Worthy opponent
The Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi, was seated in the visitors’ gallery of the Lok Sabha to watch her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, make her maiden speech in the House. Robert Vadra, who may be eyeing an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of his wife, was also present. But more than her family members, the latest entrant in Parliament from the Nehru-Gandhi family was being keenly observed inside the House by the members of the ruling dispensation. Amit Shah, the Union home minister, sat attentively across the floor of the House observing Gandhi Vadra speak. Despite all the outward bravado about not being wary of Gandhi Vadra, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh still view the Nehru-Gandhi family as a formidable political opponent. Privately, many RSS-BJP leaders concede that the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family pose a more potent threat to their dominance than regional parties. Given the uncanny similarity between Gandhi Vadra and the former PM, Indira Gandhi, the BJP managers feel that they should keep an eye on her. Gandhi Vadra betrayed nervousness when she rose to speak immediately after the Union minister, Rajnath Singh, but regained her poise soon. After the speech, BJP leaders admitted that they cannot afford to take her lightly.
Flop show
As the temperature plummets in ‘dry’ Bihar and the chief minister, Nitish Kumar, embarks on the Mahila Samvad Yatra (a statewide tour to interact with women), his advisers and well-wishers remain worried. Kumar is to kickstart his tour from Champaran, which borders Nepal and Uttar Pradesh. But law enforcement agencies have been seizing thousands of litres of illicit liquor from Champaran daily. While it is common knowledge that Prohibition, imposed in 2016, has failed in the state, the Janata Dal (United) ministers are anxious about Kumar’s reaction when he will be apprised of the failure of his policy. It will be worse if hooch-related deaths occur during his tour.
“The chief minister believes that Prohibition has been successful and has brought a positive change in the society. He banned liquor because the women demanded so. His tour is going to focus on women and he may present the liquor ban before them as a success. We don’t want any glitch to mar it,” a senior minister close to Kumar revealed. However, some ministers and officials adhere to the view that Prohibition does not stand a chance of being successful in the state as it shares porous borders with Nepal, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bengal and it is high time Kumar realised that.
Change is in the air
The law and order situation in Bihar has gone for a toss in the past few years. But people have started sensing a subtle change in the air lately. There have been at least six instances in the state over the past month in which the police have arrested, injured or neutralised notorious history-sheeters. The latest to go down was a bank robber and kidnapper, who had been active in a region extending from Bihar to Haryana. This has led people to believe that the state police can still take action despite their slothful implementation of Prohibition.
Politicians have also started feeling the change in the environment. “Crime control emanates from political will and our chief minister has no dearth of it. He is the same person who extricated Bihar from the mess of ‘ jungle raj ’. He is the first chief minister in the country in recent times to curb crime with an iron hand. We are sure that he is keeping a tab on the hopes and aspirations of the people of our state,” a senior cabinet colleague of Kumar highlighted. It seems that Kumar will soon emerge as a competitor of the Uttar Pradesh CM, Yogi Adityanath, in terms of dispensing instant justice.
Poor example
Of late, the Assam CM, Himanta Biswa Sarma, has been trying to showcase his state as a role model for development and an examplefor the rest of the country. This isevident from the government’s official statements as well as Sarma’s social media posts and public speeches. On Friday, he said that Assam hasundertaken several initiatives toempower people, such as providing “1.5 lakh jobs without bribes, monetary assistance to girl students,ration cards to the poor”. The juryis still out on the veracity of his claims.
Interestingly, a BJP legislator from neighbouring Meghalaya, Sanbor Shullai, has written a letter to Sarma wherein he not only anointed the latter “as a role model for all political leaders across the Northeast” but also endorsed the “achievements Assam has made under Sarma’s guidance” as “highly commendable”. Shullai also sought the CM’s help for the smooth transportation of bovines to Meghalaya by traders with valid documents. However, the Opposition in Assam thinks differently and has accused the Sarma-led BJP government of frequently availing loans from the Centre to stay afloat which, in turn, increases the burden of the people of Assam.
