Priyanka’s core team: out of sight
Former JNU Students’ Union president Sandeep Singh, a familiar face around Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has been conspicuously absent from her public meetings and party events, of late. So have been Mohit Pandey, Singh’s protégé (also a former JNUSU president), and Shahab Ahmed, another key member of Team Priyanka.
The grapevine has it that she is keeping them away until she gets to the bottom of complaints of corruption against one of her core team members.
A section of Congress leaders, however, believe that it’s her way of keeping them out of harm’s way as they have stepped on quite a few toes in the party. They believe that she depends heavily on Sandeep Singh—right from formulating her political strategies to even preparing her speeches—and this makes him indispensable.
One UP Congress leader, however, maintained that Sandeep Singh is still “very much” part of Priyanka’s inner circle, and is merely “keeping a low profile to avoid any controversies”.
In the meantime, Raj Kumar, a relatively junior member in her team, is accompanying her to public meetings.
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PAs, secretaries face the Fadnavis test
Mahayuti ministers in Maharashtra are a troubled lot. Two months after their swearing-in, all ministers still don’t have personal assistants and secretaries. The reason? Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has this time decided to screen all names proposed for ministerial assistants and personal secretaries, look at their backgrounds and weed out any controversial ones that could cause embarrassment for the Mahayuti government in future.
A dedicated team of officials from the Chief Minister’s Office and a desk of the general administration department that looks after administrative offices of ministers has been tasked with selecting personal assistants and secretaries from the list given by ministers.
An Officer on Special Duty (OSD) who did not wish to be named said rules and regulations for such appointments are already in existence but were never really followed. The remit now is to simply follow them and check eligibility of candidates. The bulk of the work is over, the OSD added.
About 16-17 more appointments are yet to be finalised. Moreover, this time, Fadnavis has also barred ministers from appointing private individuals as OSDs. Only the CM’s and Deputy CM’s offices are allowed to have private OSDs.
A fresh Dravidian wardrobe
For the past five months, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seems to have changed his wardrobe. The DMK leader who used to always wear a white shirt and traditional dhoti with the DMK stripes has now shifted to white shirts and black trousers.
He wears this at every public appearance, even during Assembly sessions. The change in wardrobe was evident since the day he returned from a visit to the US in August 2024.
DMK circles are buzzing with speculation about possible reasons for this change.
Rajnath’s joke at Siddaramaiah’s expense
At the inauguration of the Global Investors Meet in Bengaluru, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh rushed to a wheelchair-bound Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, asking him to remain seated.
Minutes later, Singh had the audience in splits as he commented: “In politics, keeping your legs safe is very important and you have to be very mindful because you will (have) stumbling blocks everywhere.”
Among those seen chuckling at Rajnath’s advise was Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar, the leading contender for Siddaramaiah’s chair.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)