The city, that is made of paranoiac mutterings and pandemic utterances that contrive fiction into frail factoids, that is New Delhi is agog over another high of rumour-mongering. The foundries of supposition are working overtime manufacturing their whispered could-be-truths.
To go off at a tangent that is not quite one, we must quote a recent departed senior political figure and Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Kishan Lal Sharma (who incidentally died under fairly scandalous circumstances). This gentleman had once famously remarked that a State Assembly that had been placed under a state of suspended animation by a Governor was in a state of "animated suspension". The new-coined political phrase fits the situation in Delhi perfectly.
Even as the results of the ongoing Assembly elections in the states of Bihar, Orissa and Manipur are in the offing, theories are being propounded over the impact they will have on the future of prominent political formations. Most prominently, of course, the Congress.
The Congress, to recall recent history, brought back Nehru-Gandhi sycophancy and brought in Sonia Gandhi to rescue it from imminent collapse. In 1998, it appeared that she might have stemmed the tide. By 2000, rumblings of discontent have made themselves manifest in the party. In fact, our friends of the silver forked tongues inform (or should that be qualified with a "dis"?) us that the Congress is on the brink of an exodus. And this time, unlike 1998, the rebels will from be from among the party hierarchy but will comprise its Lok Sabha members.

In effect, they underscore the obvious point that a Congressman without power is akin to South Indian film actresses sans silicone. It just cannot be, and if it is, things must change!
So the change may be wrought surreptitiously by calling into question Sonia's leadership, especially in the wake of the expected debacle in the elections.
A small group of disenchanted leaders who are rumoured to include several members of the Congress Working Committee are working towards securing that end. That end being bringing in a divide in the Lok Sabha group, so that at least a third breaks away from the parent party and can, therefore, defy the Anti-Defection Act.
Thereafter, this group could support the ruling National Democratic Alliance Government, as it is explained, Congressmen, per se, have no difference in ideology (if that term can be attributed to present-day politics); witness Mamata Banerjee or Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, who are enjoying the benefits of Office having left the Congress.
As we mentioned at the outset, this could be attributed mainly to paranoia. However, is it just a coincidence that the NDA is pressing on with the committee that will undertake a study to review the Constitution? After all, for any such change to be implemented, at least a two-third majority will be required in the Lok Sabha and the NDA, as it stands today, has barely crossed the 50 per cent mark.
Or can it be true (really!!) that the one-year period that has been sanctioned to the Committee, headed by a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, can be well utilised towards ensuring that figure is arrived at? With some cooperation from obliging Congressmen (with certain terms and conditions)? No, that's really, really absurd. isn't it?