The Third Eye

Rampur���s prize
Recent days have seen quite some activity in Rampur. It���s quite on a knife���s edge, apparently, with the Azam Khan-Amar Singh-Jayaprada-Noor Bano quartet hard at work. Now, since the first gentleman seems about to face disciplinary action, the race is on within the SP���s Muslim leaders to grab the party���s top ���Muslim spot���.

In fact, Abu Asim Azmi, the SP candidate from Mumbai-North, now camping in Rampur to counter the Azam Khan ���rebellion��� is quite the hopeful man. Some consolation for Azam, however, might be that his pet project of setting up the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University is likely to get off the ground, what with almost every leader, in an effort to rope in Azam supporters, speaking in favour of the project! That���s political irony for you.

The K factor
The sudden ejection of Veerappa Moily as the AICC media cell chairman for his characteristically undiplomatic comments on leaders like Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and Ramvilas Paswan happened to be the second ���Karnataka causality��� at 24 Akbar Road. Earlier, Moily���s in-house rival and fellow Kannadiga, Margaret Alva lost her job as AICC general secretary when she also did an election eve foot-in-mouth act before TV cameras by alleging that party tickets had been sold off.

These two self-goals, ironically, also helped the leadership to enact a ���corrective��� act at the party headquarters where resentment was brewing over the over-representation of the Karnataka brigade despite the Congress being on a steady decline in the state.

Elusive mafia
More from Rampur. Third Eye learns there was quite a hullabaloo in the town after the aforementioned Abu Azmi made his entrance. Local rumour had it that the man had brought along some mafia chaps along with their accessories to take the battle to the Azam Khan camp. The police, naturally, went hyper and started barging into every single hotel room to look for those men and their weaponry. Apparently, quite a few journalists, including some from the capital, were abruptly woken up and then had to explain their presence. Reports have it that no one quite shared the excitement of the police.

Drunk on money
That slogans about hunting down overseas black money can lead to tricky situations is something a senior INLD leader had to find out the hard way. Addressing an election rally in Bhivani, the politician told his rural audience that if voted to power, the NDA would chase people in the Congress who reportedly have kept their money in Swiss bank accounts.

Promptly, a villager in the audience asked: ���We���ve heard even you have your stuff in the Swiss bank?���, referring to the Congress charge about the leader���s family parking their money outside the country. Taken aback, the INLD man wriggled out of the corner with a counter-accusation: ���Now I know you have started drinking even during the day.��� Touch��.

Tailpiece
Even as the NDA leadership celebrates the new entrant to its alliance, the Telengana Rajya Samiti, a political observer wonders why the alliance is keeping silent on the induction of a much higher profile political worthy into its pantheon.

The BJP���s new poster boy Varun Gandhi has invoked his father, the late Sanjay Gandhi, during his poll campaign and also reportedly harped on the need to promote family planning. Surely, Sanjay Gandhi dead is far more important a figure in India���s political history than TRS���s Chandrasekhara Rao alive.