Dispirited lot

The culmination of the final phase of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Bihar earlier this week has left Congressmen demoralised. The curtailed yatra route and its short duration in the state have raised concerns about seat distribution for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Many party leaders have pointed out that Rahul Gandhi touched about seven — primarily in the northeastern and the southwestern fringes — out of the total 38 districts in Bihar. Avoiding cutting across the state which used to be dominated by the Grand Old Party, Rahul Gandhi spent just about three nights there and left for Uttar Pradesh for the following phase of the yatra. He had dedicated nearly the same amount of time to smaller states. “We are worried after the areas he visited. Are we going to contest only those Lok Sabha seats? Will we get just six or seven seats to contest? He did not venture into the heartland...” a veteran Congress leader ruminated. Another wondered whether the party has become dependent on and subservient to Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, which has the upper hand in the INDIA coalition and will get to decide the number of seats each partner gets to contest in the state. However, a senior Congress member connected to the state’s yatra programme later revealed that it was the central leadership that had mapped out the yatra route and it might have selected the shortest path that covered more areas in less time.

Cash cow

‘Start-up’ has become the new buzzword. During the recent launch of a start-up initiative at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, a student asked Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union minister for education, skill development and entrepreneurship, whether he had ever invested in start-ups. Bowled by the question, Pradhan promised to invest in start-ups.

Dharmendra Pradhan

Another student asked Pradhan whether a political career could be pursued as a start-up entrepreneur. The minister replied that such a venture could be feasible but risky. Pradhan then posed a similar question to the audience, leaving them to ponder the success of the political ‘start-up’ that he had launched as a 17-year-old.

Road bumps

The chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, bumped into the RJD president, Lalu Prasad, at the legislative assembly recently leading to the latter enquiring about the Janata Dal (United) leader’s health. When asked whether he would tie up with Nitish again, Lalu said, “Our doors are always open.” Further, the Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh, asserted that Nitish’s dislike for Narendra Modi is well-known. “He said things at INDIA bloc meetings that have not come out in the media,” Ramesh said. The RJD leader, Tejashwi Yadav, also recollected how Nitish had come to his place seeking help to ward off the Bharatiya Janata Party. These revelations have left the ruling National Democratic Alliance alarmed. “This is a ploy to sow distrust. The befitting reply to it will be its failure,” a senior JD(U) leader quipped.

Play safe

Even a rationalist like the Karnataka CM, PC Siddaramaiah, is unwilling to take chances these days. Not wanting to give a handle to the BJP ahead of the elections, the state government quickly revoked its recent order that prohibited religious festivals at government-run educational institutions. The circular from the Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society, though, did not limit the celebrations of Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and other government holidays.

Control freak

The copies of some scribes in Punjab are now going through an additional layer of editing — by a political appointee from the Aam Aadmi Party government. During the search operation for the separatist leader, Amritpal Singh, last year, the state police cracked down on the journalists who reported unfavourably on the AAP leader, Arvind Kejriwal. Since then, the carrot of government advertisements has been dangled to ensure that beats are shuffled and reports are shared with the ‘superdesk’ apparatchik before publication.

Shift in narrative

In July last year, the BJP had hurriedly convened a meeting of all the partners of the NDA, even the state-level ones, to counter the coming together of the Opposition parties under the INDIA banner. Narendra Modi’s speech at that meeting was marked by a repeated stress on “NDA sarkar”. The narrative seems to have taken a drastic turn after the BJP swept the assembly polls in the three heartland states. ‘NDA sarkar’ has since taken a backseat. It’s now all about “Modi ki guarantee”.