Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari seem to be the only members of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s old guard who have managed to remain in the Narendra Modi government after the recent rejig. While the defence minister, Singh, has chosen to lie low and continue with his work, the road transport minister, Gadkari, goes around speaking his mind, projecting himself as a visionary and performance-oriented leader. He had recently hit the headlines for calling Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Jawaharlal Nehru the two “ideal leaders” of Indian democracy. Surely, Gadkari cannot say he was not aware of how deep the dislike for Nehru runs in the present regime.

Soon after, Gadkari was once again in the news for his remarks on how politicians are generally an unhappy lot — he said that even chief ministers are unhappy since they do not know how long they will remain in their posts. Given that the BJP was replacing chief ministers in Uttarakhand and Gujarat, this evoked whispers in the party corridors. At the same event, the Nagpur strongman reportedly said that his case was different: he was happy as he was not worried about the future. “No matter what position you hold, play (life) like one day cricket,” Gadkari said, trying to tell Rajasthan legislators how to be happy. There are murmurs that the way Gadkari himself is playing, it could result in a hit wicket sooner rather than later.

Nitish Kumar File picture

Failed ploy

A small town in Bihar — Bakhtiyarpur — has suddenly become the bone of contention between the members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance — the BJP and the Janata Dal (United), led by the chief minister, Nitish Kumar. The BJP demanded that the name of the town — it is known by the name of Qutbuddin Aibak’s general, Bakhtiyar Khalji, who is said to have torched the ancient Nalanda University sometime between the 12th and 13th centuries CE — be changed. It also dangled a carrot and said it would not mind if it is named after Kumar as he was born there and has tried to re-create the Nalanda University. “No chance,” Kumar thundered; he reportedly added that he was happy being a son of Bakhtiyarpur. A political ally, the BJP is surely aghast at losing one of the issues it was trying to whip up.

All for one

Twitter must have been confounded when, all of a sudden, thousands of Congress leaders and workers began to sport Rahul Gandhi’s photograph as their profile picture. Even those without artificial intelligence were confused about what was happening among Congressmen across the country. The phenomenon continued for several days until a senior leader of the party revealed its reason. “This was our protest against Twitter for suspending the handle of our leader. We decided to sport his photo instead of our own pictures and it caught [on] like wildfire among the party workers,” he said.

Although Rahul’s Twitter handle was back in action in just a couple of days, some of his party members reportedly continue to sport his image. A Congressman asserted that many of the party leaders were afraid of being the first to remove their leader’s photograph, which led to a delay of weeks in doing so. Now they are slowly reverting to their own pictures. Everybody knows the country runs on butter.

Perfect timing

Temples have a new guardian in the Congress in Karnataka after the BJP-ruled state demolished a shrine in Mysore in connection with a court order to remove all illegal structures on encroached land. Several more shrines were earmarked for demolition, much to the chagrin of the BJP that is caught between its own ideology and the court order.

But the Congress leader, PC Siddaramaiah, could not let this opportunity pass. He called the BJP ‘fake Hindutva proponents’ as the government went ahead with the demolition. A true-blue socialist with no known affinity to religion, Siddaramaiah has taken a vault to emerge as the champion of what was perceived to be the sole domain of the sangh parivar. With the 2023 state elections in sight, and a BJP that is already a divided house, Siddaramaiah and his party could not have chosen a better time to leverage the issue of faith in a state where religion is an important matter.

Tough stance

The decision of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, to not bow down before the blackmailing tactics of sections of party leaders in Odisha has yielded results. It has brought to heel rebel leaders like the member of the legislative assembly, Tara Prasad Bahinipati, who had been issuing statements against the Pradesh Congress Committee president, Niranjan Patnaik, and even threatening to quit the party. He was opposed to the re-induction of his rival, a former MLA. Bahinipati’s wife, Meenakshi, the Koraput district Congress Committee president, had also been spewing venom against the leadership. The stand of the husband-wife duo had caused concern as it sent a wrong message to the rank and file.

The Congress chief despatched the Odisha in-charge, A Chellakumar, to settle the issue. Chellakumar met all sections of leaders and made it clear that the leadership would not tolerate such indiscipline or change the PCC president. He warned the rebels to leave the party if they so desired. Bahinipati and his followers immediately fell in line. The MLA publicly stated that he had no intentions of quitting the party.

Suresh Gopi Facebook

Footnote

The Malayalam actor-turned-MP, Suresh Gopi, known for playing the super cop in many of his films, recently forced a police inspector who is part of his security detail to salute him, although the members of parliament are not entitled for such display of power. The act triggered protests. Unmindful of the criticism for demanding respect, Gopi has attempted to justify his action, even as Congress workers staged protests offering salute with slippers to the BJP lawmaker.