A new polarisation is in the offing in Uttarakhand. The BJP seems to have an upper hand in all the five Lok Sabha seats there. Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Bhagat Singh Koshiyari have got an edge over their closest competitors. At the same time, Dehradoon is an open playing field for Satpal Maharaj because all these three aspirants for the chief minister’s post – Khanduri, Koshiyari and Nishank – have been handed over the Delhi tickets. While including him into the BJP, the party high command had assured Satpal Maharaj that he will be made Uttarakhand chief minister after the Lok Sabha elections. Half-a-dozen Congress MLA are ready to leave the party and join the BJP to be with Satpal Maharaj.

Priyanka Gandhi was in Khan Market a few days ago and was purchasing pastries from her favourite confectionary shop. She banged into a journalist who is familiar with her who told her that the Congress will see its lowest lows if she still didn’t take over the party reins. Priyanka laughed and said, “You have waited for so long. It is just a matter for some more time, wait until then.”

Siwagat Ullah Ansari, who is the Assembly member from Mohammadabad and also Mukhtar Ansari’s brother, had a significant role to play in the latter’s refusal to contest elections from Varanasi. He had conducted a public opinion survey in the city to gauge the conditions for Mukhtar contesting as an independent candidate. According to the survey, Mukhtar would have got merely 19,000-20,000 votes against Modi. Most Muslim voters were favouring Arvind Kejriwal of AAP.

Congress candidate from Gautam Buddha Nagar Ramesh Chand Tomar has set new standards for changing parties and loyalties and he gave a lovely twist to the tale in his strategy of joining the saffron party. For starters, he got his candidacy from Gautam Buddha Nagar an “A” category with the help of Kanishka Singh. Sources close to the Congress reveal that the party had already given him an advance sum of Rs 50 lakh to contest in the elections. Until the night of April 2, it was as if he was on a dharna at party Treasurer Motilal Vohra to get the rest of the money. The party had agreed on a sum of Rs two crore for those contesting from the A category, and so on the night of April 2, he got the rest of his money – Rs 1.5 crore – from Vohra residence and went away. He changed his garb during Modi’s rally the next day. Sources close to the BJP reveal that Tomar first got in touch with BJP President Rajnath Singh, who had him meet Uttar Pradesh’s in-charge of the party Amit Shah. Things were sorted out for him by Amit Shah and Tomar ditched the Congress at a crucial time when the party’s symbol had been given to him by the Election Commission and when the time period to take back nominations had passed. The Congress now has a big challenge in front of it in Gautam Buddha Nagar and the party workers don’t know what stand to take. But the Congress is exploring the option of registering a case against him.

The absence of Priyanka Gandhi and her husband Robert Vadra when Sonia Gandhi filed her nomination papers from Rae Bareilly came as a surprise to many. That is because until now, the two have been seen everytime Sonia has filed the campaigns. While Robert Vadra had made all preparations to go to Rae Bareilly, Sonia’s message came at the last moment saying that until the elections are happening in the country, Robert should not be seen publicly with Sonia and Rahul, because the minute Robert is seen in public, the Opposition starts to talk about his land deals. Where Priyanka Gandhi is concerned, she will be seen when Rahul Gandhi files his papers from Amethi. The other significant thing is that she will also be holding the reigns of election campaigning and planning in Amethi and Rae Bareilly. As a result, she will be spending the maximum time in the two constituencies.

Varun Gandhi, BJP candidate from Sultanpur, knows how to hog the headlines really well. So in a premeditated move, he praises his cousin brother Rahul Gandhi’s work in forming self-help groups and keeps his entire election campaign free of Modi assistance and the Modi wave itself. So much so that in a Muslim dominated area with a population of 2,80,000, he goes into and is not shy of asking for votes there. This Varun is a changed one and his image today is the exact opposite of what it was in 2009 — he talks about inclusive growth. In Sultanpur, his biggest competitor is BSP’s Pavan Pandey. Varun also seems to be oblivious of the facts that in his constituency alone there are no less than 2,60,000 Brahmins, about 4 lakh Dalit votes, 1,50,000 Kurmis, and the same number of Rajputs. While Pavan Pandey is concentrating more on Dalit and Brahmin votes, Varun is openly saying that he wants votes from all sections of the society. He is trying to create an emotional bond with Sultanpur by associating his father’s memories with the place. And that is the reason Brahmin and Rajput votes seem to be a falling in his kitty with great efficiency.

