There was a lot of noise recently that Jyotiraditya Scindia would soon be in Modi cabinet and he would be the new education minister of the country, but at the moment these speculations seem to be running out of steam. Recently, Scindia has been appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Committee of the Ministry of Education, now the question arises that if the BJP top leadership was to make him a minister at the Centre then what was the need to bring him to the Parliamentary Committee because the Union Minister is never a member of a parliamentary committee. There are also indications that Modi is not going to expand his cabinet in the near future, and could wait till the Bihar election results. One more important thing is that BJP has given Scindia, the Rajya Sabha seat along with 14 of his supporting MLAs as ministers in the Shivraj government. Now Scindia has to ensure the victory of his 22 supporting MLAs in the upcoming by-election. Apart from this, the BJP has entrusted Scindia with an important responsibility that he should try to bring more political leaders in the saffron fold by breaking more and more young leaders of Rahul Brigade. That is, to dream of a ministerial position at the center, Scindia still has to undergo many more ordeals.

In Rajasthan, the Gehlot government has appeared to be breathing a sigh of relief. If sources are to be believed, the main opposition party – BJP – is not in favor of bringing a no-confidence motion in the state assembly session starting on August 14. The BJP wants to wait for the right time for this, but the Chief Minister of the state, Ashok Gehlot, wants to see the exact number of his supporting MLAs. If sources in the Congress are to be believed, Gehlot may come up with a bill in that session, in support of which the Congress can issue a ‘whip’ for its supporting MLAs for voting, thereby allowing Gehlot to assess the correct count of his supporting MLAs. Apart from this, the top leadership of the Congress and even Gehlot camp itself are trying to search the hearts of those 18 Pilot camp MLAs wand three independents whether they are still ready to return home. Sources reveal that Sonia Gandhi herself spoke to Sachin Pilot recently to convince him and since then Pilot’s attitude has softened. When Congress appointed its new state president in Rajasthan, Pilot congratulated him and he also came forward to congratulate Assembly Speaker CP Joshi on his birthday, forgetting all the previous incidents.

There is a huge infighting between the central and state governments over the sharing of revenue from GST, at a time when there has been a severe decline in all revenue receipts of governments in the Corona era. On Tuesday, the Union Finance Secretary, in a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ministry of Finance, openly declared that the Centre was unable to give compensation to the states as per the revenue sharing formula, since the GST recovery has come down by 40 per cent. It is worth mentioning that the Centre was to give compensation of more than Rs 4 lakh 10 thousand crore to the states. One-fourth of the vote in the GST Council is with the Centre and remaining three-fourth of the votes reside with the states and at least three-fourth of the votes should be in favour of the motion to pass a resolution. Even if the Centre joins the support of its BJP-ruled states, it cannot reach the required majority, because there are still non-BJP governments in many states, even Nitish Kumar, who is running the government in Bihar with the support of BJP, is not willing to let go of the compensation. In such a situation, the only option left to the central government is to approach the Supreme Court on this issue. The Central Government had probably realized the dark times ahead for the country’s economy even before the Corona crisis came, perhaps that is why in March itself, the Central Government had sought an opinion on this issue from Attorney General KK Venugopal, and now Venugopal’s opinion also came to the fore. According to him, that the central government can refuse to give compensation to the states, which means that now the states will also have the option to go to court. Normally, the Centre gets a collection of one thousand crore rupees every month under the head of GST, but in July it had reached only 65 thousand crores, that is, even when the companies paid their old dues, taking advantage of the rebate given in the Corona period. It is worth remembering that in 2017, the Modi government, in its first term, announced the ‘one country, one tax’ policy in the midnight special parliament session, with the fact that the states are still collecting their own taxes, and the centre will provide 14 per cent additional revenue and if the states get less revenue than the stipulated amount, then the Centre will also give compensation to the states. The compensation has to be given to the states every five years i.e. compensation from 2017 onwards to be paid in 2022. During the Corona period, the financial condition of the states is already bad, and many states have no money left to pay their employees. In such a situation, compensation can be a great support for them.

