The Bihari officers who called the shots in Delhi Police once upon a time have taken a backstage, and it is party time for the Punjabi lobby. As a result, 1984 batch’s Dharmendra Kumar’s name is ahead in the race for the police commissioner’s post; he is also considered to be extremely close to present Police Commissioner Bassi. In any case, the new Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi is said to have the support of Modi government’s all-powerful Arun Jaitley. It is said the NSA was unhappy with former Home Secretary L C Goyal because his role in the Teesta Setalvad case was quite untenable. Most officers from UP-Bihar are in non-important posts. In Delhi Police itself, Bihar’s sharp officers such as SBS Tyagi, B K Singh, Parvez, Amit Rai, and Ajay Tiwari have been sent to special security; their work has been limited to providing security for high-profile officers and mapping their travel routes. Several high-profile officers from Bihar have also been shunted to less important departments. For instance, Arun Jha of 1981 cadre has been given tribal affairs, while Girish Shankar of 1982 batch has been sent to the rajbhasha department. Only Bhanu Pratap Sharma of 1981 batch has managed to become the health secretary because it is said he is related to A K Sharma, a powerful officer in the PMO; both of them are from the bhumihar caste.

It is natural for a mother to be worried about her son’s political career. While Sonia Gandhi’s anxiety about her son Rahul is known to all, Sheila Dikshit’s seems to be as concerned about her son Sandeep Dikshit’s political career as well. It is worth mentioning here that Rahul Gandhi is extremely upset about Sandeep’s recent quotes. In this scenario, Delhi’s former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit took the initiative and called a meeting with prominent Congress leaders. Both Ajay Maken and Arvinder Singh Lovely were there for the meeting. Sources say Sheila addressed Ajay Maken in the meeting and said, “You are like my son; I paved the way for your political career and made you a minister. Thus, work in collaboration with Sandeep and arrange his meeting with Rahul ji so that they can sort out their differences.” Maken must be wondering how he got into this mess.

Narendra Modi isn’t finding it easy to digest Patel leader Hardik Patel’s recent rise to power. A few days ago, he called Saurabh Bhai Patel, a minister in Gujarat government, and gave him an earful. Sources say Modi did some straight talk with Saurabh and said, “It is because of you that things have come to such a head; that is because you have give him (Hardik Patel) an open hand. If you think that by doing this you can put pressure on me, you are misunderstood. You will never become Gujarat’s CM after this. In any case, your phone records show on which industrialist house’s instructions you are doing this.” Saurabh Patel innocently replied, “Sir, your style of work has not changed despite coming to Delhi. You may have left Gujarat, but you keep in touch with the state’s every detail.” But Saurabh’s smooth talk had no effect on Modi.

Taking cue from the BJP, Nitish Kumar is playing out his cards very carefully for the Bihar Assembly elections. Just like the BJP, Nitish has also had several election surveys conducted. Sources say the results of these public opinion surveys will throw a mixed message. The survey says that if Nitish gets the present JD-U MLAs back on the election trail, 28 of them are sure to lose. Nitish is duty bound to give tickets to 22 of the 28 MLAs. Of these, he is ready to give another chance to six only because they are veteran JD-U leaders and have been behind Nitish in every situation.

Unlike the Delhi elections, Sangh’s swayamsevaks are working day and night for the Bihar Assembly elections. Modi and several other senior BJP ministers took part in Sangh’s three-day meeting that took place in Delhi. The meeting between Sangh and the BJP was about strategizing for the future, and it was also decided which points of the agenda the Modi government will work on. In a meeting between a smaller group, Modi and Mohan Bhagwat met face to face. Sources say that Bhagwat asked Modi what his government was doing about Ram Mandir and the Uniform Civil Code. When Modi asked for more time, Bhagwat reminded him one-and-a-half years of the BJP government had already passed. In such a scenario, the coming one year is crucial to set the Hindu agenda, otherwise the BJP will say it will work on the agenda in the next tenure. Modi patiently listened to what Bhagwat had to say and said, “You will have to give me more time to work on these issues.” What other option did Bhagwat have but to agree?

