Is Aam Aadmi Party and its boss, Arvind Kejriwal likely to lose their rule over Delhi due to his direct personal attacks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi? It is being said that Modi’s blue-eyed boy and party strategy master Amit Shah has already prepared his ground plan for this, and if things go as he has planned, Kejriwal and AAP might soon see their powers gone. This seemed plausible also from the statement of BJP’s Delhi in-charge Shyam Jaju, who has said that there may be a change in power in Delhi over the next three or four months. After the crippling defeat in the by-poll at Rajouri Garden, AAP has just 66 MLAs. Of them, three or four are embroiled in court cases. Meanwhile, the fate of the 21 MLAs of AAP is hanging fire, and if the Election Commission sends them packing, then around 15 other party MLAs might swing. They are already in contact with the BJP, aided and abetted by Kejriwal’s former comrade and now the head of the Swaraj Party, Yogendra Yadav, and the now disgruntled AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, sources reveal. BJP is clearly all set to strike, with the crunch time being when the internecine clash within AAP ripens to an imploding point.

It is learnt that a few days ago, Arvind Kejriwal was visited at his home by three AAP stalwarts, Sanjay Singh, Ashish Khetan and Ashutosh, with the now annoyed Kumar Vishwas in tow. The four of them clearly told Kejriwal that now the AAP has to give up its negative politics. Apparently, after the Rajouri Garden voters swept out AAP in the recent bypolls, Kejri had launched a high-pitched campaign against “tampered EVMs. Now the foursome told him that this has to stop for good. Sources say also that during this core committee meeting, it was Kumar Vishwas who was the loudest, and he clearly hit back in revenge.

Now, don’t be surprised… don’t suck in a lung full of hot air and turn your lips into a perfect ‘O’! Kamal Nath, one of the tallest Congress leaders might just be joining the Bharatiya Janata Party. And it is not just he.
The birds in the lawns of 11 Ashok Road are now singing aloud. It is no longer a case of some small-time Delhi party leaders like Arvinder Singh Lovely or Barkha Singh joining the Khakiwallahs. It seems many Congress giants are conducting hectic parleys to get into the saffron outfit. That includes Kamal Nath, Narayan Rane and even BK Hari Prasad!
Apparently, Nath has been terribly upset that he has less say in Madhya Pradesh’s party command than the Young Turk Jyotiraditya Scindia. In any case the party has been badly fractured in the state for some time now.
Scuttlebutt is that BJP MP from Saharanpur Raghav Lakhanpal has been softening the ground for Kamal Nath’s entry. Lakhanpal also happens to be a close family relative of Nath. Lakhnpal is said to have established Kamal Nath’s direct contact with BJP supremo Amit Shah through a Maharashtra top gun Parliamentarian.
So what’s the delay? Well, people in the know say that Kamal Nath’s fans want him to get a Rajya Sabha seat and a ministerial role to play, which some BJP seniors are finding difficult to gulp.
About Narayan Rane, grapevine is that he has for long established a hotline with the BJP high command and it is the right timing for his entry that is being calculated.
The biggest surprise, though, is BK Hari Prasad, a kitchen garden of the Sonia coterie, waiting in the queue to join BJP. The debate is what will the Congress biggies bring to the BJP table.
I rest my case by writing that if the captains of Congress are jumping off the sinking ship, then the smaller mice will follow suit, naturally!

The usual rot in the political system does not take long to start, and Yogi Adityanath, who has shown so much spunk in the first few days of his CM ship in Uttar Pradesh, is no exception. The Thakur leader of firebrand ultra-Hinduism is packing the state with Thakurs in positions of power. He is not only going to grant reservation to Thakurs, but his caste-men are everywhere. He has launched on a very focused policy of appointments and transfers. The following list – tip of the proverbial iceberg though it may be – confirms this.
The principal secretary to the CM is Mrityunjay Kumar Singh, secretary is Amit Kumar Singh, and the state police boss is Sulkhan Singh. Need we say more? Though there is more.

Top sources in the BJP reveal that just two weeks after the party washing out rival parties in the UP polls party boss Amit Shah had met one of his favourite survey agencies in Mumbai. Mission: Estimate the party’s prospects in the 2019 general elections.
A few days ago, the agency submitted its final report, which can run a fresh dose of elixir through the saffron brigade. It predicts 311 Lok Sabha seats for the BJP alone in 2019. Over all, the survey says, the NDA will bag 367 seats. Though it is a possibility now that Rahul Gandhi will soon be anointed president of the Congress, his party is set to lick the dust, the surveys says, with just 39 seats across the country.
In states like West Bengal too, there is a bumper win ahead, survey suggests, where BJP is slated to snatch 12 out of the 42 seats. Interestingly, the party’s seats may come down from 73 to 59 in UP, but it is poised to open the innings in states where it has been a rank outsider so far, with expected nine seats in Assam, one in Kerala and 32 seats from Bihar. In Karnataka, as many as 21 of the 29 seats may land in its lap. Most strangely, the survey shows that in many seats, Dalits and Muslims are with BJP. So therefore, it is going to be a brighter horizon for the saffron party after 2019, it seems.

