry prepared election kits detailing past elections in the state, besides providing a broad overview of the Indian political system. When the kits came out in print, it was discovered that the background paper had major bloomers, among them what constitutes a simple majority and an absolute majority. And one thought that the North Block mandarins knew their politics.

HIGH & DRY: The imperious staffers at 10 Janpath apparently led French External Affairs Minister Dominique de Villepin into giving the leader of the Opposition a miss during his visit early this month. The French Embassy had left a number of messages seeking an appointment with the Madam but the messages didn't reach her. Her staff, made up of government babus, seemingly thought it not worth bothering her about. Clearly, the Embassy did not have the right contacts in Sonia Gandhi's charmed circle. Ivory tower existence has its own drawbacks.

FUNDS FUNDA: For Orissa's Biju Janata Dal, the MP's Local Area Development funds and party funds are one and the same thing. Among the anti-party activities listed against three suspended BJD MPs by party spokesman Damodar Rout was "spending MPlad funds on non-BJD people". A no-brainer this.

CONFESSIONAL

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, on the assembly elections

Q. How is the 2002 election different from the one in 1996?
A. In 1996, people were not even coming forward. Today, I have at least five or six aspirants for each seat. There is an upsurge. Not that this (militant violence) has come to an end. But we have to carry on.

Q. What makes this election so significant?
A. Because Pakistan has threatened us against holding elections. We will show our neighbours that the elections will be held.

Q. But militants are killing your workers...
A. They may do anything. We are not scared. We will get on with this (elections). Insha Allah, we are all raring to go. We have made enough sacrifices and are ready for more.

Q. Autonomy was the plank in the last elections. What now?
A. Autonomy was not our only plank. We had gone into the election for reconstruction of the state and giving a better life to the people. On autonomy, we are holding discussions with the Centre.

Q. The Centre is considering only the devolution of powers.
A. What's autonomy? Is that not devolution of powers? For us, this is one and the same thing. Autonomy is what we had before 1964.

Q. Your opponents allege that you spend more time on golf than on governance.
A. My opponents never have any thing better to say about me. They first married me to film heroines. When they could not sully my character, they started saying all these humbug. They don't know me. Farooq Abdullah is like a raincoat-rain (charges) falls on it and runs off and doesn't stick to it.

-Ramesh Vinayak

TREMORS Reforms in India
	Judicial Reforms: Radical steps initiated by Arun Jaitley have given hope to the courts struggling with the backlog.
	Labour Reforms: The law allowing lay-off of workers has helped but populism and the unions still call the shots.
	Political Reforms: The poll reforms hit a deadend with the political parties scuttling the Supreme Court initiative.
	Social Reforms: The Sati incident in Madhya Pradesh and the clout of caste politics bodes ill for progress.