The BJP is already in election mode for 2024. It has begun by commissioning surveys on the winnability of its central ministers from their respective constituencies. The surveys suggest that seven ministers could lose their parliamentary seats if elections were held today, including one whose surprise victory in 2018 evoked much jubilation. In the poll surveys concerning possible Lok Sabha seats for ministers presently in the Rajya Sabha, the results indicate that four top ministers would not win.
Fobbing off Shinde
Apprehensive that the BJP is attempting to undercut his party and give precedence to Ajit Pawar, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde sought an appointment with the PM. Modi’s office informed Shinde that the PM wanted to meet his entire family. The CM felt it would be churlish to point out that Modi had, in fact, met his family just two months earlier. As Shinde apprehended, at the 45-minute meeting, pleasantries were exchanged with the PM asking solicitously about the health and well-being of the entire Shinde clan. A photograph of the Shinde family with Modi was released. The CM, conscious that he was being fobbed off, had to explain sheepishly to his MPs at Maharashtra Sadan that nothing concrete politically had emerged out of his interaction with Modi. Shinde MPs are up in arms realising that the BJP has undermined them so completely that they have little credibility left. They suspect a sinister BJP game plan to swallow the Shinde Sena and compel them to fight on the BJP symbol, that is if they did not cross over to Uddhav Thackeray’s party.
Division of spoils
Conscious that for an effective opposition alliance, one has to move beyond meetings and statements, Congress president Malikarjun Kharge talked directly to AAP president Arvind Kejriwal on seat-sharing numbers. Kejriwal was pleasantly surprised to find Kharge had no ego problems. The two parties have agreed in principle to contest the Lok Sabha elections together in Delhi and Punjab, with Kharge deputing K C Venugopal to work out the numbers for seat sharing. In Delhi, where the AAP controls both the Municipal Corporation and the state Assembly, the Congress’s formula for the Lok Sabha election is five seats for the AAP and two for the Congress. In Punjab, where the AAP is now in power, the Congress is pushing for a ratio of eight for AAP and five for the Congress. But AAP is keen for seats in Haryana and Rajasthan, too. Sonia Gandhi’s talks with Mamata Banerjee in Bengaluru, however, did not go so smoothly. Gandhi, while sipping tea with Banerjee, proposed that the TMC should not contest four parliamentary seats in Bengal which were traditional Congress bastions, with a large minority vote share. Banerjee refused, protesting that the very Congresspersons who contested from these seats attacked her more virulently than even the BJP. She suggested that Gandhi first ensure that West Bengal Congress leaders stop abusing her before a seat-sharing arrangement could materialise.
Left, left out
It was Mamata Banerjee, not Rahul Gandhi, who first floated the concept of naming the opposition alliance INDIA, so that the front’s patriotism could not be questioned. The discussion on the words for the acronym INDIA and the joint resolution was finalised at a small exclusive meet on the evening of the first day of the opposition parties get-together in Bengaluru. Office bearers such as Jairam Ramesh and Derek O’Brien were active members of the think tank, but leaders of many smaller parties were excluded from the discussions. KC Venugopal alienated several leaders of smaller parties and some Left politicians by officiously even refusing to divulge details of the final resolution. Incidentally, Nitish’s annoyance at Bengaluru was not about the name INDIA, but because he was treated as a virtual nobody, while he was the master of ceremonies at Patna.
House hunting
Newspapers speculated that Rahul Gandhi would shift to Sheila Dikshit’s former apartment in Delhi’s private residential colony of East Nizamuddin, since he had lost his Lok Sabha membership and is without a government home. But thus far, there is no sign of “baba’’, the pet name for the Gandhi scion by his security guards, moving in. Though the flat was chosen by Gandhi, his security has reservations since the first-floor apartment is on a mere 200-square-yard plot and a stone’s throw from the historic Humayun’s Tomb wall, which would mean erecting guard houses and barracks in violation of ASI rules. VIP security would prefer for Rahul to continue to live with his mother at 10 Janpath. However, since Sonia Gandhi is not contesting the next parliamentary poll, she cannot retain her government accommodation indefinitely. Karnataka Chief Minister MS Siddaramaiah had a solution. He offered Sonia a Rajya Sabha seat from Karnataka so that she could stay on at 10 Janpath. Congress CMs Bhupesh Baghel, Ashok Gehlot and Sukhwinder Singh Sukku are kicking themselves for not thinking of the idea first.