Is the iron grip of Ahmed Patel on Gujarat affairs slackening? Seems like it, for why else would Rahul Gandhi appoint Kapil Sibal for the tete-a-tete with the Patidar leader Hardik Patel in the current talks on the state’s upcoming polls? After all, Sibal’s track record in such track-2 diplomacy stands at zero. No one had forgotten how he floundered in 2011 during his parley with Baba Ramdev, Acharya Balkrishna and Devendra Sharma. The meeting was being held under the elegant roofs of Claridges Hotel. Things turned sour as Sibal got into legal complexities without trying for a political solution. The triumvirate left in a huff and then followed the police unleashing its might in Ramlila Maidan at midnight. It is learnt that most of the creases had been ironed out between Rahul Gandhi and Patidar Young Turk Hardik. The only hurdle that remained was the percentage of reservation for the Patel community. But ever since Sibal has gotten into his legal arm-twisting, it is learnt that Patel has started reviving his once worsened relationship with the Shiv Sena.

The Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka has come up with its Yogi Adityanath-type spit fire saffronite. The ‘Raja’ of Vajradehi Mutt, Shekharananda Swami has been very active on issues like Ghar Wapsi, Love Jehad and anti-slaughter house issues. This year he has come to limelight by the Ghar Wapsi, or re-conversion of Christians to the Hindu faith. In places like Uddupi, Mangalore and adjoining areas, this new brand ambassador of extra-radical Hindutva has quite a bit popular and has some influence. He has declared Uttar Pradesh’s Adityanath as his ideal and is dreaming with his eyes open of following the latter’s path to become Karnataka CM.

The BJP’s runaway dreams in Himachal Pradesh are evident and the party seems overtly confident of its prospects of coming to power, but what is it that sees party national president Amit Shah biting his nails? It is the growing incidence of factionalism and internecine attrition within the party. The party in the state is split between three factions: those of Dhumal, Shanta Kumar and JP Nadda. Shanta Kumar is mighty upset with the party bosses, for most of his people have not been given tickets. Nadda was pretty convinced that he would be the next CM of the idyllic hill state, but just then the party announced the name of Prem Kumar Dhumal as the CM candidate and took the light out of his life. Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur had been very cross that despite all his efforts, he could not find a berth in the Central ministry, and Dhumal had thus been fanning the flames under the BJP’s feet that unless a “Thakur” is made the CM, the Rajputs, who comprise 37 per cent of the population, would leave the ‘lotus’ and join hands with the ‘hand’, that is, Congress leader Veer Bhadra Singh. The party initially had no intentions of naming any CM candidate, but this Dhumal tactic forced its hand at the last moment.

The Palampur constituency in Himachal Pradesh has suddenly come into the limelight, because the leading light and state BJP’s women’s wing president is contesting from there. This is none other than Indu Goswami. Her name was not there in the first list, which had been sent to the party’s central election panel. There it stayed stuck for three long days… till, of course, PM Modi himself sat at the Parliamentary Board meeting one day and seemingly innocently asked how many women were being given tickets in the state. That did the trick, and Indu Goswami secured her ticket, and not to look so obvious, several other women were also given tickets.

The moot question is, why has Indu Goswami given the ticket from Shanta Kumar’s home constituency, from where the candidature of one of Kumar’s most trusted lieutenants and sitting MLA Pravin Sharma? The fact remains that Indu had been associated with Modi since the time he was in charge of the state. And her candidature is to break the knuckles of the rebel Shanta Kumar. And to witness the cruelty of politics, it is Kumar himself who has been given the responsibility of ensuring Indu’s win! Is this Modi’s way of settling an old score with Shanta Kumar? It may be recalled that way back in 2002, after the Gujarat massacres when Modi was CM, Shanta Kumar had said that if he had been the CM, he would have resigned. In fact, Shanta had released this letter to the media as well. Anyway, Shanta Kumar’s right hand man Pravin Sharma is contesting Palampur as an independent candidate and strewing Indu’s path with thorns, for she is as yet being considered an ‘outsider’ in the constituency. The Congress has won from this seat seven times in the past, and this time around, the party has fielded Ashish Butail, son of the state legislature’s Speaker Brij Behari Lal Butail against Indu Goswami. The BJP has line up all its ammunition to defeat Ashish, who is contesting elections for the first time ever.

