The tenure of the current CBI director Subodh Kumar Jaiswal is ending in this month i.e. May. If sources are to be believed, the central government has also made up its mind that Jaiswal will not be given further extension, so the search for his successor continues vigorously. At present, three names are believed to be leading the race, the first of which is the current Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, who is an IPS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre and feels that he is like an outsider in the Delhi Police. He is, allegedly, being treated as such, so he has expressed his desire to leave. Another name doing the rounds is that of Madhya Pradesh DGP Sudhir Saxena and observers are calling his claim the strongest till now. The third name of NIA chief Dinkar Gupta is in news, but it is believed that ‘RAW’ chief Samant Goyal wants to take him to his agency. In recent times, many IPS officers from Maharashtra have also got promotions, one of them is Atulchandra Kulkarni who is currently on deputation to ‘RAW’. His name is also mentioned in the race as the next chief of CBI. Another theory is going on that ‘this time the chance to become the Chief of CBI will be given to the same officer whose slate is clean and who has never worked in CBI before’. Therefore Sanjay Arora’s claim seems to be the strongest, but one source claims that the government has in a way finalized the name of Sudhir Saxena provided he gets the go-ahead from the selection committee.

The Supreme Court expressed displeasure towards the government after the central government gave the third extension to ED director Sanjay Mishra. The court has also raised many questions about this decision of the central government. Since then the search for a new director of the Enforcement Directorate has started. Only IAS, IPS and IRS officers take up the responsibility of ED chief. If sources are to be believed, at present two people are leading in the race for ED Chief. One of them is 1989 batch IPS officer Sanjay Beniwal, DGP of Tihar Jail and the other name in the race is 1987 batch IRS officer Praveen Kumar, presently posted as Principal DG of Income Tax in Ahmedabad. The third service extension of the present ED chief Sanjay Mishra is ending in November this year. He was first appointed as ED Director in November 2018 for 2 years, then he was given one year extension from 2020. After this, in November 2021, the Central Government brought an ordinance by changing the ‘Central Vigilance Commissioner Act’ so that another extension of tenure could be given to Sanjay Mishra. Notably, Sanjay Mishra is a 1984 batch revenue service officer. He is also in charge of the ongoing ED investigation on 95 percent of the opposition leaders. This list of opposition leaders is very long which includes big names like Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka, Robert Vadra, DK Shivkumar, Hemant Soren, Farooq, Umar and Mehbooba Mufti, Anil Deshmukh.

Congress is on cloud nine after the Karnataka victory. Sources reveal that now Priyanka is going to shift from UP to Madhya Pradesh. This can also be gauged from the fact that in the past, Priyanka has locked her office at Rae Bareli Road in Lucknow. Her entire team has now shifted from Lucknow to Delhi. It is believed that very soon the team will be shifted to Bhopal. Sources also reveal that ‘along with being the National General Secretary of the Congress, very soon Priyanka is going to get the responsibility of the National Women’s Congress as well.’ Apart from this, Priyanka will also have a lot of interference in the organizational matters of the Congress. Priyanka is going to play an important role in the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, and if sources are to be believed, Priyanka can also be made the head of the campaign committee. If sources related to Priyanka are to be believed then she will start the campaign from Gwarighat in Jabalpur district where she will do a road show of more than 3 kilometers after Narmada Pujan. Notably, Gwarighat is situated on the banks of Narmada River, and it is believed that Guru Nanak Dev Ji also visited here.

It is said that there is no bigger lesson than failures. In the last 9 years, Congress has also learned the biggest lesson from its failures that its mass base is cracking on the ground, its organization is suffering from termites, its people are turning to other parties. So, in order to strengthen its booth management, the Congress has made preparations to hand over its responsibility to its senior leader DP Rai. Rai is a grassroots leader from West Bengal who has been a Congress MLA from Jalpaiguri and Alipore Gate, a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1984 to 1990, besides holding many responsibilities in the Congress organization. DP Rai can be entrusted with the task of training Congress workers, who will train the cadre of Congress Seva Dal, Mahila Congress, NSUI and Youth Congress and teach them booth management. Till now the responsibility of running the training center in Congress was on Sachin Rao, who has been running the training center of Congress in Wardha, Maharashtra. But DP Rai believes that ‘what is the need for every Congress worker to go to Wardha for training, when they can organize such training camps in different states.’ Rai was once marginalized in Congress politics, because he always opposed the alliance of Congress with the Left, while Rahul Gandhi’s view in this matter has been slightly different as Rahul has been a big fan of Left politics.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar wants to declare his MP daughter Supriya Sule as his political heir due to his health reasons. Perhaps that is why Pawar had recently resigned from his post as NCP chief, wanting to “turn himself into a guide by handing over the chair of NCP chief to his daughter.” He called his nephew Ajit Pawar and wanted to explain that Ajit should keep his focus in Maharashtra politics and Supriya should write the script of expansion of NCP at the national level, but Ajit did not agree on this. On the contrary, he threatened that “if Supriya is declared the NCP president, he will join the BJP along with most of the party’s MLAs.” This is the reason why Pawar had to withdraw his resignation to adopt a middle-of-the-road posture. On the other hand, the BJP is also having to reconsider its strategies due to the recent decision of the Supreme Court on the Shinde government of Maharashtra. Otherwise, if the Supreme Court had declared the Shinde government unconstitutional, the BJP would have got a unique opportunity to get rid of Shinde. The BJP knows it cannot win Maharashtra with Shinde on its shoulders, so party strategists from within had established contact with disgruntled NCP leader Ajit Pawar, who would have been made the deputy chief minister in the new BJP government led by Devendra Fadnavis. This coalition was ready to be formed, but the recent decision of the court ruined the intentions of both the parties.

