While the political circle is agog with speculation that the Congress party (read 10-Janpath) is miffed with prime minister Manmohan Singh after he agreed to run for a third term, Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are slated to dine together on May 22, when the PM hosts a gala dinner to mark the 10th anniversary of the UPA.

With the media invited for the dinner at Singh’s 7-Race Course Road residence, the PM and Gandhi are scheduled to release the second part of the UPA’s achievements on the occasion.

The Congress, meanwhile, is hard at work to shift gears and get past the Ashwani Kumar-Pawan Kumar Bansal exit fiasco. Information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari held a special press conference on Sunday to release the first part of the UPA’s “success story”, titled ‘Glimpses of the India Story’, while AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi held a special briefing to deny reports of a rift between Singh and Gandhi.

Interestingly, in an attempt to scotch reports of a crack in the Sonia-Manmohan jugalbandi, Dwivedi went to the extent of saying that Singh will continue to lead the UPA till May 2014.

That has inadvertently added weight to the buzz that the party is miffed with the PM after he did nothing to put down the speculation that he would run for a third term in 2014. To cut him short, party insiders said, the Congress has begun to pick and choose his confidantes and expose them, former ministers Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Bansal being the first casualties. Political circles in New Delhi are full of speculation about two more union ministers in the fire range, and both, of course, are close to the prime minister. 

Many anticipate big problems for Singh, now that the CBI has confirmed that Shatrughan Singh, a joint secretary in the prime minister’s office, visited the CBI headquarters and amended the draft report on coal blocks allocation. The question is, who asked Singh to visit the probe agency’s headquarters and what did he change in the draft report?

Meanwhile, all three top IAS officers who held the posts of additional secretaries in the coal ministry from 2006-09, when the coal blocks were allocated, are under the CBI scanner. These are CD Arra, AK Seth and Alok Parti, who was the coal secretary at the time. With the media focused on the issue and the opposition gunning for the PM following the exit of Ashwani Kumar and Bansal, the coalgate issue is unlikely to die down, even though the next hearing of the case in supreme court is a long way away —July 10.

For now, all eyes are fixed at the 7-RCR dinner on May 22, and see whether sparks fly when Sonia Gandhi meets prime minister Singh.