Sidhu’s sixer, Shah’s gameplan

Two senior Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia are eyeing an opportunity in their home state Madhya Pradesh where Vyapam-tainted chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is struggling to survive. But the methods they have adopted leave much to be desired. Mr Nath is currently All-India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of Haryana, but the veteran leader has little interest in the state. He recently burnt his fingers in trying to deal with the tussle between various Haryana factions. Although he has made it obvious that he would like to be given charge of Madhya Pradesh, Mr Nath continues to operate from Delhi while his visits to the state are confined to his pocket borough Chhindwara. In fact, Mr Nath is reportedly offering party posts to hopefuls even though there is no sign of state Congress chief Arun Yadav’s exit.

Mr Scindia, on the other hand, was in the state recently, but instead of interacting with mediapersons at the Congress office, he chose to meet them at a heritage hotel some distance away from Bhopal, at 9.30 am. In fact, the press meet was a hush-hush affair as not all journalists were invited for it and those who did receive an invite were told not to pass it on. While Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders are still baffled over Mr Scindia’s choice of venue of the press conference, they are equally intrigued why he chose to call on Suresh Pachouri, who is out of reckoning in state politics, instead of meeting chief Arun Yadav and Ajay Singh, five-time Congress MLA and son of late Arjun Singh.

Much has been written about the chaos which marked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s “Khat Sabha” in Rudrapur, Uttar Pradesh, when villagers scrambled to get their hands on the free cots. But what has not come out is how the local organisers struggled to get genuine farmers to participate in Mr Gandhi’s meeting as he set out on a 2,500-km long kisan yatra last week as part of his poll campaign for next year’s Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Apparently, before Mr Gandhi arrived at the venue, frantic announcements were made to ensure the presence of farmers on the manch as most of the cots were lying vacant. Senior Congress leader and UP in charge Ghulam Nabi Azad was seen issuing urgent instructions to party workers asking them to fill up the stage. Just then a local Congress leader arrived with a large group of young boys, a far cry from typical farmers, and insisted that the security staff should allow them on stage. He didn’t get very far as Mr Azad intervened to give him a severe public dressing down for passing off his friends and relatives as farmers. Do they look like farmers to you, he asked angrily. But once the programme started, the same group took advantage of the prevailing chaos and managed to clamber on to the stage by giving the security staff the slip. And that’s how Mr Gandhi’s first “Khat Sabha” got underway.

With less than a year to go for the election of the next President, the Bharatiya Janata Party has begun preliminary discussions on where it stands as far as the numbers are concerned. According to the party’s internal calculations, the National Democratic Alliance is 75,000 votes short at present. It will not be able to bridge this gap even if the BJP was to do exceedingly well in next year’s Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The ruling alliance will still need the support of one key regional player like Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress or Jayalalithaa’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to get its candidate elected. Of the two, the BJP prefers Ms Jayalalithaa as she has a personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is favourably inclined towards the ruling party. It’s early days to discuss names but the two parties have been in touch on this issue. The presidential election will also provide an occasion to test the index of Opposition unity. The regional parties along with the Congress and the Left parties can give the ruling alliance a hard time provided they can set aside their egos and forge a consensus on a common candidate.

BJP president Amit Shah was a happy man when cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu announced the launch of a new political front, Awaaz-e-Punjab, with a scathing attack against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Ever since Mr Sidhu shocked the BJP by resigning his Rajya Sabha seat over two months ago, Mr Shah has been working overtime to make sure that he did not join the Aam Aadmi Party.

As admitted to by Mr Sidhu, AAP leaders were in touch with him but their talks failed to materialise as Mr Kejriwal did not want him to contest next year’s Punjab Assembly polls. While that is Mr Sidhu’s official word on the subject, BJP insiders said Mr Shah had used all means at his disposal, resorting to both carrot and the stick, to see he stayed away from the AAP. Not just that Mr Shah also made sure that Mr Kejriwal emerges as Mr Sidhu’s target of attack. The BJP and the Akali Dal are happy with the turn of events as they believe a division in the anti-government vote will work to their advantage.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist