A video recently went viral on the social media, which purportedly showed that at the wedding of an IAS official from the southern climes, President of India Ram Nath Kovind was subjected to some humiliation even as the Prime Minister was present there. The moment AAP leader Ashutosh laid his hands on the video, he tweeted it, with some biting comments, as did his party colleague Somnath Bharti. Later, the Rashtrapati Bhawan issued a statement that the person reportedly shown as Kovind was not him. Further enquiries revealed that this was a game of the Congress party’s dirty games team. It was realised in the end that Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit was in attendance at the wedding with Modi, and he was passed off as president Kovind. The moment this came to light, both Ashutosh and Bharti deleted their tweets. However, the ploy of the dirty tricks department remained solid in the minds of the Twitterati.

People who have seen the original CD of the so-called sex scandal of Patidar leader Hardik Patel say that one of the three young men in the video only has some resemblance to Patel. Besides, the woman shown in the video is also not an Indian but some East Asian lady. Hardik supporters are confident now that his face had been morphed in the video that was released by the BJP.

It seems the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has decided to put its entire might behind the faltering might of Modi in the Gujarat state polls. And that is largely due to the three Young Turks of Gujarat politics, Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani, who are rocking the boats of Modi’s so-called Gujarat Model. Though the BJP mandarins are selling lemons of a ‘clean sweep’ by them in the coming polls, the fact remains that the Congress in the past few weeks has started a solid march back into the state. And the survey agencies that will a few weeks ago had been predicting a 12 per cent set behind for Congress vis-à-vis the BJP, are now giving the BJP a slim 6 per cent advantage. It may be recalled that of the three youthful anti-BJP leaders, Hardik Patel represents the highly aggrieved Patidar (Patel) community, while Alpesh Thakore (who has now joined the Congress) leads the OBC community and Jignesh Mevani is the leader of the Dalit community. History stands evidence to the fact that in Gujarat so far, elections have been lost or won only on two issues: caste and religion. We are well aware of Amit Shah’s past credentials in ‘social engineering’ of caste alchemy. However, the mother body RSS feels strongly that it will be the Hindutva card that will sell this time in Gujarat. It is reliably learnt that the RSS has asked 12 different allied organisations to unify the Hindu votes according to their castes and communities. These organizations have started working in different areas of Gujarat to reduce the effect of Patel-Thakore-Mevani on their respective communities and sections. History shows that whenever Modi’s poll prospects are under a cloud, the RSS has come out in full force to brighten his skies. Well, then, history repeats itself in Gujarat!

After trying its dirty-tricks department on Patidar leader, the intransigent enfant terrible Hardik Patel with an unproven sex video, the shaky BJP in Gujarat is now training its crosshairs on OBC leader Alpesh Thakore, because the latter is now going great guns into campaigning for the Congress. It may be recalled that the OBCs have always been the defining – if not the deciding – factor in Gujarat polls. They together comprise 40 per cent of the electorate. Of that, the Thakores themselves represent 20 per cent of the voting populace. They are spread across north and central Gujarat villages. There was a time when they were the proud soldiers of the Gujarat’s various princely states. But with the lapse of the erstwhile princely states, the latter had to go settle into farming. The problem was that since generations, the community had no farm land to their names and thus had to settle down as marginal share croppers or landless labourers. A majority of the young people of the community had no jobs. Thus it is that when Alpesh came into the picture, he realised that this was a dismal scenario and launched his Thakore Sena, whose volunteers are now running institutes and coaching classes for vocational training so that the Thakore youth can improved their lives. In 2016, Thakore formed a common platform to unite the OBCs, scheduled castes and scheduled tribe communities of the state. To witness, these together form roughly 70 per cent of the Gujarat electorate. There was a time when this forum was challenging Hardik Pate’s Patidar movement. However in the fast changing electoral scenario in the state, with Patel, Mevani and Thakore seem to have joined their hands to defeat the BJP, this has become a massive hangover for BJP after the massive highs of recent times.

The vitriolic relationship between Congress tow of the Congress party’s Young Turks, Manish Tiwari and Deepender Hooda, is no secret. But perhaps even Rahul Gandhi could not have anticipated that this would take the form of open brawls in public fora. Apparently a week or so ago, Hooda had gone to address a meeting of the Congress student’s wing, National Students Union of India, or NSUI. Soon, the national secretary of NSUI, Surabhi Dwivedi twitted: “Today Hooda Sir has given a new slogan, ‘You and I, NSUI’, so thank you so much from the core of our hearts for thus inspiring us with the slogan.” No sooner, Tiwari jumped into the fray and lashed back on Twitter: “This is an old slogan. It was first given in 1985 by someone who was then the president of the JNU students’ union… the same man is today is with the Telegu Desam party and his wife is the defence minister of the country.” Tiwari, without naming, targeted Nirmala Sitharaman’s husband Parakala Prabhakar, who is the Communications Advisor to the Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh.

