Missing guests

With the members of Parliament hailing from Bihar currently in the national capital owing to the ongoing monsoon session, the state governor, Rajendra Arlekar, thought of hosting a feast for them. Individual letters were sent to all 40 Lok Sabha and 16 Rajya Sabha members. The venue was the posh Ashoka Hotel and Arlekar eagerly looked forward to meeting them. However, only the parliamentarians belonging to the National Democratic Alliance turned up and those from the Opposition parties — the Janata Dal (United) of the Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad and the Congress — stayed away. Altogether, 29 out of the 56 invited MPs did not attend the event. Sources revealed that a heartbroken governor rued the disruption of a tradition and said that he just wanted to discuss various non-political issues, such as improving higher education in the state. Though the Opposition did not give any official reason for not participating in the banquet, the RJD spokesperson, Mritunjay Tiwary, said the MPs found it inappropriate to feast at a time when Manipur was burning as a result of communal clashes.

Debt repaid

When reporters asked the Bihar CM, Nitish Kumar, for his comments on the Manipur violence and the no-confidence motion brought by the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, he had all the opportunity to put the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party on the mat. However, he refrained from making any overly caustic remarks and only asserted that Modi should have given a statement in Parliament.

Nitish is one of the key leaders of the newly-formed Opposition front, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, and everybody expected him to go ballistic against the PM. His reaction thus seemed more like a wet firecracker. A senior leader close to Nitish revealed that the latter did this to return a favour to the saffron party. About a month ago, the Union home minister, Amit Shah, was attending a public rally in Bihar where he had attacked Lalu Prasad, his children, and the Congress, but had spared Nitish.

Loyalty test

There are widespread concerns in the INDIA coalition about the loyalty of the Nationalist Congress Party to the Opposition’s cause. Adding fuel to the fire is the news that the NCP chief, Sharad Pawar, will be sharing the stage with Narendra Modi on August 1 when the latter will be conferred the Lokmanya Tilak National Award.

The decision of the Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust to honour the PM has been a source of strife within the Congress as well — the Trust is managed by Rohit Tilak, the party’s state general-secretary and Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s grandson. It is also proving to be a bigger litmus test for Pawar given the recent fissures in his family.

Different tune

The Janata Dal (Secular) leader, HD Kumaraswamy, is certainly in a dilemma. Just after declaring that his party would cooperate with the BJP inside and outside the Karnataka assembly, his father and former PM, HD Deve Gowda, dismissed any coalition with the saffron party in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. While it was certainly Kumaraswamy’s idea to keep the BJP close, Gowda seems to have other plans.

Party insiders who are familiar with the tactics of the father-son duo ruled out taking either’s stand at face value. Some are of the opinion that Gowda, unlike his son, is not someone who can be pocketed easily by any party and is likely to keep his options open till the last moment.

Down to earth

Droupadi Murmu is slowly emerging as the people’s president. During her three-day visit to her home state, Odisha, last week, she broke protocol several times to interact with the masses. When she visited the Cuttack Chandi temple, she freely interacted with the servitors, without any air of her VIP status. This earned her the goodwill of the servitors who hailed her as the ‘people’s president’. Murmu also distributed chocolates to children who made a beeline to catch a glimpse of her.

Far removed

It would be funny elsewhere but is irksome to Manipuris. Hotel Imphal, located in the heart of Manipur’s capital, has remained untouched by the ongoing conflict. As a result, it has been serving as a base for visiting teams of women’s commissions, politicians, and TV crews. While a few TV anchors were seen going around near the hotel giving their pieces-to-camera wearing bulletproof vests, what really got the goat of locals and security personnel stationed at the hotel was the fact that a member of the Delhi Commission for Women delegation was wearing a flak jacket in the hotel’s lobby. The DCW team even claimed that it braved heavy firing on its way to meet the victims of sexual assault in Churachandpur.