Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Sri Lanka these days, while Home Minister Rajnath Singh is on a visit to Japan and Arun Jaitley is in London on an invitation from the British Government for inauguration of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue at Parliament Square there. Jaitley may head to USA after this. The absence of these three stalwarts in the Parliament has left Central Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu in a precarious situation. He was trying that the discussion on General Budget be completed in this very week, while the Opposition, under the leadership of Congress, was demanding that there should be no discussion in the absence of the Finance Minister. Naidu on the other hand argued that discussions could continue as Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha was present in the House and that Jaitley would reply to questions when he returns on Monday. Meanwhile, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge’s stake was that the Finance Minister’s presence is essential in the Parliament and suggested that some other minister could have travelled to Britain in his place.

Things have come to loggerheads between two saffron leaders Arjun Meghwal and Minister of State Nihal Chand. Both these ministers come from the Meghwal community in Rajasthan and are dalits. Arjun Meghwal’s ache is not becoming a Minister in the Central Cabinet. Meghwal claims that he would make a better minister than Nihal Chand as he has a prior experience of running the civil system with his civil services background. As far as Nihal Chand is concerned, though he does not enjoy the support of Vasundhara Raje, he has the blessings of Om Mathur – powerful leader in BJP and also a close associate of Modi. According to sources, Meghwal met and allegedly informed several top leaders of BJP about Nihal Chand’s undeclared huge land holdings. It is understood that he also gave a list of the lands to the leaders. On his part, Nihal Chand also met some senior party leaders and allegedly complained that he has been receiving crap messages from a mobile that has been registered in his (Nihal’s) name, and that he feels that Meghwal is the hand behind this conspiracy. Now, efforts are on to reconcile the two warring heads before the news gets leaked into the media.

In order not to repeat Delhi’s fiasco in Bihar, team Modi is being extra cautious and taking each step at a time. In this direction, efforts are being made to pacify the dissidents and lure tall personalities from other parties. In this regard, the heavyweight leader from Lalu Yadav’s party, Pappu Yadav recently met the Prime Minister. Sources reveal that the meeting went on for about 45 minutes. The leaders are said to have had frank yet meaningful discussion. When Pappu Yadav declared that he was ready to join BJP on the assurance that he would be made the Chief Minister if party wins the elections in Bihar, the same was declined by the PM who said it was not possible. Sources reveal that the Prime Minister threw a bigger challenge to Pappu Yadav asking him if he would resign from his Parliamentary membership and fight elections from Madhepura on BJP’s ticket. Pappu Yadav is said to have accepted the challenge with the assurance that he would be made a minister in the Union Government prior to that. The Prime Minister has assured him of giving the proposal a thought.

The saffron brigade has now clearly started understanding the offstage political silence. All does not seem well with the party that once was a champion of internal party democracy. There have been voices of disagreement against some major decisions by Modi-Shah duo and this is being openly revealed on social media sites. The latest one is a poem by one of the Swayamsevaks that is going viral on the social media these days – It talks about the unmatched friendship between BJP and PDP and also about the release of separatist leader Masarrat Alam. Here are few lines from the poem that clearly targets Modi: ‘Desh Prem ka dambh bharte the jo bhi nayak dilli se, satta ki lolupta mein vey ban gaye bheegi billi se, BJP bin rashtrawad ke khadi nahi ho sakti hai, koi kursi bharat ma se badi nahin ho sakti hai.’ It should be recalled that for writing a poem with a similar sentiment and posting it on social media, BJP’s Agra unit’s media in charge Rajkumar Pathik was expelled and shown doors.

An important meeting was recently held on `Land Acquisition Act and related amendments’ at the residence of State Minister in Modi’s Government – Sanjeev Baliyan. The meeting was attended by all the top leaders of BJP including Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and Gadkari. A majority of the leaders feared that the Land Acquisition Act has portrayed the party’s image as against the farmers and pro-corporate lobby. Gadkari meanwhile said that there are four years left for the next elections and people would forget about this by that time. On this the BJP MP from Madhubani, Hukmdev Narayan Yadav, sought to know `if people forgot about the CWG and 2G scams of UPA Government that happened 3 years before the general elections of 2014’. His query left the top leaders looking at each other’s faces.

