When Central Home Minister Rajnath Singh went to meet Uttarakhand Chief Minister who was getting his neck treatment done at AIIMS, both leaders spoke to each other for over an hour. The gossip sessions are hot speculating what both of them spoke about. Sources reveal that Rajnath spoke about his elder son Pankaj’s wife’s brother Jaspal Rana’s political future with Harish Rawat. It is worth reminding that Rana had quit the BJP to join Congress. It is believed that Rawat is ready to support Rana and he might be sent to the Rajya Sabha on Congress quota.

For the past many days, Meghalaya’s Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma was in Brazil with his group, enjoying the exciting FIFA World Cup matches. During his absence, the entire workload was being taken care of by Assam cadre’s 1979 batch IAS Vinay sheel Oberoi, who is also Sangma’s secretary and has to come to Delhi on deputation. He has been sent to Maneka Gandhi’s Ministry of Woman and Child Welfare as secretary. The secretary in Maneka’s ministry, Shankar Agarwal, had been transferred to Venkaiah’s Naidu’s Ministry of Urban Development. Agarwal’s relations with Maneka aren’t too good anymore, and that is why his transfer was so prompt. Now that the World Cup is over, maybe Sangma will now let Oberoi go to Delhi.

Let’s see if there’s anyone who can identify these two South Indian politicians. One is a man, the other is a woman and both of them left the Tamil Nadu politics together and left Chennai to go to Delhi. Both of them have been Union ministers, both are lawyer by profession and shared such a strong friendship bond that they set benchmarks in the Congress. Then no one knows what happened but there was a fight and such a fight that there was no room for reconciliation. After the change of guard in Delhi, both of them have returned to Chennai. P Chidambaram and Jayanthi Natarajan have both become active in Tamil Nadu politics now and Chidambaram is eyeing CM’s post. Chidambaram has been seen in the Supreme Court once or twice, but when a reputed law firm in Delhi tried to avail of his services, Chidambaram outright refused the offer. Sources reveal that Chidambaram has flourishing businesses in several south Indian states and these businesses are taken care of by his son Karthi. Sources also say that his family has a significant share in a hotel in New York and owns coffee plantation in 500 acres in Coorg as well as a palatial resort. He also has a share in a medical company that has a chain of clinics for Dental and eyes. Chidambaram clearly has a lot on his plate he should be happy with.

Maharashtra’s BJP unit is celebrating Amit Shah’s appointment as party president twice over, and that is because Mumbai is Shah’s birthplace. He was born in South Mumbai’s Bhuleshwar, and his wife is from Kolhapur. That makes him Maharashtra’s son-in-law as well. The BJP in Maharashtra is hopeful that just like he worked his social engineering magic in UP, he can do the same miracle for Maharashtra’s Assembly elections, too. Shah knows well Maharashtra’s caste politics. Recently, the NCP-Congress government in the state played its hand at reservations in the state – 16 per cent to Marathas and 5 per cent to Muslims in jobs and education. Shah has to find a way to counter it. On the other hand, a void has been created in the state’s BJP family after Gopinath Munde’s sudden demise. The BJP leaders from Maharashtra feel that Shah’s face could emerge to fill that void during the state Assembly elections and this could make BJP contest the elections on its own in all the 288 seats.

Uma Bharti Minister for Water Resources,River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation recently held a meeting with the officials of her department regarding cleaning up the Ganga. She called upon the officials and told them that if they wanted, they could give a unique direction to cleaning the river. But when silence came as an answer from the officials, Uma Bharti took a dig and said, “You should come up with suggestions during your tenure; this way you will not have to write a book about it after your retirement.” Uma was hinting at the former secretary of Coal, P C Parakh, who has released his book “Crusader and Conspirator”, and who had written the book with the intention of revealing all about the Coalgate scam. But Uma Bharti had probably forgotten that Parakh had made known his take on the matter and given his advice to then coal minister and the prime minister when he was the secretary. It is another matter that the political leaders did not pay attention to what he had to say.

