“…. Someone dies each day and makes me tough to survive/ And time will take away this dew drop that rests on my lips.” The current affairs of India seem to be saying the exact same thing as above. The dance of death by Naxals and Maoists is at its peak, the problems in Kashmir are becoming worse and the law and order situation in the country is on the decline. In such circumstances, it is but natural for the home minister to be brought down. We wonder why he is getting into knots about the definitions of “Saffron terrorism”. Those loyal to Rahul and 10 Janpath are pulling him up, albeit subtly. Rahul Gandhi is miffed with P Chidambaram. One only has to notice Rahul loyalist Digvijay Singh’s attitude to Chidambaram. Then, recently, Rahul got his name removed from the home ministry’s permanent Parliament committee and is now a member of the standing committee of human resources development ministry. All prove that the coming days may prove to be tough for PC, both inside and outside the party.

It was the last day of the monsoon session of the Parliament. Thus, when the Opposition party’s leader Sushma Swaraj sent a letter to the UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi requesting a meeting, the invitation was accepted. It looks like these two politicians have decided to bury the hatchet. Otherwise how do you explain that they were talking to each other for a good half hour? Politics? No way! It was more informal talks, about how things were at work and home. Sonia told Swaraj that her 86-yer-old mother was better now and recuperating and both her sisters were with their mother and taking care of them. Sonia also revealed that she was the second sister, which means one of older than her and one younger. It seems to be the beginning of new relationship between Sonia and Swaraj.

Vedanta fell prey to the mutual push and pull between the BJP and Navin Patnaik. The way Patnaik has snubbed his nose at the BJP for the past few days, for instance shrugging off the BJP at the Odisha Vidhan Sabha elections and not supporting the party in the Parliament. In such circumstances, the BJP has also decided that come what may, it will not support Patnaik. It has also agreed in principle that all those parties that are a part of the NDA, such as JD (U), Shiv Sena and Akali Dal, will be supported by the BJP in their respective political issues. But the parties that have left the BJP fold for personal interests, such as TDP, BJD and AIDMK, will not find any supporter in the BJP party.

BCCI is trying new ploys to brew up new trouble for ex-IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi. BCCI believes that Modi was in cahoots with several betters. It is now trying to investigate as much as it can about the Modi-betters connection. There are also investigations on why Modi keeps saying that there is a threat to his life from the Underworld; is there a betting connection to it? BCCI is also mulling over why Modi did not make use of ICC’s anti-corruption unit for the first two years of the tournament. Why did he give the job to a few local agencies that had no experience in the same? Scared of investigations, Modi is traveling through London, European countries and South Africa, but is avoiding coming back to India. Those who are relentlessly lobbying for Modi include Ankur Chawla and Arif Mohd’s Ejaz, who is also considered to be close to Salman Khurshid.

Congress’ heir-to-be Rahul Gandhi has been trying to change the face and personality of the party for a long time. He wants that the party be looked upon as an everyman’s party. But it’s not easy for him, considering the way an army of the sons and daughters of politicians are eying important party posts and are gradually gaining prominence; Rahul considers the scenario “alarming”. So much so that even the Youth Congress is teeming with such political families. Digvijay Singh’s son has recently entered the political arena via the Youth Congress. Apart from this, sons, daughters and relatives from Maharashtra Congress have a majority in the Youth Congress. Sons and daughters of Vilas Rao Deshmukh, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Patang Rao Kadam and Narayan Rane are at important party posts in Youth Congress. Other states are facing the same problem. In such a scenario, who will look at the Congress worker who is willing to work at the grassroots? This is Rahul’s biggest problem.

The rural face of BJP may be upset about the party’s indifference to it, but Rajnath Singh has kept his commitment to its issues alive. He has also been successful in placing his son Pankaj Singh in the state’s main people’s list. Side by side, Rajnath is stretching his hand out to those who have been against him for along time. Now he wants that party’s leader Kalraj Mishra should be projected as the candidate for the CM’s post. For this, he organized a felicitation ceremony for Mishra in his constituency in Ghaziabad. He sang paeans Mishra and even choked with emotion during the ceremony. He proudly announced, “When I write my autobiography, I will mention Kalraj Mishra the most, and on how he has pushed me forward in politics.” When it was Mishra’s trun to speak, he supported Rajnath’s comments saying, “When he (Rajnath) had lot the elections in Mohta, I went to his residence which seemed to be submerged in sorrow. Then I spoke to Kalyan Singh and advised him to send Rajnath to the Rajya Sabha but Kalyan Singh put his hands up saying he couldn’t send someone who had lost the elections to Rajya Sabha. Then I spoke to Advani ji and told him why it was important to send him to Rajya Sabha. Advaniji agreed and Rajnath got a Rajya Sabha seat for the first time.” You are a better judge whether what Kalnath said showed his pride in his friendship or a spirit of competition.

