History Lessons
Samata redux: Nitish to undo Congress untouchability
Nitish Kumar and his Samata Party colleague George Fernandes had given legitimacy to the BJP in the late nineties when it was considered a political pariah. Nitish’s decision to join hands with the BJP ended the latter’s untouchability and opened doors for other parties to do business with it. Over two decades after his decision that changed the country’s landscape, Nitish Kumar has again taken responsibility for removing the tag of untouchability from a political party. This time it is for Congress.
At a meeting with Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, the issue of opposition regional leaders’ reluctance to do business with the Congress came up. These leaders are Mamata Banerjee, K Chandrashekar Rao, Jaganmohan Reddy, Naveen Patnaik and Arvind Kejriwal. Nitish assured the Congress leaders that he would contact these leaders to ensure a non-BJP government if the numbers add up to allow that scenario. This time around, Nitish will be helped by NCP leader Sharad Pawar, who has also promised to pitch in for opposition unity.
The other key issue in last week’s unity talks related to the election plank. While Congress has been focused mainly on the Adani issue, its allies want “caste, corruption, karmachari, kisan” to be the poll plank, sources said. They want a shrill campaign against BJP-led central government’s refusal to conduct a caste census, a debate on old versus new pension schemes and other topics related to government employees and farmers, besides the Adani scam. Sources said the Congress appeared amenable to all the suggestions made by Nitish and Pawar, including the Maratha strongman’s suggestion to Rahul to go slow on his criticism of Savarkar.
Paradise Regained
Shah forces warring J&K babus to bury hatchet
Union home minister Amit Shah convened a high-level meeting last week to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, where preparations are on to host two important events – the Amarnath Yatra and a G20 meeting of its tourism working group. Top officers of IB, NIA, RAW, CRPF, and the NSA and home ministry bosses attended the meeting. It largely focussed on deploying adequate security personnel to ensure that no untoward incident happened during the two events. Shah’s attention was also drawn to a peculiar issue of the state’s two top officers working at cross-purposes. The tussle between J&K chief secretary A K Mehta and DGP Dilbagh Singh has been a subject of discussion in Srinagar and Delhi.
A recent decision by the state’s home department to transfer over two dozen Deputy Superintendents of Police was said to have been taken by the chief secretary without keeping the DGP in the loop. This indicated a severe erosion of the DGP’s authority as the transfer and posting of police personnel falls in the DGP’s domain. Reports started doing rounds that the DGP may be shifted out. But as the matter reached Delhi durbar, the state’s power equation seems to have reversed. The chief secretary was reportedly asked not to meddle in the affairs of the police. Sources said that the home minister was so miffed with the tussle between Mehta and Singh that some of the officers, including top ADGs of Police, considered close to Mehta were not even allowed to attend the meeting and were made to sit out. Shah’s intervention has doused the fire. But sources said that the trouble in the paradise would continue as differences between the two top officers were irreconcilable.