Tejashwi and Nityanand lock horns over who is a true Yadav

Cattle call

• Politics in Bihar has gone to the cows. The Rashtriya Janata Dal scion and deputy chief minister of Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav, and the Union minister of state for home, Nityanand Rai, have locked horns over who is a true Yadav. The feud between them has been brewing for some time now. Tejashwi had castigated the Bharatiya Janata Party leader for plotting ways to become the Bihar CM and warned him that the people of the state would teach him a lesson if he did not mend his ways. Rai hit back by declaring himself a better Yadav than Tejashwi. “Let us both sit together to milk buffaloes. The one who milks more will be the winner. I am a son of a farmer and I can milk five buffaloes in one go,” he dared the RJD leader. He also wondered about the true caste identity of the RJD chief and Tejashwi’s father, Lalu Prasad, since there are rumours that Prasad actually hails from a family of shepherds and only took on the Yadav title to gain political advantage. Yadavs constitute about 14 per cent of Bihar’s electorate. It would be interesting to see Tejashwi accepting Rai’s challenge. Meanwhile, one RJD leader has even thought of appealing to the prime minister to put Rai in charge of the animal husbandry department given the latter’s obsession with cattle.

Tricky territory

• Ramdas Athawale, the Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment, has bowled a googly by inviting the Odisha CM, Naveen Patnaik, to join the National Democratic Alliance during a recent press meet in Bhubaneswar. The comment was clearly meant to land Patnaik in an awkward situation — the Odisha CM maintains cordial relations with both the BJP and the Congress. To embarrass Patnaik further, Athawale spoke about how the Biju Janata Dal has been lending support to the NDA in crucial matters in Parliament. He also reminded the BJD leader of his initial days with the BJP. Athawale reasoned that Patnaik should consider joining the NDA for the benefit of his state as it would help him get more financial aid from the Centre. Political observers feel that this might be a pressure tactic to bring BJD into the NDA fold after the latter’s breakup with the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar.

Popular leader

• India achieving the status of ‘Vishwa Guru’ may be a distant dream for the sangh parivar, but it leaves no stone unturned to project the prime minister, Narendra Modi, as the ‘most loved’ leader, using public surveys to drum his popularity on a regular basis. A recent survey by a US-based company declared Modi to be the world’s most popular leader, having a global approval rating of 75 per cent. This prompted the BJP to go all out on social media platforms,boasting how Modi’s “visionary leadership and politics of development”have made him the “most loved leader”. The saffron party even went on to claim that the United States of America was now aping initiatives taken by Modi as the Gujarat CM, such as the generation of clean energy and conservation of water. The poster circulated by the party on Twitter read: “West following in the footsteps of India.”

Sore spot

• Two weeks after being shunted out of power in Bihar by the JD(U), the BJP is still sore. Some workers have expressed displeasure over the lack of sterling work by party leaders in the state that could have left a mark on people. They are also of the opinion that the party’s central leadership did not give special attention to the neglected state, apart from building a few bridges, to change public perception.“Actually our workers are happy about our party not being in power. They had been mute spectators to whatever our ministers were doing, rather not doing. None of them worked for the people or did anything out-of-the-box or worked to strengthen the party further in the state,” a senior BJP member of the legislative assembly said. He also pointed out that the lacklustre performance by the party has diminished its credibility so much that people are indifferent to its opinions on the Grand Alliance.

Curious ally

• Shashi Tharoor, the Congress member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, has, yet again, praised his party’s arch-enemy, the Kerala CM and Communist Party of India (Marxist) stalwart, Pinarayi Vijayan. Tharoor described Vijayan as “an efficient leader” and “a man of his words”. Having met Vijayan several times, Tharoor said that he respected the Kerala CM and described him as a leader with great clarity of thought. Tharoor had earlier put his party in a spot by lauding Vijayan’s outlook on development at a time when the Congress-led Opposition in the state was locked in a stiff battle with the Left. Interestingly, Tharoor had even refused to sign a memorandum against the controversial K-Rail, a semi-high speed rail project by the CM, clarifying he needed to study the project before going against it.

Footnote

• Last week, the Mizoram CM, Zoramthanga, issued a public apology after protests broke out over a video of his daughter, Milari, attempting to assault a doctor. Doctored videos of the altercation went viral instantly owing to Mizoram’s fascination with Korean pop culture. The audio of Milari trying to punch a doctor who refused to meet her without an appointment was replaced with a melodramatic heroine of K-drama breaking down in frustration over her love interest, leaving viewers wishing for a happy ending.