After the victory in four out of the five states that went to the polls recently and sustained the saffron wave beyond 2014, the aspirations of the new fuehrer of India have started kissing the stars. In his recent visit to home state Gujarat, Narendra Modi spent two nights, of which one was spent exclusively with just a handful of his most trusted lieutenants. There were just 18 people in the meeting, of which 12 were the topmost BJP leaders of the state; three were RSS leaders believed to be very trusted by Modi; and three were from the India Foundation, led by Shaurya Doval. The level of secrecy Modi wanted was such that he told the invitees that they should hire taxis to the venue and not use their own cars, so that no one, especially the media, could sniff out who all were meeting him. And guess what the meeting was about? Though the Gujarat state polls are way off, in end-January 2018, Modi has decided to make another complete sweep. And we are told by the flies on the wall that it could very well be advanced to cash in on the current Modi mania. This he made clear in the meeting. Sources say that a day earlier, he had summoned all the party MPs from Gujarat and told them to start poll preps right away. And now it seems after the confidential Gujarat meet that the polls may be held this July or August. He told the invitees at his Gandhinagar meeting that from now, he would be visiting the state at least twice a month and personally oversee the preparations. When one of the invitees commented that the Aam Aadmi Party is raking up the issue of tampered electronic voting machines, Modi very softly and very firmly said: “Do not bother about such things. This will be historic victory for us.” Those who are close to Modi know it very well that before any election, he never misses paying obeisance to Lord Shiva at the Somnath Temple. Over the past few months, Modi has visited Gujarat seven times. And during his visit on March 8, he went to Somnath. The signals are clear then, that Gujarat is headed for the polls this mid-year!

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi seems really worried about how to usher in his much needed image makeover. Though he was licked in the state polls in UP, he is now determined to emerge at the international level as a high class intellectual. And he and his personal office are fully engaged in that effort. People deep inside reveal that led by Sashi Tharoor, RaGa’s office is in constant touch with the Oxford University. They want that Rahul should be invited to deliver a lecture over there. Though Rahul’s alma mater is Cambridge Univ, there is no disputing that when it comes to catching global political attention, there is no replacement for Oxford, which is why the constant interaction with the Oxford Union. Our sources say that Tharoor and the secretary of the Union have even had a one-to-one meeting. But scuttlebutt is that the other members of the Union are not too hot on inviting Rahul. They feel that RaGa’s smeared social media image is not right for him to be invited. Besides, they also apprehend that inviting him may not go down well with the university’s students either. Naturally, the authorities want to very sure of what they want to do. Given these circumstances, two top Indian British billionaires, Sir Swaraj Paul and the Hinduja brothers, had been requested to persuade the caucus at Oxford to organise the lecture. But it seems the two – who have given huge funds to Oxford in the past – have not exactly shown any exciting response.

All the fiery anti-Modi regional satraps, including Akhilesh, Lalu, Mayawati, Mamata and others had perhaps realised well before the poll results, that out of the five states being counted, it may well-nigh be impossible to stop the lotus from blooming in four states. And as and when the initial trends started showing up on TV on March 11, one by one they all called up Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and wanted him to raise the issue of doctored EVMs. It was also decided that to up the ante on this, Kejriwal would hold a press conference in the afternoon of March 11. But the latter postponed holding the media meet till the next day, for he needed to understand the full mechanism of how EVMs can be tinkered. To do that, sources say, Kejriwal summoned his friend Shreekant from Hyderabad. Apparently, the techie had studied in IIT with Kejriwal. The friend reached Delhi and gave a complete demo to Kejriwal on how the machines can be tampered with. It is only after that, that Kejriwal held his PC.

Though the saffron wave is everywhere at its crest, there seems to be a great deal of turmoil in its Delhi nest. Sources reveal that it is daggers drawn between Delhi party president Manoj Tiwari and State General Secretary (Org) Siddharthan. Shyam Jaju, the powerful BJP mandarin from Delhi, and Siddharthan want Tiwari’s hands off all state issues of the party, and him to focus only on the party’s agitprop. But Tiwari wants a clear say in all the important issues of the state unit, including his decisive say on the distribution of tickets for the upcoming municipal elections in the city-state. Tiwari also wants a control over allocation of responsibilities in the state unit. But little birds coo that the top BJP bosses also want Tiwari to just remain satisfied being the face of the party.

