Insider-out

Faced with the (not entirely unfounded) accusation of abdicating space to the BJP in Tripura, the Congress is on the lookout for a high-profile face, preferably a woman leader who can match up to Mama
Insider-out

Wanted: Loud Bengali woman

Faced with the (not entirely unfounded) accusation of abdicating space to the BJP in Tripura, the Congress is on the lookout for a high-profile face, preferably a woman leader who can match up to Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. More than the need to take on Didi, the idea is to restrict any further rise of the BJP in Gurudev’s land. The fear of losing the little pockets of influence it has in the northern part of the state is such that the party is even ready to transplant Sushmita Dev from Silchar, Assam, to West Bengal.

Quite a firebrand, Santosh Mohan Deb’s daughter has been given charge of Mahila Congress by Rahul Gandhi. That’s not all, she offers serious slogan-shouting lung power to the Congress in the Lok Sabha. The only worry is whether she would be acceptable to the Bengali masses. The available rationale is that Silchar is part of Sylhet, a ‘Bongophone’ region that falls mostly in Bangladesh, so paradropping Sushmita won’t hurt the language pride of Bengal as much as any other outsider would do, but it is an issue.

The other option under consideration is Sharmistha Mukherjee, Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter. She too is seen as a fighter. The current PCC chief, Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, though a powerful force in his local bastion of Behrampur, has not been effective in the rest of Bengal. Bitterly anti-Mamata, he was the one who forced the Congress to get into an understanding with the Left in Bengal. That alliance is what’s being blamed for the Congress’s loss of face in Tripura.

Tripura and Nagpur...

The north-east is currently the flavour of the season. Despite Tripura being a small state, the fact that the quarter-century-old Left rule was broken to win the state earned Amit Shah a congratulatory phone from RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat. He told Shah that it’s the party’s biggest ‘ideological victory’, bigger even than winning the largest state, UP.

Shah has ever since been flaunting his “right wing” ideology, with a new “what’s-wrong-in-that” assertiveness. He, however, got late for the Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha meet in Nagpur because of the swearing-in ceremonies in the north-east. In any case, the move to get Suresh “Bhaiyyaji” Joshi replaced by Dattatreya Hosabale did not fructify.

L’affaire Choksi

The slanging match between the BJP and the Congress over who’s to blame for diamantaire Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi’s rise continues. No sooner had the ruling dispensation pointed fingers at the UPA, P Chidambaram in specific, for rolling out the 80:20 gold import scheme in the last days of power, apparently benefiting Choksi’s firm Geetanjali Gems Ltd among six others, the other side was out with the news that Jaitley and Bakshi, the legal firm of Arun Jaitley’s daughter and son-in-law, were engaged by Geetanjali Gems in 2017.

The firm, it seems, severed ties with Choksi’s firm, without giving any legal advice, the moment its lid was blown. The Congress also has come up with a reverse narrative on the 80:20 scheme, filling Twitter with the take that Geetanjali actually suffered losses because of the scheme, which had initially been called a good one by Nirmala Sitharaman, and it was later policy changes that benefited it.

KCR in the ‘Front’

Make no mistake; K Chandrashekar Rao is all serious about firming up ties for the national front. The Telangana CM, it seems, will soon be travelling far and wide to garner support for his idea—to Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Chennai, et al. It seems, between KCR and Mamata Didi, they’ve already roped in the SP, BSP, TDP, Shiv Sena and DMK. Where does that leave Sonia Gandhi’s dinner? The menu will tell us, is how an Opposition MP put it. Little wonder she allowed herself to be persuaded by a media baron to give a candid interview to keep her party in relevance and reckoning.

Santwana Bhattacharya

The author is Political Editor, TNIE.

Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com

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