In San Francisco mode
Another mega rally of NRIs is planned when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits San Francisco in the last week of September. It will be held at the Sharp auditorium in San Jose, with a seating capacity of 35,000. The rally in Dubai last month was the largest gathering addressed by the PM outside the country. There were nearly 40,000 inside the stadium and another 15,000 people watching outside on closed circuit TV. But the biggest NRI rally of all is likely to be at the Wembley Stadium, London, later this year where around 85,000 people are expected. The preparations for all these events are handled by BJP general secretary Ram Madhav.

At his fingertips
Six months back, PM Narendra Modi asked minister of state for power Piyush Goyal how many new LED bulbs had replaced conventional bulbs, thus saving energy under the scheme introduced by the government. Goyal confessed he could not provide a figure offhand. Modi pointed out that through an app on his phone, everyday at 9 am, he checked the latest total of the number of Jan Dhan bank accounts opened. Goyal swung into action to ensure that updated power ministry figures were available to him on his phone at any time. This month, the LED bulb replacement reportedly crossed the one-crore mark. The saving in terms of electricity is some 10,000 crore units, working out to Rs 40,000 crore. Goyal says he now receives constantly updated figures on power generation, NTPC production, coal production in relation to set targets, etc, through SMS.

Message mix-up
Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit has a social media group which interacts with 50-odd Indian journalists who cover foreign policy. The Pakistan Embassy normally sends all official messages and photographs there. Correspondents were puzzled when a day before the talks between the NSAs of the two countries were called off, they received a long message from Basit giving an uncharacteristically frank and emotional account of the problems between the two neighbours. Soon after, there was an advisory asking journalists to ignore the earlier message. It seems that a personal message from the high commissioner to a friend had got mistakenly placed on the social media group.

Not missed
BJP office-bearers who are in charge of the Bihar campaign insist that they are not feeling the absence of Prashant Kishor, who headed Citizens for Accountable Governance and claimed to have been the key strategist behind Narendra Modi’s 2014 parliamentary campaign. Kishor is now working for Nitish Kumar’s Assembly campaign. In charge of the BJP war room in Patna is 35-year-old Rituraj Sinha, son of BJP MP RK Sinha. He is an alumni of Doon School and COO of SIS group. The BJP has 250 video van raths fitted with GPS, whose movement is monitored from the central control room. The aim is for the raths to reach three crore voters in 62,000 booths, spreading the message of ‘parivartan’. Rajesh Jain, who once worked with Kishor, is helping provide data and formulating the BJP’s Internet strategy.

Bad chemistry
September 20 is the last date for the GST administrative mechanism to be put in place. But the chances of a brief session of Parliament to pass the amendments for GST seem remote, although most senior Congress leaders are in favour of the Bill. They believe that since the BJP has withdrawn the land Bill, the Congress should agree to the GST, since it was originally a Congress initiative. They apprehend that if they do not cooperate, the party will be perceived as anti-development. The roadblock is the visceral dislike between the Gandhis and Narendra Modi. Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma suggested a meeting between Arun Jaitley and Sonia Gandhi. But it is Rahul Gandhi who will have the final say and he does not want to cooperate with Modi.

Double talk
NCP leader Sharad Pawar has been touring Maharashtra criticising the Devendra Fadnavis government for its failures on several fronts. Curiously, however, Pawar has not taken back his assurance, given after the Maharashtra elections, that the NCP would offer unconditional support to the BJP government from outside to ensure stability in the state. Former Congress CM Prithviraj Chavan has urged Pawar to speak out categorically whether he has withdrawn support. Pawar’s ambiguous position, however, has checkmated the Shiv Sena.