Is everything all right in BJP? If it was, why had the party chief employed a retired official from one of the intelligence offices for a monthly salary of Rs 6 lakh? But the results of this can be seen. Several party leaders known for their “off the briefing” stance have started avoiding journalists. Even after a big party meeting, party leaders are not interacting with reporters who are covering the party as a part of their “beat”. Those covering the party are facing a hard time since the leaders are not only not talking to them in person but are also not taking their calls. That’s because those employed from an intelligence agency are easily able to extract call details from phone companies. The report of the same if then presented to the party presented about which leader spoke to which journalist and for how long. And what a certain leader and spoken about after a certain meeting. That means there is a lot of scared activity going on in the party and talking and interacting with journalists is going through a lean phase.

It will probably be for the first time in the history of Indian Parliament that the main Opposition party boycotts an official holding a proceeding. We are talking about Lok Sabha’s Panel of Chairperson’s distinguished leader P C Chako. But the BJP is so disgruntled with Chako for the past few days that it has decided to boycott the proceedings in the Parliament whenever they are being chaired by Chako. How it all started was when there was a debate going on in the Parliament about illegal mining. The time allotted to the Congress to speak was over. But Chako, who was then chairing the proceedings, allowed Congress’ Lal Singh to speak. Before this, Deve gowda of the three-seat JD (U) also got a chance to speak for an hour. When BJP’s Ananth Kumar had wanted to speak about the same issue, the then chairperson Thambidurai had made it clear to Kumar that he couldn’t name any person in particular and not put any blame on him; Kumar had agreed to it. But the minute Lal Singh got up to speak, he directly blamed the Reddy brothers in the Yedurappa-led government in Karnataka and called them a “thief” in the Parliament. Lal Singh’s point was that when Sonia Gandhi was contesting the elections in Bellary, who had given unlimited sums of money to the Reddy brothers to support her? When he was going red in the face making allegations, Bellary’s BJP parliamentarian Shanta got up to show her displeasure about it and said that the respected Singh had no right to accuse someone like this and call him a thief. Lal Singh got really annoyed with this and said, “You should keep quiet. You too have got a share in all this.” The entire Parliament was stunned for a moment. Shanta went to the Speaker’s chambers after this and told Meira Kumar about what had happened. BJP’s grouse was why Chako hadn’t stopped Lal Singh from saying something rude like this when he was chairing the house. Some of these parts are even recorded in the Parliament proceedings. Since then the BJP has decided to boycott Chako.

Lalit Modi seems to have landed in more trouble. During IPL-2, he had given a handsome amount of money to three officers from the South African Cricket Board in the name of bonus – about Rs 3 crore. Among those named, the name features the board’s CEO Gerald Majola. The money can be returned but now it will take time because there’s the FERA regulations involved in it. That means new trouble brewing for Modi.

Tired to everyday chaos and disturbances in the Parliament everyday, the Congress has resorted to dinner diplomacy. And since the Congress is in minority in the Rajya Sabha, this dinner was hosted by Rajya Sabha member Rajiv Shukla who is emerging as the new player in politics. He hosted this dinner at the park adjacent to his house in Lodhi Street. It was one of those days when the rains were partial to Delhi. But the dinner was attended by the vice-president, home minister and several Cabinet ministers of the Manmohan Singh government. There were several Supreme Court judges as well as Motilal Vohra, Ahmed Patel and Montek Singh Ahluvalia. From among the opposition leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav, Arun Jaitley, Ram Vilas Paswan, Ajit Singh, Kanhimozhi and Supriya Sule were present. Apart from this, BSP, SP, JD(U), BJP, DMK, Annadramuk, TDP member were also present in big numbers. How much ice has broken among the politicians from the warmth of the dinner will only be clear from the future days that pass in the Parliament.