For the first time since film star Sanjay Dutt was in trouble with the law, I did not feel sorry for the man as reports filtered in that he had been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the Supreme Court for the possession of illegal arms in a notified area during the 1993 Bombay blasts. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, March 22, 2013 at 8:55 pm
Filed under India · Tagged 1993 bomb blasts, Bal Thackeray, Lok Sabha, Mumbai bomb blasts, Mumbai serial blasts, priya dutt, PV Narasimha Rao, Sanjay Dutt, Sharad Pawar, Sujata Anandan, Sunil Dutt
The first time I met Sonia Gandhi was soon after she became Congress president – at a dinner at Nasik hosted by Sharad Pawar who was then sill part of the Congress. The party had swept more than 40 of the 48 seats to the Lok Sabha from Maharashtra and Pawar had just been made leader of the opposition. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, March 15, 2013 at 9:03 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged 2012 Gujarat elections, Congress president, Gujarat, hindustan times, Najma Heptullah, news, rahul gadhi, Rajya Sabha, Sharad Pawar, Singly political, Sujata Anandan, Youth Congress
I wonder what it is about male politicians, in India and elsewhere, that they just cannot be chivalrous about women, justifying the famous adage `male chauvinist pigs’ coined for their sex years ago at a particular international womens’ conference. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, November 9, 2012 at 8:57 pm
Filed under India · Tagged abortion, Ahilya Rangnekar, hindustan times, Lord Ram, male chauvinist pigs, Margaret Thatcher, Mayawati, MCP, Mrinal Gore, Mulayam Singh, news, Pushpa Bhave, Ram Jethmalani, rape, Richard Mourdock, Sharad Pawar, Sujata Anandan, Todd Akin, women’s reservation bill
In 1995, when the Congress was pushed below the majority mark in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance was struggling to cop up one of their own, Sharad Pawar, the sitting chief minister, well, just sat back and did nothing. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, September 21, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Filed under India · Tagged Chandrababu Naidu, Congress, Dr Manmohan Singh, hindustan times, Jaganmohan Reddy, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, Mamata Bannerjee, Mulayam Singh Yadav, news, Nitish Kumar, P V Narasimha Rao, Ramrao Adik, Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena, Sujata Anandan, UPA
When Maharashtra’s Home Minister R R Patil first mooted the transfer of Bombay’s police commissioner Arup Patnaik a day after some Muslim groups ran riot at the Azad Maidan on August 11, 2012, I am told, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan told him, “If Patnaik goes, so do you”. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, August 24, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged Ajit Pawar, Arup Patnaik, Azad Maidan, bjp, Gopinath Munde, hindustan times, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, MNS, Mulayam Singh, mumbai, Mumbai violence, NCP, Prithviraj Chavan, R R Patil, Raj Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Singly political, Sujata Anandan, Vilasrao Deshmukh
During his first term as chief minister of Maharashtra, I had once quizzed Vilasrao Deshmukh about the general feeling of critics that his was a lack-lustre government that was really incapable of doing anything significant for the people. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, August 17, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged Babhalgaon, Bombay, Breach Candy hospital, Congress, Latur, Maharashtra, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Marathwada region, mumbai, Nationalist Congress Party, Sharad Pawar, Singly political, Solapur, UPA, Vasdantdada Patil, Vilasrao Deshmukh
When Sharad Pawar split the Congress in 1999, he had hoped that the whole of the party will rally behind him and that Sonia Gandhi will be just left with herself and a handful of her close supporters. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, July 20, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged Congress, hindustan times, Maharashtra, NCP, news, Prithviraj Chavan, Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena, Singly political, Sonia Gandhi, Sujata Anandan, UPA, Vilasrao Deshmukh
Noticed a little but not much commented upon earlier this year was the fact that for the first time in a decade or more, the BJP had lost its Ayodhya seat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly. Now the party has lost a graduates’ seat from the Konkan which it had held for 40 years in the Maharashtra Legislative Council. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, July 6, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged Ayodhya, bjp, Congress, Election Commission, Gujarat, hindustan times, Jan Sangh, Konkan, Maharashtra, Narendra Modi, National Conference, Nationalist Congress Party, NDA, Sharad Pawar, Singly political, Sujata Anandan, UPA, Uttar Pradesh
Bal Thackeray’s maverick ways have always led both his friends and rivals to underestimate him politically. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, June 22, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged Bal Thackeray, bjp, hindustan times, Jayalalithaa, Marathi manoos, Mukul sangma, Narayan Rane, Naveen Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, Pranab Mukherjee, Pratibha Patil, Sharad Pawar, Sujata Anandan
For all those people who might think Narendra Modi is made of the stuff of great things, actually he is proving to be so much of a very small man. Read more

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Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Filed under India, politics · Tagged Bal Thackeray, Congress, Gujarat, hindustan times, Narendra Modi, news, RSS, Sanjay Joshi, Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena, Singly political, sujatan anandan, Uttar Pradesh, Vasantdada Patil