The saffron ship is riding the waves in the wake of the landslide victory in UP and Uttrakhand elections. The BJP has swept clean in UP after 3 decades. And the “Chanakya” of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Amit Shah has now set his eyes for the 2019 general elections on the remote and small states of the country where the lotus had never bloomed before. First, the success at a coalition government in Assam, then winning back Arunachal and now The Shah has set his sight on the tiny state of Tripura. In the state, every evening, the BJP youth wing takes out rallies, which not just stamp the saffron brigade’s intentions, but more so, the shouts of “Modi-Modi” rends the air. It is a fact that the fight to secure the last Left bastion in the form of Tripura lies in the hands of the redoubtable Manik Sarkar, and besides, the elections in the state are still a year or so away. But the storm trooping by the BJP apparatchiks in the hill state shows just one thing: that Shah is hell bent on securing each and every seat for Modi in the 2019 polls. Every seat is important. The Left is, of course, blaming the handiwork of the state Governor, Tathagat Roy behind this. Roy was once the head of the West Bengal unit of the BJP and is a staunch RSS person, and he has learned the political tricks of winning elections from the Left itself. But the saffron brigade is shielding His Excellency from such scud missiles, insisting that the Left are saying all this out of sheer frustration.

The RSS has come forward to boost the poll victories of the BJP with a sinister plan of its own. It is not only preparing the ground for the Lotus to flower, but spicing it up with ‘culture’ and its pet theme, ‘nationalism’. To take this campaign forward, the Sangh is looking into new and unique methods, such as a film festival. The Sangh will be holding a series of short-film festivals, which will kick-start from the land of Didi, Mamata Banerjee, who is at the moment completely swept away by her honeymoon with the minority community. This new initiative has been named ‘Manush Chai” (People Desire), and as of going to print, some 50 applications have been received for films to be hosted in the fest. This is being seen as a major step by the Sangh, and its media wing, “Vishwa Samvad Kendra” is very busy organising this. They are saying the fest is in the ideals of Swami Vivekanand. All this is fine. But when the hue of prejudice taints the lenses and narrow idealism self-censors creativity, it is evident that no meaningful cinema will grace the silver screen.

There is a tectonic shift awaiting in the apex body of babudom. Apparently, the top trusted lieutenant of PM Modi, PK Mishra has put in his papers. He has said that age is getting the better of him. Mishra, a 1972-batch IAS officer, who had served Modi as Principal Secretary in Gujarat for 13 years when Modi was CM there and considered the ears and eyes of the PM, reportedly met Modi sometime ago and said he wants it out, as his health was not permitting the rigours. As such, he is one of Modi’s most trusted and is believed to be a workaholic, just as he was in Gujarat. Mishra is even now seen to be working from 9 in the morning till about 11 pm, day in and day out, at the PMO. There is a misconception that the appointments to meet the PM are cleared by Bhaskar Khulbe, but this is, as said, a pure misconception. The fact remains that all these appointments are cleared by Mishra. Now that the most powerful babu in the country has put the ball in Modi’s court, it remains to be seen whether the PM takes a call or hits the ball straight hand.

नौकरशाही के व्योम में धूमकेतु से चमकने वाले प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी के आंख-नाक-कान माने जाने वाले गुजरात कैडर के 1972 बैच के आईएएस अफसर पी के मिश्रा अब अपने पद से रिटायर होना चाहते हैं। विश्वस्त सूत्रों के हवाले से जानकारी मिली है कि अभी चंद रोज पूर्व मिश्रा ने प्रधानमंत्री से मिल कर अपने स्वास्थ्य का हवाला देते हुए पद मुक्त होने की इच्छा जताई है। समझा जाता है कि मिश्रा के इस आग्रह से स्वयं प्रधानमंत्री भी एक पल को भौच्चक रह गए। क्योंकि यह मिश्रा ही हैं जो मोदी के गुजरात के अभ्युदय काल से उनके सबसे भरोसेमंद अफसरों में शुमार होते हैं, उन्होंने लगभग 13 वर्ष तक गुजरात में मोदी के साथ काम किया है, मोदी के मुख्यमंत्रित्व काल में मिश्रा उनके प्रिंसिपल सेक्रेटरी रह चुके हैं। उनके बारे में माना जाता है कि वे भी पीएम मोदी की तरह न सिर्फ धुन के पक्के हैं बल्कि उतने ही बड़े ’वर्कोहोलिक’ (काम के मद में चूर) हैं, मिश्रा को आज भी सुबह 9 बजे से रात के ग्यारह बजे तक पीएमओ में काम करते हुए देखा जा सकता है। एक आम भ्रांति है कि पीएम के मुलाकातियों को उनके सचिव भास्कर खुल्बे समय देते हैं, पर अंदर की जानकारी है कि यह काम भी पीके द्वारा ही अंजाम दिया जाता है। अब पीके की बॉल मोदी के पाले में है, जो सियासत के सबसे माहिर खिलाड़ी हैं और बखूबी जानते हैं कि बॉल को गोल पोस्ट में डालने का सबसे माकूल वक्त कौन सा है।

