It would have happened sooner rather than later. But Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party was prepared for this one. Read more

There was a particularly bounteously placed functionary in the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra, today highly placed in New Delhi, who once called in a carpenter to make a concealed safe within a bedroom wall. Read more

I wish I could see the smile on the face of Vilasrao Deshmukh. He had wanted to be Maharashtra’s Chief Minister for the third time desperately but I am sure he is now counting his job as Union Minister in charge of Public Enterprises as a blessing in disguise. For it now, finally, gives him the chance to get even – with Suresh Kalmadi. Read more

I was having breakfast with my good friend Nitin Gadkari at his apartment in a building assigned to parliamentarians and legislators from Maharashtra when the subject turned to Rahul Mahajan. Read more

Some weeks ago, I was fascinated to read my colleague Pankaj Vohra’s account, on his blog, of astrologers and diviners who mostly got it right. But I have not been so fortunate — I have yet to meet one who doesn’t go wrong! Read more

There are many Congress leaders from Delhi who wonder why no one in Maharashtra seems able to take Sharad Pawar on.

To them I have always stated the Hindi adage : paani mein rehekar magarmachh se bair nahin (you can’t take on the crocodile in his own waters). Read more