How to desert a sinking ship

Few in the BJP were surprised when Advani accolyte Sudheendra Kulkarni jumped ship and scurried over to join Mamata Banerjee's team in the union railways ministry. As one of the main interlocutors between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress leader during the heydays of the Vajpayee government, Kulkarni used to visit Mamata regularly.

Sometimes they shared a Bengali meal. At other times, they bonded over musical sessions in which she played on her Casio synthesiser and sang Rabindra Sangeet. Seeing the BJP's dismal state after the Lok Sabha defeat, Kulkarni didn't lose much time in rekindling the old friendship. A quick phone call to shower praises on her railway budget and bingo! Mamata offered him a job as advisor in her ministry on the condition he quit the BJP.

Kulkarni obviously hasn't lost his touch, of being on the winning side every time. Once a card holding member of the CPI(M), he  switched to the BJP just as it began to peak. He was an Advani man but landed in Vajpayee's PMO as his speechwriter when the NDA came to power, only to cross back when the BJP lost the 2004 elections. The second stint with Advani saw Kulkarni script most of the controversies buffeting the BJP stalwart, including his disastrous trip to Pakistan where the Jinnah storm first broke and his autobiography which lit the Kandahar fire. Mamata is either one brave lady or a foolhardy one to touch a hot potato with a checkered past.
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The blast from BJP Rajya Sabha member Arun Shourie really shook the BJP. The most panic-striken was party president Rajnath Singh who, fearing one of those vitriolic attacks for which Shourie is famous, moved heaven and earth to stop him from going ahead with the ``Alice in Blunderland'' television interview that's been dominating the headlines for the past many days. Rajnath telephoned Shourie as many as seven times to try and talk him out of the programme. When that didn't work, he tried to raise Yashwant Sinha to persuade Shourie. Obviously Rajnath has lost all authority because Shourie ignored his pleas completely. The BJP president is so rattled by Shourie's show of open defiance that he can't bring himself to crack the whip. It'll look like personal vendetta, he is believed to have said morosely.
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With the BJP hogging the headlines, for all the wrong reasons of course, the media does a daily stake out at Advani's residence. And it behaves like the paparazzi that's on celebrity-watch. The other day, the cameras went into a flap when Advani drove out of his house at noon after being nearly invisible following Jaswant Singh's expulsion. Desperate for a sound byte or at least a TV grab, they gave him the Princess Diana treatment and chased his car. To their dismay, the chase ended at All India Institute of Medical Sciences where Advani went to visit an ailing relative. The sight of the paparazzi waiting patiently for him to emerge brought a smile to Advani's lips as he came out. A touch of black humour perhaps?
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Tailpiece
Because of her proximity to Rahul Gandhi, Congress secretary in charge of the party's student wing (NSUI) Meenakshi Natrajan is supposed to be something of a VIP. Imagine her surprise, and that of the audience, when speakers at a Delhi NSUI function last week kept referring to her as Jayanthi Natrajan, who is a Congress spokesperson. Curiously, all the speakers made the same mistake, including chief minister Sheila Dikshit, even after being corrected several times by the moderator. Tch, tch! Such ignorance about future powerhouses is unforgiveable.