Will the BJP benefit from Modi’s Australia’s tour in the Bihar elections? That is because the BJP took full advantage of Modi’s speech in Madison Square when it came to Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. And because Modi was the poster boy for the saffron campaign in the two states, and the election war cry may well have changed from “Abki baar Modi sarkaar”, to “Chalo chalein Modi ke saath”, the party worked relentless on getting his Madison Square speech reach all towns and villages. About 20,000 digital vans were used for this and his speech was aired in remote villages where even newspapers can’t reach. In Maharashtra alone, Modi’s speech was aired on seven Marathi channels. The party’s expense for the speech and digital vans came to somewhere between Rs 80 lakh and Rs one crore, and the party spent nearly Rs 25 crore to uplift Brand Modi for the election campaign. That goes on to show that Modi’s publicity team has clean intentions — attack opposing parties with news about corruption and mismanagement, and sing paeans to Modi’s governance and growth. Team Modi wants to step into Bihar elections with this mantra.

Under Nita Ambani’s leadership, the entire Ambani family was preparing for the event for a week. Practices and rehearsals were on for everything — from Vande Mataram to ‘Ved paath’. So immersed in the practices was the Ambani family that sometimes its members were seen rehearsing for them until five in the morning. Nita Ambani herself was reading aloud a Shloka paath. An entire team of pandits was busy trying to get her sanskrit pronunciation right. Sensing Modi’s liking for yoga, the H N Hospital by Reliance Foundation has a separate yoga centre to promote the same. Both Nita and Mukesh are showing interest in yoga and spirituality; sensing this, M D Anderson cancer center of Texas University has made Nita a visiting fellow for yoga classes there.

Ever since Modi has taken the seat at the Centre, yoga and spirituality have attained a global attention. The prestigious Harvard University has formed a separate department for research in yoga. NRI Dr Hrishabh Mishra has been made the head of the department. The United Nations has already decided on promoting and propagating International Yoga Day on a big scale. A big conference on Ayurveda will be held in Italy soon. Under Dattatreya Hosbole’s leadership, a team of Sangh leaders is already promoting Hindutva in Europe. Sangh leaders such as Ram Vaid in London have been working for Sangh for a long time. Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson has been so impressed with Sangh’s philosophy that he has raised his voice against banning beef. Branson also seems to be deeply impressed with Modi and believes that banning beef will have a positive impact on the environment because it is not eco-friendly.

While on one hand on Saturday morning, Narendra Modi was busy meeting and greeting more than 500 journalists at the party’s central office, another bungalow at Lutyen’s Zone, 10 Janpath, wore a quiet and deserted look. Congress party President Sonia Gandhi’s body language showed that all is not well within the Congress. Amidst the hollering of “Priyanka lao, Congress bachao” (Get Priyanka, save Congress) in the party, Sonia is trying hard to listen to her inner voice and like a seasoned politician, she can read the writing on the wall, which says that the coming days may be difficult for Priyanka and especially her husband Robert Vadra. There are indications that a case may be registered against Robert Vadra in a land deal. Maybe it was this sense of the foreboding that Robert Vadra had made up his mind that he will take the NRI status and settle down in either Dubai or London. But Sonia has taken a tough stance against him and asked him to do nothing of the sort. That is because once he takes up the NRI status, the repercussions of the same will been across all government records, which might means a powerful tool might come in the hands of the BJP and the media. For now Robert has agreed to do what his mother-in-law has told him but has gone to Dubai for a few weeks, nevertheless.

Bhaskar Khulbe, a 1983 batch IAS from West Bengal cadre being made the Additional Secretary in the PMO is indicative of the fact that West Bengal might be the next destination for Amit-Shah duo. Khulbe, who is a resident of Uttarakhand, is known as an honest, able and dynamic officer who knows everything about Bengal politics. When Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was the chief minister of West Bengal, he appointed Khulbe as his resident commissioner in Delhi. Additionally, he was also the advisor in the Ministry of Industry. When Mamata Banerjee took over the state, Khulbe inadvertently became a target. Seeing a tug-of-war going on between him and her state finance minister Amit Mitra, she removed Khulbe from the resident commissioner’s post and asked him to come to Kolkata. Sensing that Mamata is angry, Khulbe made an excuse about his wife’s poor health and went on a long leave. Just before the Lok Sabha elections, he was appointed as a joint secretary with the Central government’s Department of Personnel and Training, and his way to the PMO became easy. Actually Modi and Amit Shah both were in search for an officer who not only has a finger on West Bengal’s pulse, but has full information about the state. Needless to say, Khulbe has full knowledge about the Sharda chit fund scam and coal block scam. In the coming Assembly elections, the BJP may use all this information as a tool.