The picture that was emerging in Karnataka since the time of election campaign, the election results also came out similar to this. In Kalyan Karnataka, Kittur and South Karnataka, the Congress hit the ground as expected. The BJP was successful in making the lotus bloom in Coastal Karnataka and Bengaluru. JDS stronghold itself has been breached at many places. It also seemed that instead of counting its development works, the BJP got trapped in the web woven by the Congress, so instead of raising legitimate issues, it picked up the ‘mace of Bajrang Bali’. In fact, while deciding the manifesto of the Congress, it was agreed that the Congress would ban organizations that divide the society on the basis of religion. But G. Parameshwara, the Chairman of the Manifesto Committee, deliberately inserted the names of Bajrang Dal and PFI in it, so that the BJP would be embroiled in the issue of ‘Bajrang Bali’ and that is exactly what happened.

The rounds of allegations and counter-allegations are on between BJP vs Congress in Karnataka elections. Central leader Smriti Irani is now campaigning for the Karnataka elections. When she went to Amethi, she shouted that ‘when Priyanka Gandhi had gone to Amethi for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she was seen offering Namaz in a street there.’ After this statement of Smriti, there was a ruckus and social media started talking about this. The investigation of the matter started. Then it was concluded that this picture was of a dargah, where Priyanka is praying with her hands raised. After this, Congress’s ‘E-Sena’ also became active. They also searched and found such photographs of BJP leaders where their hands were also raised in prayer. Pictures of many BJP leaders praying and reciting Kalma in some dargah have come to the fore and in these pictures veteran leaders of BJP like PM Modi, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda are included. In another picture, Modi and Smriti Irani are seen offering chadar on a tomb.

Astik Narayan, a Delhi government school student who surprised everyone by scoring 100 percentile in JEE Mains in his very first attempt, became an opportunity for the AAP government in Delhi to ‘substantiate their claim that the Government schools have been rejuvenated.’ Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who is on the target of the opposition these days for his 45 crore government residence, wanted to seize this opportunity. So, he told his team that he would like to present Astik an inspiring biography of Babasaheb Ambedkar. His team got to work and a book was unanimously chosen – Ambedkar: A Life, which was written by Shashi Tharoor, who is now a big leader of Congress. When this book was brought to Kejriwal’s notice, he hesitated a bit, he was indecisive that ‘by giving a biography written by a Congress leader, a political meaning should not be drawn from it. So this book was replaced in a haste with an alternative. The book was examined and the book Kejriwal presented to Astik at a function organized in his office was ‘Becoming Baba Saheb Ambedkar’ written by Akash Singh Rathore.

In the Karnataka elections, as the election dates are getting closer, the ideological bankruptcy of the ruling party is also getting exposed. When the Congress talked about banning Bajrang Dal and PFI, organizations that spread hatred and venom, the BJP campaign leader made it a big election issue by linking it to Bajrang Bali. He also talked about the recently released propaganda film ‘Kerala Express’ but even this did not seem to increase the election fever. Now the Congress is raising the issue of Goa, the neighboring state of Karnataka, that ‘when Manohar Parrikar was in power there, they had banned the entry of ‘Shri Ram Sena’, which advocates Hindu rights in the state, into Goa, and the same ban continues unabated during the BJP government there. Congress is asking, ‘Is this a ban imposed on Shri Ram?’ In an interview given to a channel, Sareshwala said that ‘Once upon a time, Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal used to rule in Ahmedabad. VHP’s annual jalsa was held here, and more than 5 lakh Hindus used to participate in it. When Praveen Togadia used to reach Ahmedabad airport, a convoy of 200 vehicles used to accompany him. Modi came and ended their terror. Why is the saffron star making the same Bajrang Dal an election issue today? This is the biggest question.’

Chhattisgarh’s Congress Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel seems quite confident about his comeback in the coming assembly elections. Anyway, the main opposition party of the state BJP is still not visible in its colors there. BJP’s strong leader in the state and former Chief Minister Dr. Raman Singh is not seen as active in the politics of the state due to his health reasons. BJP’s hopes have dimmed here after another prominent leader of Chhattisgarh, Nand Kumar Sai, who is considered very close to PM Modi, left BJP and joined Congress in recent days. The BJP top has also conducted several opinion polls in the state on its behalf, and in all these surveys, the popularity of Baghel has grown exponentially. In fact, with the public welfare policies and schemes launched one after the other by the Baghel government, a new class of voters has been created, who want to give one more chance to Bhupesh Baghel as Chief Minister. On the other hand, TS Singhdeo, who is considered a staunch opponent of Baghel in the Congress, is still said to be in constant touch with the BJP, but the local unit of the BJP is not very enthusiastic about him. Local BJP workers are not liking Singhdeo’s royal lifestyle. Since Singhdeo belongs to a royal family, his style of doing politics is also a bit different. He doesn’t fit into grassroots politics that much. So, at present, in Chhattisgarh it is being felt that the magic of Congress is being created in the minds of the voters.