After Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s death, politics in Jammu and Kashmir is caught in a tight spot. Mehbooba Mufti has old issues with the BJP, and people in the BJP, too, don’t like her. Sources say Mehbooba had a meeting with some top leaders of the Congress; the party wants that just like in Bihar, an anti-BJP front be formed in the state. In the same strategy, PDP, National Congress, and the Congress should jointly form a government there. There is one catch though – the BJP holds sway over the entire Jammu area, and BJP MLAs have been chosen from the area. So if a government is formed by excluding the BJP, the entire Jammu region will be ignored and Srinagar will not find it easy to run a government smoothly if that happens. The BJP is clear on its strategy for Jammu and Kashmir; it wants the President’s rule should run for a longer period in the state, and then fresh elections be held there. In any case, governor Vora has learnt how to sing the saffron party’s tunes, and the BJP has no issues with President’s rule. The BJP also knows that Mehbooba has a lot of opposition within the PDP itself, and as time passes, dissidence in the party will become a clear possibility. If that happens, Mehbooba might bow down and might give in to saffron party’s ambitions.

Rahul baba seems to be a changed man nowadays. Until yesterday, the same Rahul Gandhi who considered older and veteran Congress people to be deadweight for the party and looked hell-bent on giving the 125-year-old party a makeover, has changed his thinking. Now he feels the Congress party has as much need for senior party leaders. So now he is not only asking for their opinions on every issue, he is also talking about including them more in party matters. He is also advising his youth brigade that they should give respect to senior party leaders. Sources say that it is on the advice of some senior party leaders that Rahul has opened the doors to his heart and home for common party workers. Now he is meeting party workers in large numbers, is listening to their issues and problems, and is trying to take immediate action on the same. He is making quick tours to address small and big issues; thus be it Mumbai or Hyderabad, people have witnessed Rahul’s agility on pubic matters.

There was a time when the SP people were considered to be adept at riding bicycles, and party leaders were sons of the soil in the real sense. In Netaji’s tenure as the chief minister, it was Amar Singh who was his connection with Bollywood. Thus, be it having Netaji meeting film stars, having them campaign for SP, or making them dance in Saifai, it was Amar Singh who would take care of all these. Times have changed now, Akhilesh is at the helm of things now, and he has always nurtured a soft corner for Bollywood. So now film stars have a direct connect with the young chief minister of the state. Any star, whenever he wants, can directly get in touch with Akhilesh. At the Saifai programme this time, the Yadav family was seen taking selfies with small and big stars. The chief minister was seen not only taking selfies with his favourite actresses, but was also seen talking to them with great intimacy.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is giving up its old way of launching into election mode and is learning to move with the times. That is the reason why BSP strategists are working out a high-tech campaign for the Assembly elections due to be held in UP in 2017. In a quest to change its image, the BSP has conducted a public opinion survey with the help of a known agency. The results of the survey have given a boost to Behenji’s confidence; the survey shows the party at number one in 167 seats. There are 70 to 90 seats were a BSP candidate is shown as losing out from its competing SP candidate with less than 5 per cent votes. Of these, 50 seats are those that are reserved. That means BSP’s Dalit candidates are unable to influence its cadre voters and others voters to a large extent. Thus, under the leadership of Mayavati, the BSP’s core committee has decided that to attract Brahmin, Muslim, and very backward castes, BSP workers will go to villages and form mitra mandalis with them. Apart from this, the top BSP committee has made another significant decision – for the first time, in the coming elections, financially weak candidates will be funded by the party and they will be given financial help to contest the elections. The investigation for such candidates is also over, and most of them are Dalits.

Three days ago, the BSP called for a crucial meeting of its 14 coordinators, and each one of them submitted a report about his zone to the party high command. The most surprising thing is that each of these coordinators is saying the same thing – the direct contest of their BSP candidates is with the SP; they don’t consider the BJP or the Congress to be a part of the big fight. Even more shocking: six months ago when these coordinators had submitted their reports to the party high command, 10 of them had said their direct face-off was with the BJP, and only four had said it was with the SP. BSP strategists themselves are surprised and wonder if the BJP’s graph in UP has indeed fallen to such a large extent that it seems to be out of the main election contest. The BSP report has also revealed that the BJP’s hold over public opinion is now limited to cities; its influence among rural voters is rapidly on the decline.