The survey agency had many questions that were to deal with the comparative popularity graphs of RaGa and NaMo, but the picture is so abysmally against the former, that it is just polite to skim over it. Rather, the agency had, in the light of the fact that many states will be going to the polls before 2019, tried to assess the BJP’s future there. It seems Modism is set to hit the skies: the saffron flag is set to fly over states like Gujarat, Himachal and other states. It is way ahead in states like Tripura and Karnataka, and in Odisha too, the party is going to shine, the survey assured Shah. But the shocker is that in what people once used to call the Red Bastion, in West Bengal, it is doubtful if the CPIM will even be able open its account. It will likely get just four seats across the country, two in Tripura and two in Kerala. So the Left seems to be right out!

Everything is not hunky-dory with the Trivendra Singh Rawat government in Uttarakhand. Discontent is already brewing within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party every day. Firstly, the turncoats Congressmen who had joined the party in droves and became MLAs have started throwing tantrums. But even worse, discontent is rampant among BJP own leaders as well. People like three-term MLA Swami Yatishwaranand, who defeated the last Chief Minister Harish Rawat by over 12,000 votes, and Rajesh Shukla, who too defeated Rawat from Kichha, have been served cold shoulders. None of them is in the ministry of the state BJP government. Though the party had given tickets to a large number of Vijay Bahuguna loyalists, but even his son Saurabh was denied a ministership. Even the sprinkling of Bahuguna supporters who were included in the cabinet was given lightweight ministries. The first ever Speaker of the state Assembly, Harbans Kapoor too did not get a seat in the ministry. BJP legislators are also miffed with Om Prakash, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, whose writ runs large in the government. And thus, there’s fire in the hills!

Journalist Hemant Sharma, whose meteoric rise under the BJP dispensation has been quite a spectacle, arranged for his daughter’s engagement ceremony in Hotel Taj Mansingh in the national capital recently. It was quite a galaxy of high profile politicos. Sharma’s daughter Ishani is a law graduate, while her fiancé is an IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. The occasion, however, brought to fore some comic reliefs. For instance, the two estranged brothers of the Samajwadi Party, Shivpal Yadav and Ram Gopal Yadav, both reached the venue at the same time; both of them alighted the dais to bless the couple together; both stole glances at each other, but none spoke to the other. Two bitter rivals and Congress stalwarts too had a similar comedy of errors: Janardan Dwivedi and Motilal Vohra too reached the venue at the same time and were on the stage together. None spoke. Likewise was the case for two other rivals, Pramod Tiwari and Naresh Agrawal.

Just about a week ago, Priyanka Gandhi was readying the family for a trip to Ranthambore National Park. Her son was in the meanwhile recovering from his eye problem, and coincidentally, Priyanka got a new insight into things. Sources within the Gandhi family say that Priyanka invited a handful of the old family loyalists for tea. Of them, one was a fabled technocrat; the second was erstwhile a big-time journalist and editor in an important English daily newspaper. What transpired in her own chai pe charcha was this: She reminded the gathering that they have been friends of the Gandhi family since the days of her grandmother, Late Indira Gandhi. But, she said, these are rather bad times for the party. She said that she has full faith in the abilities of her dear brother Rahul. And she wants that he should be declared the party president soon and given the full responsibility of the Congress. The party will fight the 2019 general elections under him. And if that gambit fails, she herself will enter fulltime politics. Priyanka also told them that Robert Vadra (her husband) is very keen on entering active politics. She also dropped a hint that the family desires Robert to contest the Lok Sabha polls from the Moradabad constituency. It is learnt that after the tea meet ended, these loyalists went to a famous restaurant in Khan Market and unanimously lamented that even worse days are awaited for the Congress!

During the recent polls in the five states, a seasoned politician, who had once also been the chief minister of a state, lost all his money to a businessman friend. It is learnt that just before the elections, this ex-CM had wanted a few of his friends to keep a huge sum of money he had stored. He had entrusted his son to reach the monies to these various friends. But the former CM’s son went ahead and handed over all the money to just one of his father’s businessman friends. The ex-CM had anticipated that after the elections, there would be a hung assembly, and in that eventuality, he would use the money to buy MLAs from other parties. But that hope was dashed. So the ex-CM wanted his money back, and he despatched his son to the friend. But the business man loudly lamented and said that to keep the money safe, he had put it all in a sack and hidden it in his grains godown. But alas, he later found that rats have chewed away all the notes. The bewildered son asked, so how much has been lost? At that the wails of the businessman went a few pitches higher: “Nothing, nothing at all… oh God! What will I do now?” So then ex-CM saab told his friend to return the money in instalments. But the friend said, “How can I? That was a huge sum of money. Had it been four or five crore, I could have even thought about it. But that kind of money I just don’t have!” And now the politico is growling at his son day in and day out for putting all the eggs in one basket.