The Congress had to let go off the Delhi Sultanate, and has also lost the faith of a big media house. No less than nine news channels were made a call from the Congress office, asking them to stop the live telecast of Modi’s speech from Australia. They were told to relay Sonia’s speech instead. A couple of channels showed some parts of Sonia’s speech but channels that see nothing but TRP ratings, could not stop themselves from showing Modi’s speech live.

After the arrest of Haryana self-styled godman Rampal, it is being said that Haryana’s former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been calling his journalist friends that this matter should not in any way feature his wife Asha Hooda’s name. It is being speculated that Asha Hooda was pretty impressed with Rampal and even considered him her guru. That is the reason Rampal was so safe in Haryana for so long. Rampal was being blessed by Hooda, and he did whatever he wanted to. At the same time, followers of Rampal feel that their guru was not supported by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who had allegedly assured Rampal that he will try speaking to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and sort out the issue.

After Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha member Srinjoy Bose was arrested by the CBI in the Saradha chitfund scam, the sword hangs ominously over six other ministers and Didi is gradually feeling the heat, too. Transport Minister Madan Mitra has already been interrogated by the CBI, and he was so terrified after Srinjoy’s arrest that he got himself admitted to Belle Vue’s ICU. The CBI has given the doctor a warning that if Mitra is found healthy, action will be taken against the doctors, too, and the scared doctors shifted Mitra from the ICU the very next day. A worried Mitra has now gotten himself admitted to a government hospital. But the question is, until when?

Raj Thackeray’s dreams have been crushed with the results of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra. A joke about his party is doing the round on social media, which says that the MNS is on sale on OLX but no one is willing to buy it. Now Raj is trying hard to get into the Shiv Sena with all his other party members; the Shiv Sena is not seeing sunny days either at present. Raj is also said to be miffed with his special friend Nitin Gadkari, who had assured Raj before the elections that the BJP was ready to leave 60 seats for his party for the elections. But when Gadkari had Shah speak to Raj just before the elections, he was offered only seven seats in Mumbai as part of the alliance. Raj took offence to this and asked how he could contest the elections on seven seats when he had 13 Assembly members? And especially when Gadkari ji had given an offer for 60 seats? Shah apparently placated Raj saying, “You must have heard wrong. Even Nitin ji wouldn’t have said 60 seats for seven.” Shah’s foresightedness can be gauged with the elections results.

Few days ago, former party in-charge of Haryana Kailash Vijayvargiya took party’s 30 Assembly members who won the elections as well as those 10 who had lost to Dera Sachha Sauda. He also didn’t forget to thank them.

When it comes to making the fine balance of political equations within the party, SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav has a thing or two to teach to the best of them. A youth leader Javed Ali Khan, who came with Mitrasen Yadav about two decades ago, was inducted into the Rajya Sabha by Netaji and he didn’t let his old associate Azam Khan’s protests on this. Javed belong to Sambhal in UP and has Leftist leanings when it comes to politics and was also the general secretary at Jamia Milia Islamia during his student days. He wanted to contest the previous Lok Sabha elections, but Azam took away his chances by giving the ticket to Virk who had come to SP from the BSP. This time when Azam sensed than Yadav wants to send Javed to the Upper House, he met Netaji and told him that Javed had worked against the assigned candidate of the party during the Lok Sabha elections. But trying to maintain a political balance, Netaji sent Javed as well as Azam’s wife to the Upper House. Now Azam doesn’t have an excuse to say anything and a message was sent with this to the party cadre that a common worker with the SP can become a member of the Rajya Sabha.

These six ministers are the flavor of the season in Modi’s Cabinet – Arun Jaitley, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Nirmala Seetharaman. As a result, several important proposals by prominent senior ministers are still on the backburner.

When Modi met Nita Ambani in Mumbai, he talked about his constituency’s deep heritage and cultural roots in such an impressive way that she told Modi she would like to celebrate her birthday — which fell last Saturday — in Varanasi. For this, about 35 members of Ambani family flew down to the city in half-a-dozen private jets and Nita went to Baba Vishwanath’s Temple. She also participated in the Ganga aarti with Mukesh . The family also enjoyed the city’s street food and celebrated Nita’s birthday in Varanasi. Not to be outdone, Akhilesh’s government gave Nita and Mukesh Ambani the status of state guests.

The DoPT had given instructions to all ministries and departments on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that they should post before and after pictures of the campaign. They should then post these canteen pictures on their ministry’s website so that everyone can see the difference. The pictures are on, but they all are from after October 2.

Sonia Gandhi’s worries are also about the fact that there is no person between her and Modi who can act as a mediator or messenger. Brajesh Mishra took care of this duty ably during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s times, who had a direct connect with Sonia through Natwar Singh.