Nitish Kumar makes house calls
In the last few months, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar has surprised ministers, officers and MPs from his party by visiting their homes.
Just this Friday, he came all the way from Bihar to participate in the housewarming ceremony of Sitamarhi MP and party leader Devesh Chandra Thakur, who had shifted to his allotted government accommodation in the Capital.
Nitish, with two of his close aides, ministers Ashok Choudhary and Vijay Choudhary, directly landed at Thakur’s house from the airport and stayed for half an hour. Union minister Lalan Singh and JD(U) president Sanjay Jha were also in attendance at Thakur’s ceremony.
The Bihar CM, however, does not participate in NITI Aayog meetings and usually sends his deputies to attend them.
Nitish in March also surprised Ashok Choudhary by visiting his residence the day after Holi to extend his wishes. He also visited the residence of his principal secretary Dipak Kumar to convey his wishes. The same day, he visited the residences of Vijay Choudhary and state minister Bijendra Yadav to know the families’ well-being. In April, the Bihar CM was again at Ashok Choudhary’s house for a short while.
Nitish’s social visits are being seen as a bid to warm up his relationship with party leaders before the Bihar assembly polls, and defuse the narrative that he is not in sound mental state.
Madhya Pradesh minister’s ‘sacrifice’
After committing in March to wear clothes without ironing for one year to save electricity, Madhya Pradesh energy minister Pradhuman Singh Tomar has now decided to shun air-conditioners and not use a car in the hot month of June. He will instead use a two-wheeler for travel while keeping a car only for long distance travel and meetings.
The minister, a loyalist of Jyotiraditya Scindia, has been sleeping ‘in a tent’ with a fan, erected in the open at his houses in Gwalior and Bhopal and posted a picture of the same on social media.
Earlier, Tomar had decided to use an earthen pot to store water and a few years ago travelled without slippers for a month to highlight the poor status of roads to civil authorities. Scindia had finally offered slippers to Tomar with his own hand.
The opposition Congress in the state has taken a dig at Tomar and asked him to curtail the number of cars in his convoy and ensure supply of electricity without doing “nautanki”.
Rahul’s ‘horses’ quip gallops into Haryana’s political circus
In Haryana’s political landscape, hilarity broke out when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s quirky horse analogy got a cheeky comeback from Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and minister Anil Vij.
On Wednesday, during a Congress expansion meet in Chandigarh, Rahul divided party leaders into three equine categories—lame, procession and race horses—urging the “lame” ones to retire. Haryana’s BJP stalwarts were quick to saddle up in response.
At a rally in Palwal’s grain market Thursday, CM Saini took the reins, branding Rahul the “lame horse” of Congress. “Rahul baba, guess who is the lame horse, the procession pony, or the race champ?” Saini teased, waving to cheering crowds.
“When the Congress looted Haryana, you saw them as race horses, filling Rahul’s coffers. Now, with the public kicking them out, they’re just lame nags!”
He galloped on: “Rahul’s words left Congress leaders in shock—stumbling to figure out their next move while the nation rejects them!”
Vij, Haryana’s sharp-tongued energy and labour minister, also joined the derby Wednesday itself in Ambala while talking to the media. “If Rahul calls his workers as procession, race and battle horses, what’s his breed?” Vij quipped. “Is he a parade pony, trotting slowly for show? Tell us, Rahul baba!”
The jab, caught on video, raced across social media, with BJP fans hailing it a “Vij classic” and netizens joking about a Haryana “horse race”.
Amid serious talk relating to farmers’ aid and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, the equine analogy brought giggles to the grainy fields of Palwal and beyond.
What’s behind Kirodi Lal Meena’s crackdown?
Rajasthan agriculture minister Kirodi Lal Meena has launched a state-wide crackdown, raiding factories producing fake fertilisers and counterfeit seeds. In Rajasthan, his sudden burst of action has turned heads—and made several within the establishment uneasy.
The raids began in Kishangarh, Ajmer, and soon moved to Sri Ganganagar, where seed factories were sealed over the alleged use of chemical coatings. The visuals—Meena inspecting sacks in warehouses, sleeves rolled up—made for perfect political theatre.
But it’s where he started that has sparked quiet murmurs. Kishangarh is the home turf of Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Bhagirath Choudhary. This hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Is Meena cleaning up the system—or subtly unsettling his own colleagues? Sources in the ruling BJP say this isn’t new. From raising uncomfortable questions over the sub-inspector exam paper leak to his stance on the Rajasthan Administrative Service exam, Meena has long played the role of internal dissenter. However, many feel he has once again made the government uneasy, with the opposition taking veiled shots at the state administration.
Now, as political alignments begin to shift in Rajasthan, his raids have done more than uncover fake fertiliser—they have stirred up real discomfort within the state BJP.