--- What a riot:-)! cm
Of resignation and witchcraft in HRD ministry POLITICAL DIARY/NILANJANA BHADURI JHA TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2003 01:18:15 PM ] A few visitations need to be scheduled to the Ministry of Human Resource Development where some kind of an unfavourable planetary alignment seems to have cast a pall. An astrologer to diagnose and then a witch doctor to treat. And, perhaps, a friendly spirit to bless the proceedings. There is much turmoil in the ministry. The senior minister finds himself adrift, somewhere between Devil and deep blue sea, as his status in his Parivar vacillates from "should stay" to "don't care" depending on who is talking and at what time of the day. And his junior is still reeling from all the brouhaha over an innocuous little party in Lalooland where he wore a few snakes, walked on fire and feted 51 witchdoctors, faith healers, occultists and the like. Both Murli Manohar Joshi and Sanjay Paswan have had a beleaguering week and it is yet to end. Joshi went through all the calisthenics of a minister resigning in the hope of immediate rehabilitation with a halo thrown in for all his efforts. The number three in the BJP hierarchy probably didn't realise that being fawned over when in a sulk is reserved only for the top slot. A Vajpayee can get away with it, and Joshi is not Vajpayee. So last heard, he went down south to be blessed by Amma - the spiritual leader not the chief minister - and possibly come back to the good news that the prime minister will have none of this resignation stuff, so get back to work. That is the staple resignation drama in the NDA government anyway - no mystery there. All the mystique, in fact, has been left to the deputy, Sanjay Paswan - also with a Dr prefixed - who jumped out of relative anonymity one fine day onto prime time television with a cobra or two wrapped fondly round his neck, and declared that including exorcism and tantra in school curriculum would be a good idea. Joshi has been a vociferous advocate of including astrology as a scientific subject of study and has a significant following in that school of thought. Paswan's passion might find even more takers among the Harry Potter generation. If JK Rowling, in a burst of creative brilliance, conjured up the Hogwarts School of Wizards and Witchcraft, Paswan is actually empowered to build such an institution. What a fillip to the broom industry that would be. Apart from seeing thousands of pre-teens clamouring to graduate in witchcraft like Potter is now doing. Did anyone accuse Paswan of not being with the times? For now, however, the word resignation haunts the HRD ministry. While Joshi's is of his own making, Paswan's is being sought, for now, by the Laloo brigade. But he is unlikely to have heard the last of it. It will only need a dry spell in politics for some smart mind in the Opposition to dredge it up and beat the BJP with.� Ministries are unlikely to have a collective ministerial horoscope but testing the aura for undesirables might reveal a truant star or two playing havoc in the corridors. Maybe, the juxtaposition of two BJP men, both associated with physics is not quite right in the present stellar arrangement. Or perhaps renaming the ministry could be considered. With a sign outside: Bhoots not allowed. _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
