Pre-Truth — snappy, witty and significant snippets from the world of politics and government.
Poll strategist recalls his good, old days at Delhi bar
“I defeated Modi in Bihar,” the loud statement from a gentleman at Past Times, a bar at the India Habitat Centre in the national capital, drew everyone’s attention one evening last week. Poll strategist Prashant Kishor was sitting with a former parliamentarian of the JD(U) and a couple of journos. Kishor, a key strategist in ‘Team Modi’ in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, had fallen out with the BJP and shifted his base to Bihar where he was credited with forging the mahagatbandhan of the Congress, RJD and JD(U), which led to the BJP’s defeat in 2015 assembly elections. The Congress drafted him for 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections but the party performed poorly. Kishor has since been working for Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh.
The poll strategist is aspiring to play a big role in 2019. He met Modi and BJP president Amit Shah a few months ago but hasn’t heard from them since. He also had a couple of meetings with senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh at a JD(U) leader’s residence in Delhi but the Congress hasn’t shown much keenness on hiring him so far. Kishor is now preparing to replicate a Bihar-type mahagatbandhan for the Lok Sabha elections. He met Lalu Yadav in Mumbai to lobby for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s return to the anti-BJP camp but it hasn’t made much headway. No wonder, the poll strategist seemed nostalgic about his old days at the Past Times bar Tuesday evening last week.
Now, Tejashwi Yadav goes on summer vacation
During summer time, a number of India’s top politicians travel abroad for vacation. Congress president Rahul Gandhi came back after a 10-day trip on the night of 2 July. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav is in London for a 15-day vacation and will be back on 9 July. The newest to join the club is RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who took a morning flight from Delhi on 6 July for the US. Yadav will be staying with his elder sister Rohin Acharya. Tejashwi will come back after a week on 13 July.
Busy Gwalior MP holds meetings while on the move
With assembly elections due in Madhya Pradesh in November-December and Lok Sabha polls next year, rural development minister and Gwalior MP Narendra Singh Tomar is a busy man. Convener of the BJP’s election management committee in Gwalior, the 61-year-old leader has to travel relentlessly, managing to spend barely 24 hours in one place. Juggling between travelling to his home-state to oversee election preparedness and to rural districts to ensure targets of key schemes are met, Tomar ends up holding a lot of his meetings in the car, often on way to the airport. No wonder, Prime Minister Narendra Modi singled him out for praise in a recent interview.
Deve Gowda’s elder son on lookout for govt accommodation
The entire Deve Gowda family is known to be extremely religious. Be it from the time they step out of their houses or the exact auspicious time when H.D. Kumaraswamy has to take oath. But Kumaraswamy’s elder brother H.D. Revanna, also an MLA, decided to take it one notch higher. He travels 350 km a day from his constituency Holenarsipura in Hassan district to Bengaluru every single day. The reason being his astrologer has told him that he should not ‘sleep’ in his house in Banashankari in Bengaluru as long as he is a minister. He will be a ‘powerful’ minister if he stays in the government accommodation. So Revanna travels up and down everyday. It doesn’t end there, Revanna’s choice of ‘lucky’ government accommodation is as of now occupied and so he may continue this marathon trip until he gets what he wants. Strange are the ways of ‘superstitious’ people. There was a time during elections that Revanna was advised that if he stood against a woman candidate he would lose.
Haryana minister Vij locks horns with woman IPS officer, again
Haryana cabinet minister Anil Vij, known for Tughlaki diktats, and a behaviour bordering on arrogance if not outright crude, has once again locked horns with a woman IPS officer of the state — Sangeeta Kalia. In 2015, she was the SP at Fatehabad. Following an argument with Vij during a district public grievance committee meeting over illegal alcohol trade, she was asked by Vij to “get out”. She dug her heels in and said no, and a livid Vij left the meeting in a huff. Vij went crying to the CM who immediately transferred Kalia. Last month, as SP Panipat, Kalia did not attend a grievance committee meeting chaired by Vij in her district on 30 June. An upset Vij told the media he will “take up the matter” with the CM. The result was that Kalia found her name among the next set of police officers transferred. She has now been posted as commandant Indian Reserve Battalion, Bhondsi, Gurugram.
Tailpiece
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has coined a new name for GST (Goods and Services Sales Tax). Addressing a public rally as part of his ‘jan kranti’ campaign, Hooda said: GST meant “gayee sarkaar tumhari”.
Contributors: D.K. Singh, Kumar Anshuman, Ruhi Tewari, Rohini Swamy, and Chitleen K. Sethi