The Congress may have had a dismal loss in these Lok Sabha elections, but seeing Rahul Gandhi’s behaviour, his political stance and political decisions, you would think he has learnt nothing from his party’s big loss. There were a number of reservations about appointing Mohan Prakash as the incharge of Maharashtra, and even Sonia was not agreeable to Rahul’s idea of the appointment. Similarly, there was a lot of to and fro about changes to be made in the All India Congress Committee (AICC), but Rahul has not reached a final decision as yet. Those who love to chant “Bring Priyanka” and those who silently support it are also keeping quiet. During the meeting organized to explore the reasons for the loss, when some people talked about handing over the reins to Priyanka instead of Rahul, Priyanka, who was present during the meeting, was beside herself with anger and scolded those who wanted this and said that she was steadfastly standing behind her brother and wanted him to lead the party. Seeing Priyanka’s changed stance, those wanting to speak her favour thought it is wiser to keep quiet. Rahul’s behaviour in the Parliament is no different – one, he does not come to the Parliament often, and when he comes, it is after the Parliament is in session and then leaves midway so that he does not have to interact with people too much and there are no questions he will have to answer. What a big sensation it created when Rahul was caught napping in the Parliament, but who will wake up a Congress that is dozing away.

The entire Advani camp was opposed to the decision of making Amit Shah the party president; Advani was recommending Yashwant Sinha’s name for the same, but when the Sangh Parivar and Modi forwarded Shah’s name aggressively, it fell upon Nitin Gadkari to form a unanimous decision amongst the party. At that time, Advani camp also got in touch with MPs in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Gadkari had marathon sessions and not only got Advani camp to see his point of view, but also spoke personally to those who are aggressive in their take and told them about Shah’s administration capabilities. Only then was the formal announcement of Amit Shah’s name possible. Gadkari is indeed Modi’s new ‘Sankat Mochak’.

The BJP might present a non-Jat name for the chief minister’s post for the Haryana Assembly elections. Jats have ruled the top post in the state for the past 15 years – Hooda has been there for a decade after Chautala’s five years. Somewhere down the line, non-Jats are unhappy with the arrangement and one Subhash Khattar, who is claiming stake to the top state post even got posters printed about this. The two names the BJP is seriously considering here were Rao Indrajeet Singh and Krishnapal Gujjar. Sushma Swaraj herself is in favour of having a Gujjar against a Jat. Krishnapal may be a minister at the Centre at present, but he has intentions of a more active role in the state politics. He has been a state party president as well as leader of the Opposition. He is being backed by Sushma Swaraj for the same. The party is also looking seriously at Rao Indrajeet Singh’s name, who is also a minister at the Centre and is liked by both Swaraj and Rajnath Singh.

Some leaders in the Congress have given a new name to Anthony Committee – Antaheen (endless) Committee.

Trouble is set to increase after the holy month of Ramzan. Investigative sources reveal that in the days to come, civil war may continue in Iraq and if the situation remains this fragile and complicated, it is possible that Iraq may be divided into three parts – Sunnistan, Shiastan and Kurdistan. Until Saddam Hussain ruled over Iraq, that is until 2003, Sunnis were at the seat of power. After its interference in 2006, the US changed Iraq’s prime minister to Nuri al-Maliki, who was a Shia. Trouble started brewing in Iraq ever since; Shias rules the roost in Baghdad and parts to the south of it, Sunnis were in majority in north and Kurds in the north-east. American Vice-president Joe Biden, who was a mere senator in the US in 2006, had come with a proposal to divide Iraq into three parts. The way conditions are explosive in the country, different countries have their own take on it. Just like Iran is supporting the entire Shia clan during the battle, countries such as Saudi Arabia are helping the Sunnis and Israel is interested in the Kurds and Kurdistan. Russia is totally against the Sunnis. Maliki has become the leader of Shias instead of Iraq. The Sunni-supporting ISIS has emerged as the world’s richest terrorist outfit.