As his first resolution for 2021, the Bharatiya Janata Party member of parliament, Subramanian Swamy, listed being “committed to Narendra Modi as Prime Minister”. His second resolution was the propagation of Hindutva. The first was seen as a sign of some relief in the BJP quarters. Party managers now felt that the MP, notorious for doggedly getting after somebody he wants to target, would not attack the government. However, the 81-year-old MP was back in form on the second day of the new year. In a tweet, he sought to target the prime minister for appointing someone as principal scientific adviser. “I am amazed that PM has made Dr. Vijay Raghavan as Principal Adviser on Science in the PMO,” his tweet said. He then went on to level serious allegations against Raghavan. “This Raghavan... was on the Chinese Wuhan Bat virus project and brought the Chinese to Nagaland to experiment on the Bats without Govt clearance,” his tweet added.

In another tweet, Swamy urged the prime minister to cancel the Republic Day parade this year in view of the pandemic, citing reports of soldiers getting infected during rehearsals. He went on to add that it would be a relief for the prime minister of Britain, Boris Johnson — who is scheduled to be chief guest for the parade — in the midst of Brexit. All this has made the BJP managers furious. They probably missed the last sentence in Swamy’s 2021 resolution — he said he would continue to “speak truth sans fear”.

Rising stature

The chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, just anointed his trusted lieutenant and Rajya Sabha member, RCP Singh, as the national president of the Janata Dal (United). As the stature of the five-feet tall man grew further with the announcement, celebrations broke out at the party headquarters in Patna. A flamboyant party worker, Chhotu Singh, brought the biggest garland available in the city. He brought one of marigold weighing around 120 kilogrammes, held aloft by a dozen men. As RCP Singh emerged from the office, Chhotu Singh rushed to garland him, but some other party leaders cautioned him that it would either break his neck or pull him down to the ground. Finally, it was decided to hold the garland in the air around the new leader. “Yaar, tum chhotu, RCP chhote, mala bhi chhota laana chahiye tha is awsar par (Friend, your name means small, RCP is also small, you should have brought a small garland to suit the occasion),” a party leader told Chhotu Singh as guffaws rang among the workers.

Awkward situation

The BJP poached six of the seven JD(U) members of legislative assembly in Arunachal Pradesh recently. The act has put the senior leaders of the party in Bihar in a peculiar position. They cannot open their mouths, they cannot face the roaming journalists, and they cannot talk back to the JD(U) leaders who are on a rampage, condemning their party at will. The senior BJP leaders have reportedly questioned the move of their party leadership, though not publicly. “We feel ashamed over the development. Our party has always felt proud of its ethics, fair play and protecting our friends, but our top leadership is doing exactly the opposite,” a senior BJP leader from Bihar confided. The two parties are allies in Bihar and have barely scraped through in the recent assembly elections. Another saffron party leader asserted that having Nitish Kumar in good humour was important, lest 2015 gets repeated — the JD(U) had aligned with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress back then to trounce the BJP, switching horses mid-term.

Subtle tactics

The chief minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, was never known for his diplomacy. A hard-boiled communist who came up the hard way in both life and party, Vijayan has often made cadres cringe in his presence. His famous audacity has for long been the subject of tea-shop discussions in Kerala. But the same Vijayan surprised everyone with his diplomatic manoeuvres to convince the governor, Arif Mohammed Khan, to reconsider his decision of not clearing an assembly session to pass a resolution against the farm laws. The pugnacious communist did not want an issue with the governor. Like some party insiders say, Khan was lucky to have a much mellowed-down Vijayan in office.

Deep mistrust

The decision of the Congress central leadership to align with N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party in the 2018 assembly elections had angered the local party leaders in Telangana who felt the results would be disastrous. The TDP had opposed the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the Congress lost the people’s support in Telangana by embracing Naidu in a stunning political somersault that showcased lack of foresight. The same TDP ghost is haunting the Congress again as senior leaders of Telangana fear a major exodus if the efforts to make Revanth Reddy the state unit chief succeed.

They see Reddy, who came from the TDP, as a Naidu lackey, and are trying to convince the high command that most seniors will defect to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the BJP if he becomes state chief. Many leaders are reportedly circulating documents showing pending criminal cases against Reddy and recalling how he allegedly abused Sonia Gandhi during his stint in the TDP. They also blame one key party functionary close to Rahul Gandhi for misleading the party on the choice of chief in Telangana where the ground is ripe for Congress revival.

Footnote

The Congress leader to watch out for in Kerala is Oommen Chandy. At 77, the soft-spoken former chief minister may not be on the right side of age and health, but his stock has only increased in the party gearing up to face the assembly polls in about four months. Still licking the wounds of the debacle in the local body polls, the Congress is banking on the Kerala swing voters, alternating between the Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front. Many want Chandy to play a pivotal role to win back the state, who is perhaps the right answer for the Congress’s woes.