Niranjani Akhara sacks seer for performing 'yagna' for Digvijaya Singh

Favour all, not one

A Hindu seer in Bhopal who was part of the Niranjani Akhara was sacked over the weekend for performing a "yagna" for Congress candidate Digvijaya Singh in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Mahamandaleshwar Swami Vairagyanand had conducted the ritual for a week, offering 5 kg of red chilli, praying for Digvijaya Singh to defeat Bharatiya Janata Party's Bhopal candidate Pragya Thakur. "It is not the duty of a sage to favour one person and pray for the defeat of another. Sadhus should work for the growth and prosperity of the entire nation," was the official reason cited. Let's wait and see if the seer undertakes a samadhi as he had promised to do if Digvijaya Singh lost in the polls.

Jagan’s gift for Team IPAC

After his emphatic win in the Andhra Pradesh assembly polls as well as the Lok Sabha elections, YSR Congress' YS Jaganmohan Reddy is all praise for Prashant Kishor and his Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) team. It is learnt that IPAC members who had worked on Reddy's campaign would be gifted one month's salary each by the man himself. IPAC could also bag some of the more lucrative consultancy projects under the new government. While it is unclear what role the IPAC would play under the new dispensation, Reddy has evinced a desire that the team continue to "support" him in running his government.

Quick response team

Every Twitter message to the Prime Minister’s office that tags Narendra Modi is getting a reply. Since Thursday night, a media cell with the PM has functioned 24X7 to ensure each of those million messages are mapped, replies framed and approved before they are despatched. The cell has set up an internal time check of seven minutes to respond to each of the congratulatory messages and that includes the time taken to translate those into the languages concerned in case a message is not in Hindi. Team members are on rotation to keep the conversation going.