After Jyotiraditya Scindia, another Congress leader could soon join BJP

Ripe for the picking

There is a strong buzz in the power corridors that a Congress politician who is also a noted lawyer could quit the party and switch over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The lawyer-politician is considered close to Jyotiraditya Scindia. According to sources, he considered Scindia’s father, Madhavrao Scindia, his mentor, and had joined politics under the latter’s tutelage. Now that Jyotiraditya has joined the BJP, has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha, and might even get a Cabinet portfolio at the Centre, the lawyer-politician has reasons to believe his interests would be protected in the BJP dispensation. The BJP is also in need of articulate lawyers and politicians to put forth its case, and desperately needs someone to step into the large shoes of the late 

Arun Jaitley.

Monkey business

The Delhi Police, running themselves into the ground grappling with lockdown rule breakers, had to deal with a break-in on Wednesday, this time by an offender of the simian variety. In the afternoon, the police went into a tizzy after they learnt someone had purloined from an ATM at South Avenue in Lutyens Delhi. On analysing the CCTV footage, the police found that a monkey had entered the ATM booth and had tried breaking the front panel of the machine, frustrated perhaps by its struggle to find food.

Postponements too many

Uncertainty remains in the government as to whether the lockdown would be completely lifted on May 17. Last week, the government postponed the Central Secretariat staff training, earlier scheduled to be held this month. An eight-week training programme for stenographers, to begin on May 4, has been indefinitely postponed, as has another two-week training programme for the secretarial staff, which was to begin on May 18. However, in another notification by the Department of Personnel and Training, the government has invited nominations for “advanced professional programme in public administration”, the duration for which is July 1, 2020, to April 30, 2021, at New Delhi’s Indian Institute of Public Administration. It has extended the last date for receiving applications to June 1, but maintained that the course would start on July 1.