Uncertain future
Optics is everything in politics and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a master of manipulating optics. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, Modi has been trying to create the perception that his government is set to return for a third term. At a recent cabinet meeting, Modi asked his ministers and bureaucrats to prepare a 100-day roadmap of their respective ministries. He wants to ensure that no time is wasted after the election results, some ministers present at the meeting claimed. While this appears to send out the message of Modi’s imminent return, many ministers wondered if they would find a place in the new council. The buzz in the political corridors is that in his third term, Modi will go for a massive overhaul. New faces, with a focus on the youth and the women, would make up the next council of ministers, leading to many high-profile leaders getting pushed out. “Why should I break my head on the 100-day roadmap when there is no guarantee if I will get a berth in the new government?” one minister was heard querying.
Poor plan
With the Rashtriya Janata Dal now out of power in Bihar, a blame game has begun even though senior leaders are busy with the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Some have held the party chief, Lalu Prasad, responsible for the fall of the Mahagathbandhan government. They claim that Lalu tried to split the Janata Dal (United) to instal Tejashwi Yadav as the chief minister, but the move failed and backfired. Other RJD legislators have accused the top leadership of arrogance and unapproachability and being surrounded by sycophants. They also allege that the style of functioning adopted by the new generation is akin to that of Lalu and Rabri Devi. In fact, many leaders minced no words while discussing things with Lalu just before Nitish Kumar’s trust vote and voiced their anguish. The RJD chief is said to have promised to set things right.
What’s in a name
What’s in a name? Everything, according to the Bihar CM, Nitish Kumar, who is widely considered as the architect of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance or INDIA. He often points out that a name can make or break a coalition. In fact, he has asserted that a chief reason behind his exit from INDIA was its name. He had apparently proposed that the alliance be called the ‘India Main Front’ or IMF. But there were few takers and most of them supported INDIA. Nitish, too, had fallen in line, but clearly his heart wasn’t in it.
Fact check
The Press Trust of India publicly chided Rahul Gandhi for falsely claiming that the wire service was among several news outlets owned by the Ambanis or the Adani group.
When the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was in Varanasi, Gandhi pointed
to TV reporters and named several publications to tell the crowd that they were controlled by the two business families considered close to the BJP. In a rare public retort, PTI tweeted, “Shocked to hear Rahul Gandhi say PTI is owned by Adani and Ambani. PTI is an independent, not-for-profit company. It has been jointly owned since Independence by a group of newspaper companies that derive no income from PTI’s revenue.”
Tables turned
Arvind Kejriwal tried to end the sangh parivar’s monopoly on the slogan, ‘Jai Shri Ram’, by raising it several times on the floor of the Delhi assembly. In a speech hailing the Congress-Aam Aadmi Party’s victory in Chandigarh’s mayoral polls after the Supreme Court’s intervention, Kejriwal compared it to the contest of good versus evil in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Mum’s the word
The Union railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, apologised profusely when he arrived an hour late to address the media at the Rail Sadan in Bhubaneswar. The scribes reached the venue before time but the minister himself arrived late. Moreover, he refrained from taking any questions, upsetting reporters. The question uppermost on their minds is why he had not thanked or met the CM, Naveen Patnaik. Scribes wondered whether this was deliberate as such a meeting could bolster the Congress’s claim of the BJP and the Biju Janata Dal being hand in glove.
Wiped clean
The Telangana CM, A Revanth Reddy, seems to be keeping his word to ‘erase’ every mark of his predecessor, K Chandrashekar Rao. To begin with, Reddy has trashed all social media inputs made during the 10-year rule of KCR. The social media channels run by the state information and public relations department have allegedly removed all the content uploaded during KCR’s tenure. Bharat Rashtra Samithi leaders are accusing Reddy of wiping clean all traces of achievements by their leader and wonder what would be next.
