Home sweet home

Delhi’s new and youngest-ever chief minister, Atishi, is set to occupy the Flagstaff Road bungalow where her predecessor and the Aam Aadmi Party national convener, Arvind Kejriwal, currently lives. The lavishly redeveloped bungalow had led to a corruption investigation against Kejriwal, who had vowed not to take government accommodation or vehicles before he came to power in 2013. The AAP has demanded another bungalow in the capital for its leader on the grounds that he heads a national party.

Bowl a googly

The Rashtriya Janata Dal scion and leader of the Opposition in Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav, recently dropped a bomb. In an interview to a vernacular news channel, the 34-year-old claimed to have captained India’s famous batsman and former skipper of the Men in Blue, Virat Kohli, while playing for Delhi. Cricketers and cricket lovers taxed their memories and worked overtime on Google to find out whether such a thing had come to pass. Alas, no definite answer was to be had. Yadav did play for Delhi and rub shoulders with Kohli in under-15, under-17 and under-19 tournaments.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav arrives to attend the INDIA bloc leaders’ meeting, in New Delhi, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. PTI

The RJD leader also captained Delhi in several matches before moving to play for Jharkhand, but Kohli was never a part of the line-up in these matches. Yadav was a part of the Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) in the Indian Premier League between 2008 and 2012, but never got to play. Senior politicians cutting across party lines kept quiet on his staggering claims, knowing that Indian leaders are prone to hyperbole. But the poll consultant-turned-activist, Prashant Kishor, piped up that Yadav used to carry water in the IPL matches. Some cricketers said that it was better to spin a ball rather than a yarn.

Fear factor

While he may or may not have run between wickets for Delhi, Tejashwi Yadav has indeed been busy running around for the RJD’s membership drive at the state headquarters in Patna. Many senior leaders and legislators were present on the occasion. They had left their cars and SUVs on the road outside the party office when a contingent of traffic policemen led by a young IPS officer arrived and started handing out challans to the drivers for illegal parking. Chaos soon ensued as many of the parked vehicles fled or tried to flee to escape punishment. Around 20 of the cars were not lucky enough to escape.

Angry RJD leaders called this a political assault by the CM, Nitish Kumar, and erupted in vitriol. “Nitish has the home department, with the police under it. This is a deliberate attempt to obstruct our party’s membership drive. The crime graph in the state has shot through the roof, but the police are concerned with stationary vehicles outside the Opposition party’s office. They will not chase criminals but stay busy in easy work, harassing common people and minting money by compromising prohibition and other laws,” a senior RJD official spat out. Others called this an attempt to intimidate the RJD. However, unlike his verbosity on cricket, Yadav has maintained a studied silence on this issue.

Damp squib

The RJD is not the only party having a membership drive. The Bharatiya Janata Party, too, is holding a nationwide membership drive. However, it is not getting the response it had expected in Upper Assam, especially in the Jorhat Lok Sabha constituency, which is represented by the Congress’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi. The first phase of the membership drive is scheduled to end on September 25 and has seen the party’s numbers go past the 2014 figure. But reports indicate that it has not aroused the same level of enthusiasm in Jorhat, which the Congress won after 10 years despite heavy odds. This is despite the CM, Himanta Biswa Sarma, focussing on regaining lost ground by taking proactive steps since the Lok Sabha poll results were declared on June 4. It seems that this Hindu-majority seat, which is developed educationally and infrastructure-wise, continues to remain a cause of worry for the BJP. In the Lok Sabha polls, voters were particularly cut up with the loud and dominating nature of some BJP leaders. This time, it seems that the tension sparked off by the public apology sought by non-Assamese traders for the attack on a woman arms wrestler in the presence of government representatives, the growing attempts at creating a Hindu-Muslim divide and reports of alleged corruption under the BJP’s watch have dampened the membership drive.

The enemy within

While the BJP is fighting outsiders, the Congress’s main enemy is the Congress itself. It is no different in Assam. The Congress general-secretary in charge of Assam, Jitendra Singh Alwar, is trying to change that before the upcoming assembly polls through clear-cut messaging. While stressing the need for unity to take on the ruling BJP, he also made it clear to senior state leaders that there was no plan to change the incumbent state president, Bhupen Kumar Borah. Publicly, Singh also sent a message to party workers by praising Borah’s efforts to strengthen the party and his relentless attacks on Himanta Biswa Sarma’s policies. Singh’s messaging has derailed the signature campaign by a section of Congress leaders.