Jharkhand exodus
Hemant Soren, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief, may be holding forth on the formidable alliance he has stitched up for the coming Assembly polls, but one of his alliance partners is leaking like a municipality tap. The Jharkhand unit of the Congress has become like a ready and convenient nursery for other political parties. Three former state unit chiefs of the Congress are now in other parties! The latest among them to be plucked and transplanted out of there is Pradeep Kumar Balamuchu, who will grow in the All Jharkhand Students Union garden now.
Prior to him, it was ex-cop and voluble spokesperson Ajay Kumar. He now provides shade in the AAP grove. Before Kumar, Sukhdeo Bhagat (made state unit chief in 2013) was grafted on to the BJP banyan. The present chief Rameshwar Oraon, it seems, is punctiliously watering the leftover plants in the nursery, least they too get picked up. The not-so-good perception about the BJP’s Raghubar Das government perhaps gives the JMM-RJD-Congress alliance a fair chance. But the turncoats are almost like a parallel political economy.
Infighting, Congress style
Having lost a sizable number of local strongmen to BJP in a well-engineered ‘rebellion’ in Karnataka, the Congress camp was expected to be full of doom and gloom about the coming bypolls. After all, the rebels cost them not just the coalition government, but walked away with the party strongholds. Still the GOP is smirking, in the belief that it has exported not only the rebels but the infighting as well to the BJP. Plus, they are expecting to roll out an ‘exchange programme’ soon. BJP leaders sidelined to accommodate the rebels will eventually switch sides —or so believe Congress strongman DK Shivakumar and his camp.
Power of attorney
No one is as surprised as the top echelons of the BJP with the Maharashtra developments. They can’t quite believe a big state is slipping out of their hands. So hope is alive that Shiv Sena/Uddhav Thackeray may still have a change of heart when he visits Ayodhya on November 24. The BJP brass is no less taken aback by Sonia Gandhi’s about-turn — the virtual ‘power of attorney’ she’s given to Sharad Pawar to negotiate the Sena-NCP-Congress liaison. Meanwhile, the Congress’s southern lobby — AK Antony and Mallikarjun Kharge —too is stunned. Because, after a sharp altercation with the Maharashtra leaders, Sonia Gandhi decided an alliance with the Sena was the only way to stop the party from splintering even further.
Sena and Hindutva
Sharad Pawar has the task of delivering an acceptable alliance to all three sides, as also to get the Shiv Sena to sign on the dotted line that it will give up its hard Hindutva line. Just the way the BJP had kept its core agenda in abeyance to help AB Vajpayee become PM. However, in the present instance, this is exactly where the BJP sees its main chance. Nitin Gadkari, for instance, is viewing the Maharashtra crisis as a cricket match in which even the last ball will matter. A section of the BJP, though, is not too unhappy that its traditional ally is finally exiting, leaving the field open for them to move in, particularly in the Thane-Konkan belt. On the RSS bidding, the BJP spokespersons have been instructed not to target the Thackerays. On Maharashtra, only Amit Shah is authorised to speak.
Chai pe charcha
At the usual all-party meeting held as a curtain-raiser to a session in Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked in for the tea party — ‘chai pe charcha’ — with the parliamentarians. On record, the opposition wants discussions on rising unemployment, the economic distress and other ‘people-related issues’, but last heard the Congress is also busy brainstorming on how to fob off the attack Rahul Gandhi may face on Rafale from the treasury benches.
Santwana Bhattacharya
The author is Resident Editor, Bangalore, TNIE.
Email: santwana@ newindianexpress.com