Nitish Kumar wants Shivanand Tiwari to contest the coming elections from the Buxar Parliamentary constituency this time. At present, this seat is occupied by Lalu’s close aide Jagadanand Singh.But the people from the area are not happy with Jagadanand because they get to see him only once in a while. Where the BJP is concerned, it has decided that Lalmuni Choubey, who is too old to fight an election, so he will not get the party ticket this time and the BJP will file a new candidate. But the problem with Shivanand is that considering his practice of changing loyalties, neither the schedule castes nor his fellow-Brahmins want to vote for him. They might get their chance only if the BJP introduces  comparatively a weak candidate from there. (This may happen to please Lalu)

Lalu Prasad is trying to lure the Congress with all his might. But the Congress wants to have nothing to do with Lalu’s RJD. So much so that Lalu has even offered to leave 10 of the 40 seats in Bihar for the Congress. But Rahul Gandhi still feels that the Congress should do it alone in the elections. For this, the Congress will not let its candidates feel any kind of paucity. Congress candidate Jitendra Swamy may well have lost his deposit at Maharajganj pre-elections but it is believed that the party gave him close to Rs 4 crore for the elections.

A few days ago, prominent leader of Punjab Congress Amrinder Singh met Sonia Gandhi and shared his angst with the Congress supremo that the Congress side in the Rajya Sabha is lacking talent. This gap can be filled by inducting Amrinder Singh in the Upper House.

Despite all the coaxing and cajoling from J Jayalalithaa and Navin Patnaik, Sangma is just not ready to take back his name from the race for the President’s post. So, it is quite a possibility that even the Opposition is considering presenting Sangma as a challenge for Pranab da.

Despite coming down heaving on Jagan, the Congress is deeply worried about Andhra Pradesh. Some people are blaming Ghulam Nabi’s lackadaisical behaviour for the same and there are some Congressmen who feel that 10, Janpath, was a little too harsh with giving instruction on Jagan. He had several well-wishers in the Congress and who could have made him come around in the right way. These included Veerappa Moily, Ahmed Patel, Rajiv Shukla and so on. The party is cowering at the thought of 18 by elections in the state and the Congress people themselves feel that Jagan may win 15-16 seats himself. The Congress High Command has also not managed to restrain Kiran Reddy. The Congress may play a big game to irk Jagan – the division of Andhra Pradesh and the creation of Telengana. No matter what the result, Jagan is still in a position to win at least 150 seats in the state. Which means Congress may be on a downhill in the state.

Akhilesh Yadav may have become the chief minister of UP, but he has not been able to step out of his father’s shadow where important decisions are concerned. The father got his own Cabinet formed, of which 99 per cent were those that Mulayam preferred. If you leave a few exceptions such as Abhishek Mishra, most of the ministers were those who support Mulayam. Even in the CM’s office, Anita Singh, who is considered to be extremely close to Mulayam, is wielding the baton. Shivpal Yadav is behaving like a proxy chief minister and directly called the DG of the state and says, “Remove the particular SP, we will get the orders from the CM’s office.” Netaji also has a direct bearing on matters of Delhi. Prof Ramgopal Yadav makes up for anything else that’s remaining.

Even the chief ministers in Congress-ruled states may have to go. The party high command is shocked by the records of Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan and Kiran Kumar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. The search is on for better alternates in both states.

Rahul Gandhi is nowhere to be seen during the current winter session of the Parliament. Madam Sonia has also been rarely seen. Goes on to show how seriously those on whom the government rests takes the Parliament.

There was several reasons why the UPA in the government is so soft on Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher. Otherwise you wouldn’t have seen everyone from Vyalar Ravi to the prime minister supporting a bailout package for a sinking Kingfisher Airlines. It is believed that Mallya still has his clout intact in the politics in Karnataka and that he has such a lot of influence on at least 13 Assembly members that they will do Mallya’s bidding. Mallya also gets along well with Sharad Pawar and the Congress is aware of it.

It seems Lalu Prasad has cut off all ties with Bihar. Be it his birthday or Diwali or the all-important Bihari festival Chhath, he celebrated all of them in Delhi. Now it is even being said that he might contest the Lok Sabha elections from West Delhi, where there is a big number of people from Purvanchal.