Delhi Confidential: On Track, Some Missing

While all his Congress chief ministerial colleagues were present, Virbhadra was in Kerala, undergoing an Ayurveda rejuvenation therapy.

Once one of the most vocal Congress leaders calling for Rahul Gandhi to be made the party’s president, Digvijaya Singh was missing when Rahul Monday filed his nomination. Singh is in the middle of his Narmada parikrama, but those close to him said he had signed in advance as proposer in one of the nomination papers. Also missing was Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. While all his Congress chief ministerial colleagues were present, Virbhadra was in Kerala, undergoing an Ayurveda rejuvenation therapy. A K Antony, who had announced the Congress Working Committee’s unanimous plea to Rahul to take over last year, was also missing. Antony is recuperating at a Delhi hospital from a head injury sustained from a fall.

By The Book

Mullappally Ramachandran, chairman of the Congress central election authority, which overseas organisational elections in the party, is a stickler for rules. Ramachandran, a Lok Sabha MP, had stayed away from a Congress Working Committee meeting last month, which approved the schedule for the Congress president’s election. He handed over the proposal to Ahmed Patel, political secretary to the Congress president, and then waited for the CWC’s direction. Today, while disclosing that the election authority has received 89 sets of nomination papers, he did not reveal on whose behalf the papers were filed. While it was clear as daylight that all the nominations were for Rahul, Ramachandran said details of the nominations, including who all have filed and how many sets were filed by each state, would be disclosed only after scrutiny on Tuesday.

A Dig At Grave Tweet

Shashi Tharoor’s followers on Twitter got a momentary shock on Monday when a television channel inadvertently named him while putting out a tweet on the death of actor Shashi Kapoor. The tweet from Times Now handle was about filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar remembering Kapoor but named Tharoor instead. An amused Tharoor responded on Twitter, “We’re getting condolence calls in the office! Reports of my demise are, if not exaggerated, at least premature.” National Conference leader Omar Abdullah joined the fun, reminding Tharoor that “as much as some of these channels dislike me they’ve never killed me off. You have a unique distinction here Shashi”. The channel realised the mistake and apologised for the “typographical error” and wished Tharoor good health.