Union home minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday said his ministry was ready to provide all inputs to the appropriate authorities looking into allegations of corruption relating to the Commonwealth Games.

The AICC is tightlipped on whether Maharashtra PCC president Manikrao Thakre will get a second term.
While his continuation will be seen as a victory of chief minister Ashok Chavan, a change at the PCC will be described as an attempt to check the chief minister in the party divided in different factions.

The BJP on Saturday claimed senior leader L.K. Advani will campaign in Muslim-dominated areas of poll-bound Bihar, including those constituencies where polling is scheduled in the first phase of elections. The party said reports suggesting Mr Advani not to campaign were “totally misleading and false”.

Election campaigning in Bihar is heating up ahead of the first phase of polling. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put the Nitish Kumar government and earlier governments of the RJD in the dock for the state’s backwardness, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav hit back at the Congress and held the PM equally responsible for Bihar’s plight.

The AICC is tight-lipped on whether Maharashtra PCC president Manikrao Thakre will get a second term. While his continuation will be seen as a victory for chief minister Ashok Chavan, a change at the PCC will be described as an attempt to check the chief minister in the party divided in different factions in Maharashtra.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit has welcomed the probe announced by the Prime Minister into allegations of corruption related to Commonwealth Games, saying the suspicion of corruption was on the Organising Committee (OC) of the CWG. Meanwhile, OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi said he was ready for any probe.

Commonwealth Games Organising Comm-ittee chairman Suresh Kalmadi on Saturday received yet another snub, this time from his party leader, Mrs Sonia Gandhi. He was not invited to the function organised by Mrs Gandhi at her 10, Janpath residence to felicitate the country’s medal winners in the recently concluded Games.

The BJP’s seniormost leader, Mr L.K. Advani, will be kept away from campaigning for the first phase of the Bihar polls. The BJP feels if Mr Advani campaigns in the first-phase constituencies, most of which are Muslim-dominated, it might lead to a polarisation of votes, specially in the wake of the Ayodhya title suit verdict.

India had recieved specific intelligence inputs warning of terror strikes by Al Qaeda and LeT during the Delhi Commonwealth Games, prompting security agencies to throw an additional blanket of securit

All good things come to an end. So, even as the heat and dust of successfully hosting the XIXth Commonwealth Games is yet to settle, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ordered an inquiry into the charges of corruption and irregularities that began swirling in the run-up to the Games.