Insider-out

Ever since he took charge, Yogi Adityanath’s regime seems to be making a habit of attracting bad press.
Insider-out

Not just a yogi

Ever since he took charge, Yogi Adityanath’s regime seems to be making a habit of attracting bad press. What with children dying dime a dozen in hospitals in Gorakhpur, campus protests, and horrific rape incidents.

And now, as if the R-Day blot was not enough, there’s a video of a senior IPS officer taking oath for temple-building in Ayodhya, in a strange cultic setting. Whether Lord Ram (whose reputation flows from being a just ruler) would have approved or not, Governor Ram Naik certainly didn’t. Some state ministers claim Yogi is a “consensus-builder” though. Cabinet meetings, which barely lasted seven-eight minutes during Mayawati’s tenure and were sessions for samosa-tea-gossip during Akhilesh Yadav’s time, actually take place in a proper format, says one.

The agenda is discussed threadbare, ministers are allowed to air their views, and expert opinion taken routinely. Yogi appears well-informed. One minister, who had switched camps to the BJP from SP, claims Yogi admits he picked up nuances of administration and consensus-building from his long years in Parliament standing committees. Unfortunately, not much of it is evident to those outside his immediate circles.

Raga Saurashtram

The rural tilt in Arun Jaitley’s Budget is seen to be a direct result of the jolt the BJP got in Gujarat — specifically, in arid Saurashtra. PM Modi is planning a huge outreach to woo sulking Saurashtrans back to the BJP fold. A conclave is planned for Madurai this summer, showing how for over 600 years Saurashtrans retained their language and culture in Tamil Nadu where they had to migrate after the attack on Somnath temple.

Luckless Rajnath

It’s certainly not the best of times for Rajnath Singh. First, Smriti Irani refused to entertain his pleas and transferred his favourite PIB official out of Delhi; now the PMO has taken away his right to be the last word on FDI in the name of ‘ease of doing business’. Even investments from ‘countries of concern’ will now be cleared by Suresh Prabhu’s Commerce Ministry. Will that remove bottlenecks and long gestation periods, and lead to a rush of FDI? Let’s wait and see.

Chair ignored!

The Modi dispensation has never been a stickler for parliamentary niceties. But keeping Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu waiting for the all-important Business Advisory Committee meeting was the last straw. He waited for over an hour with the reps of all other parties, but neither Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar nor his deputies Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi or Vijay Goel showed up!

Mission 42

The massive margin with which her TMC won the recent bypolls has got Mamata Bannerjee thinking big. Mission 42, for starters. It suits the Bengal CM just fine to have the BJP as the runners-up; the saffrons will keep the reds (the Left) in check, but not win a single seat. (Babul Supriya, the only Bengali minister in Modi’s cabinet, may have to look at contesting from another state!) As for the Congress, Didi asserts it can never claim the Delhi gaddi without holding her hands. So it’s not just Prakash Karat who’s coming in the way of a Left-Congress deal!

No joy for Jay

Flamboyant Page-3 regular Jay Panda’s falling out with his party boss Naveen Patnaik has not surprised anyone. For a few years now, the joke was, Panda’s BJD in Bhubaneswar and BJP in Delhi. Srikant Jena, an old Biju Patnaik acolyte now with the Congress, quipped: “By suspending him, Naveen’s actually saved Bijayant (Jay) from a trishanku position.” The BJD will neither come to harm, nor will the
BJP gain much.

Santwana Bhattacharya

The author is Political Editor,

TNIE. Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com

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