There seems to be a new sheen in the BJP after the first phase of the polls in Himachal Pradesh. The Dhumal faction feels confident that he would easily take the CM’s seat. But the bitter rival camp of JP Nadda is also confident that even if this happens, it will be short-lived. For, as soon as Dhumal turns 75, a year and half from now, he, like party patriarch LK Advani, would be bundled out into the party’s ‘Margdarshak Samiti’, a toothless think-tank, and Nadda will warm the CM’s seat. But will the electorate, 37 per cent of who are tribal Thakurs, accept Nadda? The reply came from a top BJP leader: “We have anointed a non-Jat (Khattar) as CM of ‘Jatland’ Haryana. In tribal Jharkhand we have anointed a non-tribal, Raghubar Das, as the CM, and likewise, in Maratha-land Maharashtra, our CM is Devendra Fandnavis, a non-Maratha. In comparison, Himachal it a tiny state.” In fact, Dhumal was a forced choice. The party high command was well aware that the Thakur community had been mighty peeved with it for the unprecedented CBI raid on the wedding day of sitting CM Virbhadra Singh’s second daughter in 2015. And if the Thakur community’s ire merged with already simmering Dalit voters, then there would be no chance for the saffron party in the green hill state. And that is why FinMin Arun Jaitley could convince the party brass to name Dhumal as the CM candidate.

Not so long ago, people said that Gujarat Patidar leader Hardik Patel would support Shiv Sena in the state. These rumours took wings just after Patel secretly met Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray some six months ago in an east Mumbai neighbourhood. Sena birds coo that the meeting went on for hours, and Thackeray asked Patel to lead the Sena in his home state. To which Patel had said he would need some time to ponder. But shortly thereafter, Congress’ Ahmed Patel pulled off the miraculous half-vote win from the state’s Rajya Sabha seat, and all political equations in Gujarat called for unprecedented realignment. Hardik found the Congress more of an attractive choice over the Sena, and started his hobnobbing with the party. When the Sena got wind of this, it gave Hardik quite an earful. Meanwhile, as Hardik’s relationship with the Congress got warmer, the BJP started its own forays into Patel’s pasture. It is known that many of Hardik’s close associates are going to contest the state polls as lotus candidates, for the BJP’s singular strategy if the wear out Patel.

Not very long ago, the constituent parties of the UPA and those friendly to it were not keeping much in store for Rahul Gandhi as the opposition’s public face. In fact, people still remember that at a lunch thrown by Sonia Gandhi at her residence some months back, top leaders like CPIM’s Sitaram Yechury had suggested the name of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar instead of Rahul’s. Sonia, naturally, had demurred. But of late, Rahul has emerged in a new avatar in Indian politics. Not only has his acceptance amongst people widened, in fact he is being seen as the leader of an ‘alternative politics’. Now, even sly old politicians such as Sharad Pawar are singing peans to the young leader. Just a few days ago, Pawar made it clear at a programme of a Mumbai-based TV channel that he had no intention whatever of moving over to the NDA, and that in recent times, people have started viewing Rahul as an alternative to Modi. This is the same Pawar who not long ago preferred to only talk directly with Sonia Gandhi.

Though the Congress is giving politics in Gujarat an interesting twist, those in the know insist that even this time, it is BJP that will come to power in the state. They also whisper that may be this time either Ganpatsinh Vasava or Nitin Patel could be anointed as the chief minister. Till not so long ago, the name of Shankarbhai Chaudhary was also doing the rounds in the rumour mill, but it seems of late that his standing with the party high command has withered somewhat.

It was a matter of just a fortnight back. The Delhi-based PHD Chamber of Commerce was holding its annual conference and had desired to invite top guns from the government. That did not work out, it seems, and of all the ministers, they managed to convince Nitin Gadkari to grace the occasion. But till the last moment, the organisers had kept their fingers crossed: Gadkari has quite a reputation of appearing in posters ahead of events and but never turn up. Anyway, since Gadkari had been invited for the inauguration, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was invited for the valediction. RaGa straddled the stage and blasted the NDA for running a one-man government. Sitting in the privileged front row, the chairman of the tourism committee of the Chamber, Mukesh Gupta quipped: “But that was the same during the UPA rule,” hinting at Sonia calling all the shots. But Rahul smiled and said: “No, it was the PMO that took collective decisions.” At this, there was an approving roar from the audience and there was applause, which swelled Rahul’s proud chest.