Unlike father, unlike son
Shrikant Shinde, Maharashtra Deputy CM Eknath Shinde’s 39-year-old parliamentarian son, hosted a dinner party last week for the who’s who of Delhi’s political circles. Held at the Kalyan MP’s official residence on Pant Marg, the shindig saw a very eclectic mix of high-profile guests. Telangana CM Revanth Reddy spent over an hour mingling with Shinde’s guests before leaving for Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s dinner party.
Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju was another star attraction. Rijiju had his audience in splits when responding to a question about the ‘actual reason’ for former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s resignation. He said he would “certainly tell” the reason, adding after a brief pause, “but only after I retire from politics.” BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s popularity among fellow politicians and journalists was also evident from the doting audience that gathered around him all through the evening.
What made Shrikant Shinde’s dinner party so special was the presence of MPs and politicians from across the political and ideological spectrum—from the BJP to the Congress, the TDP (Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu), the DMK and Samajwadi Party, among others.
A political adversary of Eknath Shinde had once said, “Baap haddiyan todta hai aur beta jodta hai (the father breaks bones and the son joins them).” Shrikant Shinde is an orthopaedician. At the dinner party Tuesday, Shrikant certainly seemed to be mending ties between leaders on both sides of the aisle in these times of highly polarised politics.
A message to Selja?
The Congress high command’s decision to nominate Karamvir Bauddh as the party’s candidate in the Rajya Sabha bypoll from Haryana came as a surprise. Bauddh retired as a Superintendent in the Haryana Secretariat barely three years back and was hardly active in the political sphere. Other aspirants for the Rajya Sabha nomination were much bigger names: former state Congress president Udai Bhan, former MP Ashok Tanwar, and former MLA Jaiveer Valmiki, among others. Bauddh tripped them all to enter the Rajya Sabha.
Congress insiders say Rahul Gandhi confidant, ex-IAS officer K. Raju, was instrumental in Bauddh’s nomination. Bauddh was closely working with an IAS officer who happened to be related to Raju.
That, it appears, was enough to secure him a Rajya Sabha berth. Insiders say that bringing Bauddh, a Dalit, into the Rajya Sabha is also a signal to Kumari Selja, the party’s Dalit face in Haryana who is known as a Gandhi family loyalist. In the run-up to the last Haryana assembly elections, Selja, a Bhupinder Hooda detractor, had stayed away from the campaign for weeks over the high command giving him a free hand. A prominent Dalit leader publicly sulking for weeks didn’t help the party’s cause in the election.
Rahul Gandhi’s decision to prop up Bauddh could be a message to Selja.
Dhami breathes a sigh of relief
Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami may have reasons to feel secure. After all, he just carried out a cabinet expansion exercise a few days ago. Five new ministers were inducted to fill all vacant positions.
Dhami’s friends and sympathisers say the fact that the BJP high command allowed him to revamp his team less than a year before the elections indicates that there would be no change of guard before polling day.
In July 2021, the BJP had replaced then-CM Tirath Singh Rawat with Dhami, barely seven months before the elections. Earlier in 2021, it had replaced Trivendra Singh Rawat with Tirath Singh Rawat in March. So, there is unlikely to be a repeat of the 2021 game of musical chairs. What might also have reassured Dhami was Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s praise for his leadership during a visit to Haridwar earlier this month.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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