Anar Patel, the darling daughter of Anandi Ben Patel – Governor of big states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, has always loved to make headlines. If sources are to be believed, she may contest from her mother’s traditional seat Patan or Ghatlodia in the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections of 2022. It is said that these days Anar is spending more and more time in working on the grass roots. If sources are to be believed, Chhattisgarh’s Congress Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was so impressed with Anar’s work that he has invited him to Raipur and asked him to cooperate in building a film city. Years back, Anar, together with Vandana Agarwal, formed the institution of ‘Gramshree’, a period when the state was in the hands of her mother. Anar’s organization strives to keep the local craftsmenship alive and their organization also undertakes to preserve the legacy of traditional crafts and arts. When Anandiben Patel bid goodbye to active politics, she wanted her traditional Ghatlodia seat to be given to Anar. The seat now comes under Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency and in the 2017 assembly elections, this seat was given to Bhupendra Patel, who was elected MLA from there. So, this time Anar may consider Patan seat for herself.

Anand Kumar of Bihar, famous for his ‘Super Thirty’, based on which a movie was made which was extremely successful, is now exploring his new role in the Bihar assembly elections. At one time Anand used to be in close proximity of BJP-Sangh, and in 2018, BJP also promised to give him Rajya Sabha seat, but by then there was a big controversy about Super Thirty. It is said that Anand claimed that 26 out of the thirty students selected in the IIT, were his but, later it was found that the number of correct students coming to the IITs was only 3. Hrithik Roshan, the hero of that film, had also tweeted and called the 26 successful children to Mumbai to give them a party, but when the situation got complicated, the actor also had to delete that tweet. Seeing the contradiction, the BJP backed away from its promise, and that is when Anand became close to Nitish Kumar. Nitish proposed to make Anand a MLC, but Anand did not agree to anything other than Rajya Sabha, so disputes started between the two. Now Anand wants his younger brother Pranab Kumar to contest the upcoming assembly elections from Aurangabad or Alwar on RJD ticket. Anand Kumar is a Chandravanshi Kahar by caste which has a large vote bank in both these constituencies. According to sources, recently, Anand Kumar has approached a major Hollywood director to make a film on his life in Hollywood too and he is willing to invest some money in this film.

Uma Bharti, who had given herself wholeheartedly to the Ram temple movement, was waiting for a sacred date like August 5, for a long time. But when that auspicious moment came, she was left waiting for the call, so a miffed Bharti declared that she will remain on the banks of Saryu River of Ayodhya i.e. at Ram Ki Paidi till time when PM Modi leaves the Ram Janmabhoomi temple after laying the foundation stone. This was because by then she was not sent an invitation to the foundation stone program. Only ANI and Doordarshan were allowed to go to the venue, while the rest of the media was stationed at Ram Ki Paidi, some 30 km from the venue. Uma also has an old relationship with the media, so ‘Champat Rai’ felt that the media should not ask her anything else, and therefore Uma was invited in a hurry and was given a place to sit in the foundation stone laying program. Interestingly, question were raised on those who sat in the front row. The questions were asked about what they had to do with the temple movement, for example, nobody knew anything about the contribution of Baba Ramdev, sitting in the first line, Mahamandaleshwar Awadheshananda Giri or Swami Chidananda. Mahendra Pandey, the only minister in the Modi government who was also involved in ‘Karseva’, also went to jail because of the temple movement, but he was not even invited. Vinay Katiyar’s age has not yet crossed 75, he too was not called. Acharya Dharmendra, who would create a charged atmosphere with his oratory skills, much like Sadvi Ritambhara, was also seen sitting in the 5th or 6th row. Sri-Sri Ravi Shankar, who spoke of mediation on the Ram temple, was out of the picture, so those individuals occupied the stage, backstage and ceremony, who had nothing to do with the Ram temple in the past.