Armed with youth power and natural aggression, Rahul Gandhi, vice-president of Congress, the party that won 44 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, wants to take the party to newer heights. But he often makes mistakes, thanks to the speed at which he wants to do things. The latest example is that of Captain Amrinder Singh, the trailblazing leader from Punjab Congress. With the Punjab elections in mind, Captain wanted to speak with Rahul on a one-to-one basis. Since Amrinder has seen Rahul ever since he was little, he still addresses Rahul as “baba”. Thus, Captain called at Rahul’s Tughlaq Lane residence and said, “Tell baba I want to have lunch with him; he can ask for me anytime during the week.” A few days later, Congress’ Dalit leader Raju, who also takes care of Rahul’s work, called up Captain saying he should come home with Bajwa ji. That is because Rahul ji wanted to speak to him only in presence of Bajwa ji. Captain was extremely upset when he heard this, and the news coming from sources is that he hasn’t even considered meeting Rahul after that.

Senior leader of Maharashtra Congress Ashok Chavan invested a lot of time to create a roadmap for breathing life back into the party in the state. And then he went to Rahul to talk about it. Both leaders spoke for around 45 minutes, and Rahul really liked Chavan’s idea that if these strategies were implemented, the party might reemerge as a contender in the state. After this, Chavan told Rahul that for the work plan to succeed, they will have to take Narayan Rane into confidence, because he was still a prominent OBC leader in the state. Rahul asked with surprise, “There were talks about his leaving the party. Is he still with the Congress?” Surprised, Chavan answered softly, “He is very much in the party and his son is a Congress MLA.” After keeping quiet for a few moments, Rahul said, “Leave Rane aside, you take Rajiv Satav along with you. He is a very dynamic leader and I have heard you and he don’t get along nowadays. Chavan replied with some irritation, “What are you saying? I got him the Lok Sabha ticket this time; otherwise could he have become the MP this time?” Obviously, when Chavan emerged from the meeting, his face showed expressions of being peeved.

Lalu wanted to invite Rahul Gandhi for the Lalu-Nitish big rally, the Swabhiman Rally, in Gandhi Maidan in Patna. When Lalu called up Rahul about it, sources say he didn’t come on the line, and didn’t return Lalu’s call either. This irked Lalu. In a dash, he called up Ashok Choudhury, president of Bihar Congress, and gave him an earful. Lalu made it clear that if only C P Joshi was going to take part in the rally from the Congress, he didn’t need the Congress in the coalition; he could contest the elections with Nitish alone. When Nitish found out about this, he immediately called Sonia Gandhi and spoke to her in clear terms. This happened just two days before the rally, and Nitish requested Sonia to send Rahul after advising him, so that Lalu could be cooled down. After remaining silent for a few moments, Sonia said she didn’t know about Rahul, but she promised to be in the rally – a promise that she fulfilled.

Making a lot of song and dance about it and trying to cash in on the saffron question, Asaduddin Owaisi went to Bihar to spoil the Muslim vote bank balance from Lalu-Nitish’s favour. But all he got was disappointment. Owaisi had gone to Bihar with the same BBC reporter of Bihar who had compared Owaisi to be a politician of the same caliber as Jinnah. He had gone to the extent of saying that Owaisi had the same kind of appeal that Jinnah once enjoyed on a pan-India level. This is from a time when Modi was holding numerous rallies in Bihar. The BBC reporter when to Kishanganj, an area that has Muslims in majority, and wanted to know if they will give their vote to Owaisi. Most Muslim voters were of the opinion that Owaisi was a maulana who could debate well, but they wouldn’t waste their vote on him.

Sangh Parivar’s ideal swayamsevak and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar recently returned from his ten-day tour to the US and Canada. After coming back to India, Khattar sa’ab addressed the media and also showed those present a slideshow of his achievements from the foreign trip. In one of these slides, Khattar sa’ab can be seen with Pariniti Chopra, the brand ambassador of Haryana’s “Beti bachao, beti padhao” campaign, at the Independence Day parade in the US. In another photo, he can be seen in New York’s Ground Zero. The presentation also mentioned the several MoUs through which investments might come into Haryana.