By IANS,
New Delhi : The inimitable Lalu Prasad was at his humorous best yet again Sunday when he said the Indian cricketers would get an opportunity to play in different countries if the IPL matches are held abroad.
He told reporters, in his famous Bihari Hindi: “My son also plays cricket and expects to play for the IPL. If he doesn’t get a chance to play, he will at least have the opportunity to serve water to the players.”
The journos went into peels of laughter while the rustic Bihar veteran, as usual, made his remarks with a dead-pan face.
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Tharoor faces questions, one too many
Shashi Tharoor has been appearing on TV talk shows taking questions ranging from what he wrote about Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a book to his plans for the Thiruvananthapuram constituency.
In one talk show, Tharoor, who has lived in the US for the most part of his life, was asked if he is a “US agent”.
“If I was one, would I have lost the (UN secretary general’s) election? It was the US which vetoed my candidature,” he shot back.
At another programme, a man came with the book Tharoor wrote in 1992 and read out the portion where he criticises Sonia Gandhi.
Tharoor replied: “This was a book I wrote in 1992, and I was just asking questions that were raised by many on how could a person like Sonia Gandhi take over the reins of the country after the death of (former prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi. The situation has changed and don’t forget that it is Sonia Gandhi who has nominated me to contest now.”
He went on: “Don’t you all remember the opposition to computers that the CPI-M had? Now they do not oppose it. We all have to change according to situations.”
To another poser about Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor said he would turn it into a “global city”.
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The importance of Dera Sacha Sauda
The controversial Dera Sacha Sauda sect is always in the news whenever there is an election in Punjab. Given the sect’s vast following in several areas of the state, particularly in south Punjab, political parties eye the sect with a lot of interest.
In recent years though, the sect and its controversial chief Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh have drifted towards the Congress. The ruling Akali Dal, whose leaders like Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and others would land up to keep the sect in good honour, has upset the sect chief by getting cases registered against him in the controversy over his attiring himself like the 10th Sikh guru, Gobind Singh.
In the present scenario, the sect would not support the Akalis at all even though the party would need its help.
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This party awaits candidates with moral values
When most political parties have started announcing their Lok Sabha candidates for the upcoming fray, this political outfit is waiting for contestants. It’s the Naitik Party, floated by a Lucknow-based lawyer.
“I am not getting any candidate who can live up to the name of Naitik (moral) Party,” says Chandra Bhushan Pandey, the lawyer who founded the party about a year back.
While Pandey claims to have involved nearly 1,000 lawyers in his party’s activities, he has found none eligible to contest the elections.
“I am not getting candidates with moral values who can actually represent my party in the true sense,” said Pandey.