The Congress in Uttarkhand wants to kill two birds with one stone. It is believed that the party managers have made it clear to Vijay Bahuguna that instead of winning a seat from a by-election by having a party Assembly member to resign, he should try his tactics with a BJP Assembly member and weave his magic on him so that the person vacates his seat. The BJP and Congress stand almost neck-to-neck where the numbers in Assembly are concerned. Learning from Karnataka (where the chief minister from BJP lost the Assembly polls), the Congress doesn’t want to be in the same situation. In any case, Narendra Nagar Assembly member Subodh Uniyal, Vijay Pal Singh Sajwan from Gangotri and Anusuya Das Mekhuri from Karnaprayag are ready to ask for Bahuguna’s resignation. But the Congress is eyeing the seats of BJP leaders such as Sahdev Singh Pundir from Sahaspur and Rajesh Shukla from Kichha and the election game will start as soon as the circular is passed. It remains to be seen if the hand will crush the lotus.

Mulayam Singh Yadav is going to play a big trick in the days to come. Reliable sources close to him have revealed that Netaji has assured Army Chief V K Singh that the SP will get him into the Rajya Sabha after his retirement. It is worth mentioning here that the BJP has already shown its inclination to have Singh contest the next Lok Sabha elections from Bhiwani in Haryana. Now the General has to choose from the two parties. The reality is that both parties want to cash-in on the General’s clean image. The SP is even looking at the whole thing from caste-tinted glasses. Netaji and his associates feel that it will do the party good to have General Singh into the Rajya Sabha and send out a positive signal to the Rajputs in UP who are 8.5 to 9 per cent of the total population.

A few days ago, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sushma Swaraj came face to face. Netaji asked Sushma, “So, tell me who you are appointing the President?” Sushma laughed and replied, “Mulayam Singh Yadav.” To this Netaji replied that he was unfit for the post and according to him, “The job is full of laziness – you don’t go to meet anyone, no one comes to meet you and there is so much protocol involved.”

P A Sangma has launched himself in a big way for Presidential elections. He has full support of Mulayam Singh Yadav, although Sharad Pawar has not revealed his cards about the issue. Rising above party politics, all tribal organisations are coming together to strengthen Sangma’s nomination for the post and are meeting at New Delhi-based Mavalanka Hall on May 9. Their demand is to make a tribal the country’s President but is the country ready for it?

After the dismal loss of the Congress in the UP elections, the Gandhi family’s loyalists are preparing the launch Rahul Gandhi yet again. The party feels that the campaign that has been going on for eight years to stabilise Rahul in politics got a several battering in the UP elections. For the past few days, this matter is being discussed over several rounds in 10, Janpath and 12, Tughlaq Lane. There are discussions of forming a new team to launch Rahul once again. Rahul’s team of the Blackberry generation can replace the old loyalists of the Gandhi family. Sonia herself is in favour of desi and Indian ways as had been done in her matter by Fotedar, Vora, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Natwar Singh and so on. She was taken around from one village to another, and asked the bathe in the Ganga for the Kumbh. It is possible then, that Rahul will be put forward on Gujarat elections in a new set of rules and new attempts. The main man for the efforts may be Sonia-loyalist Ahmed Patel, who is not liked by Team Rahul.

Thanks to internal fighting within the party, the BJP failed to form its government in Uttarakhand. During the Uttarakhand trouble, there was a secret meeting in a bungalow at Bengali Market, amongst Nitin Gadkari, this BJP leader and Harish Rawat. But this BJP leader leaked the contents of the meeting to his Congress friend Ahmed Patel. At that time, there was news that Harish Rawat will get the support of 23 Congress members. The minute Ahmed Patel found out, the Congress’ damage control became more urgent and in a hurry, the Congress managers lured and courted Rawat saying he will be given special treatment during the forming of the government. This five supporting Assembly members will be made ministers, but neither did Harak Singh became the deputy chief minister and neither did Rawat supporters gets any plum posts. So, Rawat continues to stay miffed. It remains to be seen if the BJP can make the most of this opportunity.

The queen of high notes Lata Mangeshkar was recounting when he met Sachin Tendulkar for the first time and in talking about it, named Raj Thackeray two times. He also remembered she met Sachin for the first time at a party at Raj’s home. When Lata didi was naming Raj Thackeray, one could clearly assess the frown on Uddhav Thackeray’s wife, who was seated in the second row.

The race to President’s post is only becoming more interesting. Recently, Sardar Prakash Singh Badal has also given his name for the post from the NDA. BJP is already trying to build a common consensus for APJ Abdukl Kalam’s name. Mamta Banerjee has forwarded Gopal Krishna Gandhi’s name. Didi has to say that if not the President, he can at least be made the vice-president. In a message to the Dalit voters in the country, Congress is toying with Meira Kumar’s name. The party feels that it will at least get the support of the BSP for Meira’s name. The BJP is staunchly against the idea of Vice-President Hamid Ansari being given the President’s post. The party has clearly questioned his decision to adjourn the Parliament on the Lok Pal issue. Where the vice-president’s post is concerned, the BJP has said that it will happily support the name of any non-Congress person who has not been named in any controversy. The new name that has emerged in the race is that of Justice Dalbir Bhandari. It is worth noting that several of Bhandari’s decisions have been widely discussed.

There was a lot of disturbance regarding bringing Anshuman Mishra from Jharkhand. Advani, Sushma and Joshi openly opposed the move but the chief strategist Arun Jaitley maintained his silence about it. On the other hand, Rajnath Singh and Gadkari talked in favour of Anshuman Mishra. Some industrial houses such as Sahara openly opposed Anshuman Mishra’s name, industrialists such as Naresh Goyal, Mukesh Ambani, Kumaramangalam Birla and Ruia brothers were advocating in favour of his name. The maximum opposition to Mishra’s name came from Jharkhand’s Parliamentarian Nishikant Dubey, who is said to be close to Jaitley. The fact of the matter is that Dubey, who has until now managed corporate lobbying for Ruia brothers (Essar Group) until now, didn’t want another Brahmin face from Jharkhand. Also, Dubey isn’t quite taking to Mishra’s new-found friendship with his corporate bosses Shashi and Prashant Ruia. Clearly, even if Gadkari manages to make Anshuman Mishra a candidate supported by the BJP, Dubey will not leave any stone unturned to reap thorns in Mishra’s path because he also has good contacts in Jharkhand Mukti Morcha as well as the BJP in the state.

The defender of corporate-like working in saffron politics, BJP President Nitin Gadkari does everything with a flourish. He has made his party’s senior leaders aware of it several times in the past. He is going all out to make sure he obliges Rajesh Shah, who managed his London tour as was once considered very close to Advani’s daughter Pratibha. Sources reveal that in the days to come, Shah may be brought from Maharashtra to the Rajya Sabha on the BJP quota. It is worth remembering that Shah is close to Mukesh Ambani.