The norms and protocol of the Union Ministry of Finance says that any file for approval is generated from the lower echelons, may be the joint secretary levels, climbs the stairs, gets clearance from the secretary, and is then sent to the PMO, from where the final seal is put. No longer, it seems. With the change of guard at the top post of the executive, now the files on crucial decisions are first incubated in the PMO, and then skis down the hill slope to the Finance Ministry, via the most powerful bureaucrat in PMO, Nripendra Misra. Reliable sources affirm that then the files are taken by hand by Bhaskar Khulbe to the FinMin and the minister is asked to sign on. Then the files return, by ‘hand courier’, a la Khulbe. And in the meanwhile, officials in the FinMin look askance as to who took all the decisions!

वित्त मंत्रालय के मान्य परंपराओं और प्रोटोकॉल के मुताबिक पहले कोई भी फाइल नीचे से ऊपर मूव होती थी उसके बाद अनुमोदन के लिए पीएमओ में भेजी जाती रही है। लेकिन दिल्ली में निज़ाम बदलने के साथ-साथ और सत्ता के शीर्ष पर नरेंद्र मोदी के अभ्युदय के बाद इस पुरानी परंपरा ने यू-टर्न ले लिया है। ताजा बदले घटनाओं में अब ये तमाम अहम फाइलें पहले पीएमओ में शक्ल पाती हैं और उसके बाद पीएमओ के सर्वशक्तिमान नृपेंद्र मिश्र के पास जाती है। विश्वस्त सूत्र बताते हैं कि इसके बाद इन अनुमोदित फाइलों को पीएम के सचिव भास्कर खुल्बे ’बाय हेंड’ वित्त मंत्री जेटली के पास ले कर जाते हैं उनकी दस्तख्त के लिए। और इसके बाद फाइल पुनः पीएमओ में लौट आती है और नीतियों की प्रत्यंचा पर तीर को कस दिया जाता है। फाइनेंस मिनिस्ट्री को वाकई पता ही नहीं चल पाता कि आखिर वित्त मंत्रालय के हवाले से ये हो क्या रहा है।

The bumper victory in Maharashtra has added new vigour to the BJP cadre in Uttar Pradesh and the decision to announce celebration of Victory Day- ‘Vijay Diwas’ across the country has fully charged the batteries of the party men. Initially there were some Doubting Thomas within the party itself who were unsure how wise it would be to hold these rallies in UP, where the poll process is ongoing, and Manipur, where elections will be held in two phases on March 4 and 8. Some top leaders were worried about that the Election Commission might clamp down on this. Finally, the decision was left to be taken by party president Amit Shah. BJP social engineering in UP is by now well known. It is common knowledge that the party had started its UP preparations much ahead in time. And Shah had his ears to the ground and knew well that the forward castes are waiting to press the Lotus Button. Hence, he decided to focus on the non-Yadav backward castes. Foisting Keshav Prasad Maurya as the state party boss clearly showed this caste engineering. The party has big ‘Lodh’ faces to showcase in Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati. But allying with the smaller parties the BJP drew in some lower caste Kurmi votes. In Om Prakash Rajbhar, they have a magnet for the Rajbhar caste. In addition, it is learnt that it has successfully wooed away some stalwart leaders of other parties. This trick had delivered in the case of Jagdambika Pal and some other leaders in the 2014 general elections. This game plan has delivered in Maharashtra and the party seems confident that it will do so in UP as well.

With the elections rolling out in five states, some of the sharp ministers in the Modi government have made it a point to project the work their ministries have done. Among them is the minister for minority affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. In the campus of his Kharak Singh Marg office, Naqvi has organised a ‘Hunar Haat’, or talent fete. And it is not just the artisans and craftsmen who are showing off their talents. A whole lot of cooks from the community from across the country are dishing out their choice food items, with the rider that they will use neither beef, nor pork in their cuisine. The two-week festival was punctuated by MahaShivratri, and for good measure, Naqvi summoned the leaders of the nearly two dozen food stalls and told them on that day, they will serve only pure vegetarian food. And not just that, for those in vrat they were told to prepare special ‘vrat thalies’. Naqvi now plans to take this festival on an all-India tour. Besides, the minister plans to organise a shayari and ghazal evening at the iconic Purana Qila and will name it ‘Sada-e-Sadbhav’, to showcase the long history of communal harmony in the country.