The report by BSP coordinators is surprising also because Akhilesh’s government’s graph has improved significantly in the recent past. Muslim and Yadav votes seem to be on SP’s side. Some communities from the extremely backward class are those that have been in direct conflict with Yadavs, for instance, Maurya, Kurmi, Koiri, Lodh and Saini. These had openly supported Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and the BJP had got their votes by the dozen. Today these communities are angry with the BJP, they don’t want to go with the SP, the Congress is not their party of choice either, and as a result, they might fall prey to the BSP. Thus, at present, those representing these communities seem to enjoy more clout in Mayavati’s durbar.

Why just the BJP, a 125-year-old party such as the Congress seems to be in doldrums in UP. And maybe that is the reason it can’t find an adept oarsman who will help the party out of choppy waters. Sources say that in the recent past, Rahul Gandhi’s office has tried to contact at least four prominent leaders to head the party in the state. But these politicians are coming up with some excuse or the other and are trying to avoid heading the party in UP. Sources close to top leaders in the Congress say first it was former Central minister R P N Singh who was contacted, and who expressed his inability to lead the party in UP. After that, the party contacted Pradeep Jain Aditya, Zafar Ali Naqvi, and Rita Bahuguna Joshi, but no encouraging answer could be had from either. The only one left was Jitin Prasad, who himself met Rahul and expressed a desire to take over the reins of the party in UP; he hasn’t received any assurance from Rahul so far, however. Sources say the reason is that when the Congress got a thrashing in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Jitin secretly met with Modi, and asked for a Rajya Sabha seat for himself. When things didn’t work out there, he made a quick visit to the SP courtyards as well. And this is something that Rahul seems to be unable to digest.

In the next Cabinet reshuffle at the Centre, Central Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan may end up with disappointment. Sources say he may have to pay the price for upsetting a top industrial house of the country, and he may once again be put into serving the party rather than be in the government. Reliable sources say when representatives of this top industrialist went to meet Pradhan in his office, the latter allegedly asked them to help the party in Assam. To this the representatives said that whatever help is given to the party fund, is done directly through party president Amit Shah. Pradhan was a tad upset with this reasoning, and so when the next time the group of representatives went to meet Pradhan, he made them wait for more than an hour. These three representatives left without meeting Pradhan and went directly to Shah and complained to him. Shah took the matter to Modi, who made a note of it and added it to the other many past complaints against Pradhan.

The BJP has almost decided that B S Yeddurappa will be the party’s face in Karnataka. For the MLC elections in Karnataka this time, the saffron party nearly confirmed it, but when the trio of Ananth Kumar, Sadanand Gowda, and Ishwarappa played their game, Yeddurappa lost in his own region. Thereafter, he went to meet Shah and Modi to complain about the three. Sources say that Yeddurappa met with the duo and said that be it Ananth, Gowda or Ishwarappa, all these politicians owe their success to him, and now the three were not only working against him, but were also harming the BJP’s roots in Karnataka. Sources say Modi called Ananth and Sadanand Gowda together and told them in clear words that if another such complain came against them, they might be ousted from the Cabinet.

If all goes according to Modi-Shah plan, then between January 20 and January 23, Amit Shah may be chosen as BJP party president for another three years. Sources say because of Narendra Modi’s constant efforts and direct dialogue with the Sangh Parivar, the latter too has stopped repeating its constant refrain on how the country’s top leader and the head of the ruling party should not be from the ruling state of Gujarat. After getting the Sangh’s silent go-ahead, the BJP has increased the speed of its nationwide administrative elections, and the exercise is going to take place in about 20 states. On January 14, the Sangh and BJP’s Samanvay Samiti will have a collective meeting and the Central government’s work will be analysed. In the same meeting, the name of Amit Shah may get sanction as the BJP’s president for another three years. Sources say Sangh’s prominent leader Dattatreya Hosbole played a big role in making Shah’s name agreeable to the Parivar. Hosbole also has close relations with the prime minister. In July 2014, when Shah took over as the party president for the rest of Rajnath Singh’s tenure, he gave several gifts to the party during the time. BJP came to power in states such as Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Jammu & Kashmir. Under Shah’s leadership, BJP’s membership drive gained speed, and managed to get a membership of a record 10.5 crore. But the biggest allegation on Shah is that he has encouraged and nurtured a five-star culture within the party. The party’s average workers cannot get access to him and he is only surrounded by a handful of people. The recent election defeat in Bihar was allegedly a lesson for Shah-Modi duo. So if Shah is crowned the party president on January 20 or 23, he will have to adopt a different working approach with the party, because the road ahead seems to be a tad tough for him. States such as Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, UP, and Punjab are going to hold Assembly elections soon; states where BJP is standing on shaky ground. As a result, Shah and his team will have to chart this road with a new set of suggestions and ideas.