The annoyance of almost 125 year old Congress party’s young general Rahul Gandhi’s vanishing act is no more a secret now. None of the congressmen had any idea about the whereabouts of Rahul, however a source from 10 Janpath revealed that Rahul, annoyed with his mother left for Myanmar and joined a Buddhist Vipassana center there for his internal peace and rejuvenation. From Myanmar he left for Bangkok and soon took flight for some European nation and now spending vacations with his uncle Walter Vinci. Admirer of NGO culture Rahul likes to party late night. He enjoys scuba diving, cycling and likes to gym regularly to keep himself fit. Therefore, it might not be wrong to mention that Rahul’s busy in his favorite personal hobbies.

A huge section of congressmen are still relying their hopes on Priyanka Gandhi, while Priyanka Gandhi is still awaiting a nod from her mother, however mother is unable to give up love for her son. Sources from 10 Janpath reveal that Rahul is keen that his sister Priyanka should remain in background and help him in running the party. On the other hand Sonia has changed her opinion on Priyanka now. She wants Priyanka to take up some secretarial (general secretary) post in the party organization and help her brother in running the party affairs, but it is said that Rahul is not ready for this. While majority in congress are of the opinion that as long as political battle will continue between Modi Vs Rahul, Modi will remain triumphant but the game will become interesting when the battle will turn Modi vs Priyanka.

While going, Rahul has handed over a long list of demands to his mother, perhaps that’s the reason why Rahul’s agreement was visible in some of the recent decisions of congress. For instance, in the appointment of Bharat Singh Solanki as Gujarat Congress chief, Sonia’s secretary Ahmed Patel’s consent was not taken. Rather in last two decades, nothing happened in Gujarat without Patel’s approval. With the changing political equations, loyalties also change and rule of leadership as well. He is the same Solanki, who was made state Congress President at behest of Patel initially but after his name was involved in CD scam, Patel distanced himself from him. Possibly, it was Madhusudan Mistry who negotiated for Solanki’s candidature in Rahul’s Durbar. Similarly, Sonia Gandhi was not ready to buzz in to his name for Delhi head after congress was washed out in Delhi under his leadership, but she has to agree for the sake of Rahul and Ajay Maken was made Delhi Congress chief. Ashok Chavan who has been reeling under accusations, has been once again entrusted with Maharashtra’s leadership. Until Sanjay Nirupam was part of Saamana and Shiv sena, Sonia had openly attacked him but now on Rahul’s insistence he has been given charge of Mumbai. It is time for Congress to make its classifieds public that will bring about clean picture of Rahul saying, ‘Son please come back home, no one is going to say anything to you, mummy has also accepted all your demands’.

It will be interesting to know who this Walter Vinci is after all. Walter Vinci is almost 20-25 years older than Rahul but his close friend. Even though Rahul’s aunt is formally divorced with Walter but that has not affected Rahul’s relationship with him at all. Walter is a test driver; a sort of automobile engineer in the Italy’s FIAT Co. Walter is extremely fond of gymming and physical fitness. He in fact has inspired Rahul’s craze for fitness. Rather, Sonia and Priyanka simply dislike Walter after his divorce with Sonia’s sister and his entry is banned in 10 Janpath. Nevertheless, Walter frequently travels to India and whenever he is in India, he stays at his home at Tuglaq lane. Similarly Rahul too makes regular trips to Europe to meet his uncle Walter. In fact during last elections Walter was seen following Rahul’s campaign like a shadow. Many Congressmen were rather amazed to see Walter following entire Rahul’s campaign in Indian attire, that too without informing Indian authorities, but could not speak anything in front of Rahul.

Modi government is deeply missing capable Pramod Mahajan, when ruling party’s floor management appears extremely weak in both the houses of parliament. Parliamentary affairs ministers are hardly aware of opposition’s plans and strategies. In this context, UPA2’s then parliamentary affairs Minister Rajiv Shukla deserves applaud that despite government not having one-third majority in parliament, he managed a division in NDA on ‘Judicial appointments Bill’. Then NDA’s partners like Shiv sena and Akali Dal had voted in the favor of the then government. Shukla considers Pranab Mukherjee as his guru in the matters of parliamentary affairs. Pranab da holds a belief that a successful parliamentary affairs minister’s job is to ensure smooth working of ‘government business in the Parliament. Raghuramaiah can be considered a fine example here, who constantly kept his eyes on opposition benches during the sessions of the parliament. Modi government wants to pass land acquisition bill, coal bill and insurance bill during the joint session of the parliament. However, all eyes should be on the President, whether he will give green signal to begin such new trends.