Who should be Maharashtra’s next chief minister? The Sangh and the BJP have different opinions on this. While Sangh head Mohan Bhagwat wants to make Nitin Gadkari the state’s chief minister, Devendra Phadnavis is Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s choice. Amidst all the activities for forming the government, Amit Shah spoke to Gadkari to get Uddhav Thackeray to agree to have his party support them. But because Gadkari does not have such good relations with Uddhav, Gadkari spoke to Raj Thackeray and asked him to intervene in the matter. Raj and Uddhav are getting along like a house on fire these days. Sources reveal that Raj spoke to Uddhav, and then a phone call went on Uddhav’s behalf to Gadkari and both of them spoke. It is worth mentioning here that there is a group in Maharashtra BJP that is forwarding the name of Sandeep Muttemvar of Jalgaon’s BJP MLA for the state’s next chief minister.

Has Rahul Gandhi learnt some lessons from the past and is on the lookout for a new advisor during the changes equations, someone who could weave new political strategies for the 125 year old political party? This decision seems to be reflected in his recent takes on things. For instance, his research team has shrunk significantly. Where there used to be more than 200 people recruited in the team, after a recent sifting there are only 10 members left! It is worth mentioning that Rahul had recruited these people for fat salaries. There is constant pressure on Rahul that they proved to be good-for-nothing, and that he should stay away from the likes of Madhusudan Mistry and Mohan Prakash and make a new team of advisors.

Even those who have existed in politics because of the Gandhi family’s blessings have also their voices, thanks to the falling graph of the Congress. For instance, P Chidambaram is saying on TV interviews that the next Congress president might be a non-Gandhi. Those Congress politicians who found it difficult to reach to Sonia are now opening themselves up to her. Most of these people were seen to be complaining about Kanishka Singh, who is considered to be the eyes and ears of Rahul Gandhi. Sensing the negativity against him, the clever Kanishka has now tagged himself to Priyanka Gandhi and has now officially started working for her. So whether Rahul remains or Priyanka comes, Kanishka’s position remains firm.

The BJP may have got at least 10 seats more in the Haryana Assembly elections, if only one’s own had not betrayed one’s own. There was a long list of Jaichands in the state’s BJP. For instance, after Ramesh Kaushik’s brother did not get a party ticket, Kaushik and his camp worked against BJP’s official candidates. Sources reveal that Krishnapal Gujjar, who was upset that his son did not get a party ticket from Faridabad’s Tigaon constituency, did not let Gujjar votes go to the party there. Similar complains that come from Jind. Will Amit Shah take these complains seriously?

Devendra Fadnavis’ name is ahead in the name for chief minister’s post in Maharashtra. Fadnavis is a Brahmin from Vidarbha and had also been Nagpur’s mayor in the past. He is also a MLA from Nagpur as well as the party’s state president. BJP’s top leadership has full confidence that the party will touch the majority milestone in Maharashtra and Haryana on its own. In such a scenario, the first name in the race in Maharashtra is that of Nitin Gadkari, who had, in the past, shown his displeasure to the party high command about going to Maharashtra. But sources close to Gadkari are of the opinion that to become Maharashtra’s CM is an old dream of Gadkari. Unfortunately, the biggest challenge he is getting in this is from Devendra Fadnavis, who is pretty junior to him in politics. But there are some similarities between the two, for instance, Devendra also weight 120 kg once upon a time, and opted for a bariatric surgery and brought down his weight to 70. He then inspired Gadkari to reduce his weight by surgery and following Fadnavis’ advice, Gadkari also went for the same surgery in Mumbai. For CM Mohan Bhagwat still prefers Gadkari, but Modi camp’s logic is that a MLA should become the chief minister. So for now, Fadnavis leads the race.