The Congress is trying all it can to make Rahul’s image shine as compared to NaMo. Congress’ war room, situated at Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, is recruiting fresh blood under the leadership of Deependra Hooda. Most of the new recruits have been brought in to take care of social media. It is worth mentioning here that the BJP’s war room too has more than 100 people taking care of social media responsibilities and take care of tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Hangout, Google Plus, YouTube and Podcost. Where choosing strategies for election campaigning is concerned, Rahul is behind Modi and there has been no meetings about it for the past four months. All important decisions about election campaigns are taken by Jairam Ramesh, Suman Dubey and Kanishka Singh, thus marginalising those who are a part of the campaign committee. Kanishka and Rahul are on the same wavelength here and feel that advertising and perception management companies can work better where at understanding election communications. Here, Rahul has a great believe of the tactics adopted by Obama and Aam Aadmi Party.

Can Modi’s magic wane? A few days ago, a prominent survey agency conducted a people’s opinion survey in six states and the results are shocking – in Bihar, where BJP’s clean sweep was being taken for granted, the party has shrunk to a mere 12-14 Lok Sabha seats. In Bihar, Lalu, Congress, Ramvilas and Tariq’s coalition seems to be getting nearly two dozen seats. Nitish’s JD (U) might get only three seats. In Jharkhand, too, the BJP is facing trouble protecting its existing number of seats and it might be limited to four seats there. In Delhi, AAP is ahead in the race in five of the seven seats. There is also a direct face off between the Congress and AAP in Haryana, too. In Mumbai alone, AAP’s seats have reached a 17 per cent share. This percentage may increase in the days to come. Which means Kejriwal has the power to sabotage Modi’s dreams.

Lalu is having to do a lot of hard work to make an upset Ramvilas Paswan come around. Ramvilas took offence to RJD’s senior leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s comment where he gave a zero to Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party. The RJD and Lok Janshkati Party are already in a tussle about seat sharing. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Lalu had given Ramvilas 12 seats in Bihar, and Paswan wants the same number of seats this year, too, while Lalu and his team wants to give him only four-six seats this time, with the reasoning that  Lok Janshakti party didn’t have enough candidates for elections. The fact is that this time, the Congress and the NCP are also a part of the Lalu-Paswan coalition. When things went  awry, and some of JD (U)’s politicians started to do the rounds to Paswan, Lalu sprung into action and he sent Abdul Bari Siddiqui to Ramvilas Paswan’s home. Abdul Bari had Paswan speak to Lalu from there, and Lalu spoken in a conciliatory tone and told Paswan, “We are old friends, we have fought elections in tough conditions. There are lot of possibilities for us this time, and if we contest together, we can defeat everyone.” Paswan is all molten wax now, all he needs is Lalu for a mould.

For Team Kejriwal, the Delhi crown may turn out to be one full of thorns. Kejriwal’s intentions are good and pure, but it will not be easy for him to clean up the systems. The question is how will be manage to validate his claim that the past government will be investigated for corruption. Kejriwal neither has the CBI, nor Delhi Police. He will have to rely fully on the Anti Corruption Bureau, whose head is Delhi’s additional police commissioner, Delhi Police is under Central government. All in all, he will only have Lokayukta to rely on. Whatever decision the Lokayukta takes, Chief Minister Kejriwal may only add an enquiry to it.

In the meeting of  General Secretaries at Rajnath Singh’s residence, Ananth Kumar tried to gain everyone’s attention by talking about Aam Aadmi Party and openly said that the BJP didn’t take all the warnings about the party prior to the Assembly elections in Delhi. The result of it was now in front of everyone and the BJP wants to repeat the same mistake in the Lok Sabha elections. Ananth said that even if AAP fails to win not many  Lok Sabha seats, it does have the potential to ruin the BJP’s best laid plans to nought. In Bengaluru alone,  AAP can get one lakh to 1.25 lakh votes. Due to this, 75 per cent of BJP’s votes will go there. If the trend takes over the rest of India, AAP may be able to spoil the BJP chances in as many as 40 Lok Sabha seats.

America does not seem to be bound with the mores and laws of history and geography – what’s worse, its ego and arrogance are unsurpassable. Devyani Khobragade is not the only example of America the bully. In the past, too, America has registered five cases against different Indian ambassadors and consulates. One of them managed to flee and return to India somehow, but the Interpol release a lookout notice against him. Devyani will also get some relief only when she gets a green signal from the President; after all, nothing is above law in the country called America. Domestic help Sangeeta Richard’s parents, who work in the American embassy in India, had a big role to play in Devyani matter. It is only after their complain that the American administration started to investigate Devyani’s maid matter.As per Indian Government norms there is a provision of help allowance Rs 7000 only,which is meagre compared the America’s minimum daily wages. So in a planned move, America first obliged Sangeeta’s husband and children by giving them a special  American visa and getting them to New York. It was only a week later that the Devyani matter started to gain momentum.

While all political parties were unanimously and in one voice trying to pass the Lokpal Bill in the Parliament, there was SP and its supremo Mulayam Singh who was singing a different tune. The most interesting part is that Mulayam was heard saying it several times in the Parliament that with the coming of Lokpal, several matters from the past few years will also come to light. What is that fear that is scaring Netaji? If sources are to be believed, when Mulayam Singh was the defence minister, the matter of Sukhoi planes deal attracted headlines and there were allegations that a bride of Rs 700 crore was involved in the deal.

A perception Management foreign company IPAN has taken Rahul Gandhi’s branding as its responsibility. No disclosure has been made on the payment the company will receive for Rahul’s image making. For starters, the company people have contacted senior columnists directly and requested them to write something positive about Rahul. The company’s campaign seems to be bearing fruit and Rahul seems to be getting a positive image regarding the Lokpal Bill being passed. Apart from this, efforts are on to define his role and proactive take on Jat reservation, Whistleblower Bill and regarding the Telengana matter. Rahul is being projected as the ‘Leader Against Corruption’ in the new campaign.

The male mankind may be breaking in cold sweat at the mere mention of Tarun Tejpal, but there was a time when he was pretty dear to Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Maybe that was the reason she wrote a letter to the Prime Minister recommending Tejpal’s name in Prasar Bharti’s board of directors. But according to Prasar Bharti’s guidelines, someone can be made a director of the board only if he or she is a member of the board in the first place. In rarely seen quick action, Tejpal was made the board’s member. With the same alacrity, Tejpal’s sister Neena Sharma Tejpal’s proposal was also passed for a programme on Hindi cinema completing a 100 years. Forty nine episodes of the programme even got an instant go-ahead. The obligations went so far that Tejpal’s company got the permission for free footage from Prasar Bharti’s archive. But the minute Tejpal was shamed for sexually molesting his junior colleague, Prasar Bharti worked with equal speed and cancelled all the programmes commissioned to his company. Sonia’s acquaintance with Tejpal is now a thing of the past and Congressmen who were close to him are now backing off.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s wife Sadhna Singh may contest the Assembly elections from Budhni. It is worth mentioning here that Shivraj won the election from both seats Vidisha and Budhni. He’s now thinking of vacating the Budhni seat for his wife. Bhabhi ji might get a say in the constituency now.