The absence of Lalu Prasad in his son Tejashwi’s poll campaign — even his photo was missing from the campaign posters — did not go down well with the former CM’s diehard supporters. One explanation for keeping Lalu out of the public eye was the apprehension that his presence would revive unhappy memories of his ‘jungle raj’, which his opponent made a campaign issue. However, others close to Lalu’s family hint that the former CM’s exclusion was because of fears over his failing memory.
For instance, the Bihar leader was unable to recognise some visiting Delhi journalists with whom he had interacted for years. RJD insiders grumble that in his younger days, the politically savvy Lalu could not have been persuaded to pose with his grandchildren dressed in westernised Halloween costumes, which clearly did not resonate well with his Yadav vote bank. The knives are out in both the RJD and Lalu’s own family for Sanjay Yadav, the outsider from Haryana on whose advice the gullible Tejashwi relied completely. Ironically, although the RJD highlighted Nitish Kumar’s age and erratic behaviour to underline his unsuitability, Nitish’s popularity with the voters has remained intact.
If master campaign strategist Prashant Kishor fell flat, it was because his huge presence on social media and impressive election rallies, with over 100 cars, 200 motorbikes and thousands of marchers, did not reflect his actual strength on the ground, only his money power.
The BJP’s usual trump card in ensuring a well-oiled campaign machine was Home Minister Amit Shah’s organisational skills and unflagging energy. Incidentally, when the workaholic Shah landed in Patna earlier this month to address election rallies at Gopalganj, Samastipur and Vaishali, his programme had to be cancelled because of torrential rains. With no work on his hands, Shah decided to sleep at Patna’s Maurya hotel. His aides pointed out that this was probably the first afternoon nap he has taken on the campaign trail in 10 years. After the results, Shah’s next assignment is to build up the party’s state leadership, which has been in a vacuum since Sushil Modi’s death.
Home truths
The migration of 12 lakh e-mail addresses of Central government employees, including the PMO, the National Security Council and the Home Ministry, from the National Informatics Centre (NIC), under the Ministry of Electronics, to the Zoho platform, a relatively small Chennai-based private company, is nearing completion. The switch to Zoho has been hailed as yet another step in the Atmanirbhar Bharat (self reliance) programme, by using home-grown technology.
But transferring from NIC, a 50-year-old proven public sector undertaking providing technology-driven solutions to the Central and state governments, to a fairly recent private enterprise has its problems. Confidential files can be accessed by individuals from the private sector who do not have the necessary security clearance. The new system lacks some of the advanced features of well-established global email and e-file systems. Zoho’s manpower is inadequate for handling the transfer and a large number of NIC employees have been roped in to solve teething problems. Most disturbing is a recent notification to users that before switching to the new system, they should connect to Zscaler, which is a California-based company and not Indian.
Subjective taste
Both the UP government and the Culture Ministry are chuffed that UNESCO has selected Lucknow for its list of creative cities in the gastronomy category. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wrote proudly on X that the award was a global honour, not just for Lucknow, but a recognition of the diverse cuisines of UP. He suggested a programme be promoted globally, advertising a cuisine from each of the state’s districts and singled out Lucknow’s famous ‘chaat.’ Prime Minister Modi’s congratulatory message to Lucknow on X was accompanied by a photo of a vegetarian thaali. However, the city’s residents generally assume that it was not Lucknow’s vegetarian fare, but the renowned Awadhi cuisine, which includes mouth-watering Mughlai dishes, such as galouti kebab, nihari, korma and biryani, which was the reason Lucknow was singled out for the honour.
Ally on warpath
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren recently lost his cool with his Congress ministers, charging them with not conveying to their Central leadership the ground reality. The Congress won 16 Assembly seats in the 2024 Assembly elections and the RJD six by riding on the coat-tails of the JMM, but the Congress did not return the favour in seat-sharing in states contiguous to Jharkhand, like Odisha, Bengal and Bihar. Soren pulled out of the Bihar election, accusing the RJD and Congress of a “political conspiracy”. He believes that the INDIA bloc, by not promoting the JMM as the main tribal party in the entire eastern belt, has allowed the BJP to gain ground among tribals.