The tale of former Punjab Chief Minister’s candidacy from Amritsar is no less interesting. Actually, a few Congress heavyweights from the Congress, for instance, Congress Committee President of the state Pratap Singh Bajwa, wanted to finish off the Captain in these elections. Everyone knows how Bajwa and Captain don’t get along together at all and so Bajwa took his chances and called Sonia Gandhi saying that if the Congress indeed wanted to trap BJP’s chief strategist Arun Jaitley, there was no one better to give him a challenge than Captain. Bajwa’s strategy was clear – if Captain wins, he will take his politics to Delhi, if he loses, he will make a beeline to Dubai and if he turns down the offer to contest the elections, he will fall in Sonia’s eyes. This meant that no matter what, the road for Bajwa to become the state chief minister was clear. But the moment Sonia spoke to Captain, he agreed to challenge Jaitley without batting an eyelid. Until then no one in the BJP had any inkling about this.

Almost two dozen IAS and IPS officers are contesting the Lok Sabha elections this time. While several of them are retired, many have joined the fray by quitting their jobs. Former Central Home Minister R K Singh, too, is also contesting the elections from Ara constituency in Bihar on BJP ticket. From the Bihar cadre of the 1975 batch, IAS officer R K Singh’s most close competitor is Janta Dal (U)’s Meena Singh. But R K Singh and Meena Singh’s election campaign strategies are poles apart. While Mr R K Singh is playing the political role in a very gentlemanly manner and his packaged food and bottled water travel with him during his campaign tours and his speeches have an English accent, Meena is campaigning in pure Bihari style, and unlike Singh’s hi and hellos, she prefers to eat at anybody’s house, doesn’t forget to seek elders’ blessings by touching their feet. Where luck and the voters’ wave is concerned, Ara’s 90 per cent of Rajput voters are in favour of R K Singh and the BJP and Mr Singh seems to have an edge over his competitor.

Gauging the strength of constituencies and candidates, the Congress has divided the constituencies into three – A category is one where there are maximum chances of winning the Lok Sabha elections and where Congress candidates are being given a sum of Rs 2 crore to contest the elections. Those from B category are given Rs 1.5 crore and C category candidates will get a sum of Rs 1 crore. The entire sum of money is being given to the candidates in three tranches.

The controversial remarks by Rashid Masood’s nephew Imran Masood may well be a part of a well thought out strategy by the Congress. Then western UP and the entire Jat land was scorching from the Muzaffarnagar riots, the Congress, Sonia and Rahul tried to cash in on the issues faced by the Muslim community during the riots. The BJP did the same only that it tried to use the Hindus and their sentiments. From the sidelines, Priyanka Gandhi had a big part to play in bringing forward Imran as a party candidate from Saharanpur LS seat, since she is the one who spoke to Rahul and Sonia and ensured his candidacy from Saharanpur. When Imran allegedly spoke about chopping Narendra Modi to pieces, no media representative was present there and Imran mentioned it to his core team members. One of his core team member  made a film of it on his mobile phone and it got leaked to a close journalist friend. Saharanpur has a total of 15.5 lakh voters, of which about five lakh are Muslim voters who play the vital role in a candidate’s win or loss. Clearly, Imran and the Congress were looking at cashing in on the Muslim vote bank. The Muslim voters may be unsure of who to vote at present, but now the votes of Hindus in Western UP may be in favour of the BJP. And now if the entire matter goes in the hands of the Election Commission and Imran’s candidacy is cancelled for some reason, the Congress leadership may have to look for other options.