Assembly elections will be held in Kashmir next year, that’s for certain. BJP will contest this election, that is also certain. That it will contest the polls in alliance is certain as well. However, there are three pre-conditions attached to it. First, the prospective alliance partner should not be a supporter of Hurriyat. Second, it should be vehemently opposed to talks with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. And third, it should refrain from hobnobbing with the separatists. Does such a party even exist in the valley? The Home Minister believes that if it is not the case for now, then it will happen by the time elections are held. Amit Shah has only recently returned to Delhi after a 3-day tour to Jammu and Kashmir and, while being there he had also addressed a rally. It means that all will be well by the election time.
This happens too
A BJP leader has recently turned into a former MP. He has been a member of Rajya Sabha. He had allocated some money from his MP fund for construction of a road. Construction of that road could not be completed when he was still an MP, but now that he is no longer an MP it has been finished. Now, a shila-patt (flagstone) has to be installed proclaiming that this road has been constructed from the MP fund of such-and-such leader. The main problem with the shila-patt is whether it should bear the name of the current MP or that of the former MP? In order to break the logjam, someone suggested that the word ‘Manniya’ (respected) should be prefixed before the name of the former MP, but another riddle is whether the MP’s religion allows the title to be prefixed to his name or not. Nobody has been able to find an answer to this.
Half PVN
For a long time BJP has been looking for a leader who is well-versed in several languages. Names of several leaders, who knew more than two-three, or even four, languages, were being mentioned. However, all of a sudden, it was discovered that a Secretary of the party converses well in nine languages. Speaking Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, English, Bengali, Bhojpuri was fine, but then it was discovered that this leader can also speak well in Japanese. It means he can converse in 9 languages. For now, he is being termed as the ‘half Narasimha Rao’ of the party. This is in the context that former PM Rao was fluent in as many as 17 languages.
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The breathless job
The Personal Assistant of a senior minister in the central government was recently spotted taking heavy breaths at his residence. Other staffers were laughing after seeing him do this. Then it was discovered that the said minister’s schedule is so busy that even his assistant hardly gets any time for toilet breaks. Tours, events and meetings are conducted one after the other in such a way that it becomes extremely difficult to find some time to pause and relax. So the back story of rapid breathing by the PA is that he hardly gets any time to even breathe properly. So whenever he finds some off-time, he happily indulges in breathing exercises. However, his friends have come up with a taunt like agle janam mohe PA na kijo (do not make me a PA in my next life too.)
Coming full circle
What’s next for Nitish babu? It is rumored that some astrologer has calculated on the basis of Nitish’s horoscope that he will soon complete the circumambulation of his political sojourn. Knowing this, some people in BJP have become a little upset. Parikrama or circumambulation means walking from east to north first. This resulted in his alliance break-up with the BJP in 2015. Then he walked from North to West and came back to BJP in 2017. Then he again moved from West to South in 2022 and ditched BJP once again. Now he has restarted his journey. It means he has already traveled from East to North, then went North to West, and then moved from West to South. Now, will he be able to complete the cycle by walking from South to East (back to BJP)? All the worries in the BJP camp are due to this planetary combination only.
Implications of U-turn
Now, some news from Bihar. Can Chirag (Paswan) twinkle in the Union Cabinet? For a long time, he had been walking away from the eyesight of those in government. However, this was primarily due to the objections raised by Nitish Kumar. But now that Nitish himself has taken a long U-turn, Chirag has started to be seen again in the corridors of power in Delhi. His relations with the BJP high command are excellent and now BJP is also looking towards a more concrete approach in Bihar. As of now Chirag’s uncle-turned-adversary Pashupati Kumar Paras is in the Union Cabinet as a representative of the Lok Janshakti Party. But it is believed that he too was inducted on the recommendation of Nitish. Now the entire ball-game has changed. On October 11, Amit Shah was in Bihar to partake in an event marking the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan. Let’s see what the outcome of the visit is.
U-Turn on implications
During the UPA government, a top Congress leader had forced Rahul Gandhi’s hands to oppose a big business group’s venture in Odisha and this had even tuned Rahul’s image as that of an anti-corporate. Now the same leader is explaining to Rahul about the benefits of Adani Group’s investment in Rajasthan. This leader is also his co-traveler during ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra.’ Now other Congressmen, who are somehow related to any industrial house, are greatly perturbed. They say that only this is called the perfect example of political tutoring. Now this, and then that. At the same time, some leaders who were constantly uttering revolutionary-type dialogues in the media while opposing the industrial houses have also started to change the track too. Behind the back, they are also found saying that when we could not understand all this on ourselves, what should we explain to you?
Bharat Agrawal is Executive Director, Dainik Bhaskar Group, and a columnist.