The BJP has been meticulously preparing for the state elections for the past two years, summoning all its forces from among youth and women. For the past two years, the party has set up a formidable army of women workers who were paid monthly salaries. On the other front, it has drummed up a huge force of youth to make its mark on the social media. Though this will be use for the saffron party, yet, rampant factionalism among the top state leaders is hurting the Lotus. Sitting CM Virbhadra Singh may have been pasted with rampant corruption charges, yet, a huge section of the state bureaucracy is his firm supporter. The communists are firmly in place in the upper reaches of the state and they may make some of the contests multi-cornered. In many seats some independent candidates seem to be firm favourites, and hence, all these machinations by BJP may look like giving it an advantage, it is still a tough contest for the latter.

It has now become routine for the Aam Aadmi Party to be fighting fire in its own home than dealing with political opponents. The latest is the grouse of Kumar Vishwas, who is highly displeased with the revocation of the suspension of the party’ Okhla MLA, Amanatullah Khan recently. Kumar is grumbling and has not even spared the party supremo. He says that there is no place for popular leaders in the party. He says he will not quit the party and instead, will take his pound of flesh staying within it. Seems he does not want to be past victims like Prashant Bhushan or Yogendra Yadav, but will Arvind Kejriwal allow all that?

The AAP is on the back-foot. After its drubbing in the Punjab polls it had decided not to contest from other states. But some changes in the Gujarat made it give tickets to 11 of its candidates. When the party president Arvind Kejriwal was asked for his comments, he said this had become necessary so that people do not think that there is a backdoor understanding between AAP and Congress.

Is the once committed ‘socialist’ politico Amar Singh is changing his track, and is saffron become his colour of choice in all his recent movements? Sources sing that the Thakur leader is anguish to get into the BJP fold fast. These sources stress that Singh was seen to have spent more than an hour at party’s Diwali celebrations at the party headquarters, Keshav kunj in the Jhandewalan area, and he was constantly egging on party senior Krishan Gopal.

Given that films stars find a ‘purposeful’ way of staying on the limelight in their dusk years, the Tamil Nadu polls are coming up as a sizzler, with three superstars baring their ambitions.
First, the ‘ageless miracle’ Rajinikanth. He is clearly siding with the saffronites and his upcoming films are showing that sort of content. In fact, a recent report of the Intelligence Bureau says that he stands out in the public imagination as the CM candidate above his two serious detractors, Kamal Haasan and Vijay.
Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan have shared a love-hate-love relationship. The credit for bringing Rajinikanth to Tamil films undoubtedly goes to the latter, and yet, after a while there came up a serious animosity. However, it is learnt that the two old friends have once again made up. Kamal Haasan is the second most popular film star in Tamil Nadu. He is clearly opposed to saffron politics. He is committed to mass movement leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and his stance is anti-establishment. Kamal Haasan has been a vociferous activist on environmental issues and his anti-BJP stance has won him the support of the state’s youth, as well as another fabled film actor-director-producer Prakash Raj. The latter has been gunning for the BJP over myriad issues, including the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, rising intolerance in Indian politics and moral policing. But the third major figure who can turn the tides is actor Vijay, whose recent film Mersal has clearly taken on the Modi government on demonetisation and GST. This is why the government wanted the film to be taken off theatres, but despite that the film has already done business worth more than Rs 200 crore. Vijay has been in films since 1984 and at the same time, he has been very vocal on issues like Image result for Jallikattu, farmer suicides and the scam on medical entrance tests. He has been an avid supporter of Anna Hazare and had set sail for Delhi to join him in his anti-corruption movement. Vijay is extremely popular with the states youth and has thus thrown open the question of who will be the next CM of Tamil Nadu.