The BJP is clearly split into two camps in the poll-bound Gujarat. One, which is led by CM Vijay Rupani and blessed by BJP President Amit Shah, and two, which is under the leadership of Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, who is considered as a special confidant of PM Modi. The talk of the state also suggests that Patel has dumped most of the plans approved by Rupani for budget allocations. And like the political war of the two leaders was not enough in itself that former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel has also entered the scene. Sources suggest that Anandi ben Patel, who is very angry with Amit Shah, is busy chanting her own agenda.

Revolutionary Chief Minister of ‘smogged’ national capital, Arvind Kejriwal, who recently termed Delhi as a gas chamber for its ‘very poor’ air quality, has of late installed at least seven air purifiers at his official residence. The Chief Minister’s lungs need fresh and pure air, whilst the Delhiites mask their faces in a wait to breathe a clearer air.

The BJP seems to be in severe short supply of star campaigners for the Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar assembly seats. After the delimitation of 2008, the Ahmedabad Lok Sabha constituency was split into two parts, one of which is Ahmedabad West, of which BJP’s Kirit Solanki is the sitting MP. There are seven assembly segments within this LS constituency, of which two are reserved ones and the rest five are general. The other LS seat, Ahmedabad East, is held by Paresh Rawal of the BJP. There are seven assembly seats under the Parliamentary constituency, all in the general category. Besides these there is the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, held by party veteran LK Advani, which too has seven general category assembly seats subsumed. What ails the BJP is that neither the ailing Advani nor Rawal ever seem to visit their constituencies, a thing of major ire for the voters there. A troubled BJP has thus asked Solanki to handle all three Lok Sabha segments and the assembly seats under them. Result: Solanki’s best of friends can never find him either here or there, and so much for the BJP’s poll management!

As many as 50 sitting MPs in Uttar Pradesh might lose their party nominations in the 2019 polls, though these are quite a few months away, sources revealed at the scuttlebutt. Party boss Amit Shah is said to be taking regular inputs on the results of the MPs from various seats. Birds and bees have it that Shah has commissioned a professional survey agency to report back on the MPs’ performances on set parameters and indicators. Party sources close to the Boss say that as many as half the sitting MP’s in UP might lose their nominations, so much so that even stalwart leaders like Home Minister Rajnath Singh might have to change their constituencies. Sources tell us quietly that those above 65 years of age could be ‘deployed’ for ‘organisational work’, and some 50 sitting MPs might lose their tickets. Instead, fresh faces will smile from the BJP posters in the 2019 polls. This is an old tactic of Shah, who changes sitters to smoothen the ruffled feathers of the electorate. Sources have it that even the looming Gujarat polls, 15 of the first 70 names announced are absolute greenhorns.

The Aam Aadmi Party loses no chance to endear itself to the commons. Now it has shot itself in the foot. It had issued a directive, obviously in good mind, that doctors in government hospitals will supply all medicines free of cost and the doctors will not prescribe any medicing that is not available at the hospital pharmacy. Now the doctors are in a fix. Most of the basic medicines needed are hardly found in the sarkari pharmacies. So now the doctors as well as patients are in a major limbo, as the former are barely prescribing medicines!

A video recently went viral on the social media, which purportedly showed that at the wedding of an IAS official from the southern climes, President of India Ram Nath Kovind was subjected to some humiliation even as the Prime Minister was present there. The moment AAP leader Ashutosh laid his hands on the video, he tweeted it, with some biting comments, as did his party colleague Somnath Bharti. Later, the Rashtrapati Bhawan issued a statement that the person reportedly shown as Kovind was not him. Further enquiries revealed that this was a game of the Congress party’s dirty games team. It was realised in the end that Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit was in attendance at the wedding with Modi, and he was passed off as president Kovind. The moment this came to light, both Ashutosh and Bharti deleted their tweets. However, the ploy of the dirty tricks department remained solid in the minds of the Twitterati.

People who have seen the original CD of the so-called sex scandal of Patidar leader Hardik Patel say that one of the three young men in the video only has some resemblance to Patel. Besides, the woman shown in the video is also not an Indian but some East Asian lady. Hardik supporters are confident now that his face had been morphed in the video that was released by the BJP.

The vitriolic relationship between Congress tow of the Congress party’s Young Turks, Manish Tiwari and Deepender Hooda, is no secret. But perhaps even Rahul Gandhi could not have anticipated that this would take the form of open brawls in public fora. Apparently a week or so ago, Hooda had gone to address a meeting of the Congress student’s wing, National Students Union of India, or NSUI. Soon, the national secretary of NSUI, Surabhi Dwivedi twitted: “Today Hooda Sir has given a new slogan, ‘You and I, NSUI’, so thank you so much from the core of our hearts for thus inspiring us with the slogan.” No sooner, Tiwari jumped into the fray and lashed back on Twitter: “This is an old slogan. It was first given in 1985 by someone who was then the president of the JNU students’ union… the same man is today is with the Telegu Desam party and his wife is the defence minister of the country.” Tiwari, without naming, targeted Nirmala Sitharaman’s husband Parakala Prabhakar, who is the Communications Advisor to the Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh.

There seems to be a new sheen in the BJP after the first phase of the polls in Himachal Pradesh. The Dhumal faction feels confident that he would easily take the CM’s seat. But the bitter rival camp of JP Nadda is also confident that even if this happens, it will be short-lived. For, as soon as Dhumal turns 75, a year and half from now, he, like party patriarch LK Advani, would be bundled out into the party’s ‘Margdarshak Samiti’, a toothless think-tank, and Nadda will warm the CM’s seat. But will the electorate, 37 per cent of who are tribal Thakurs, accept Nadda? The reply came from a top BJP leader: “We have anointed a non-Jat (Khattar) as CM of ‘Jatland’ Haryana. In tribal Jharkhand we have anointed a non-tribal, Raghubar Das, as the CM, and likewise, in Maratha-land Maharashtra, our CM is Devendra Fandnavis, a non-Maratha. In comparison, Himachal it a tiny state.” In fact, Dhumal was a forced choice. The party high command was well aware that the Thakur community had been mighty peeved with it for the unprecedented CBI raid on the wedding day of sitting CM Virbhadra Singh’s second daughter in 2015. And if the Thakur community’s ire merged with already simmering Dalit voters, then there would be no chance for the saffron party in the green hill state. And that is why FinMin Arun Jaitley could convince the party brass to name Dhumal as the CM candidate.

Not so long ago, people said that Gujarat Patidar leader Hardik Patel would support Shiv Sena in the state. These rumours took wings just after Patel secretly met Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray some six months ago in an east Mumbai neighbourhood. Sena birds coo that the meeting went on for hours, and Thackeray asked Patel to lead the Sena in his home state. To which Patel had said he would need some time to ponder. But shortly thereafter, Congress’ Ahmed Patel pulled off the miraculous half-vote win from the state’s Rajya Sabha seat, and all political equations in Gujarat called for unprecedented realignment. Hardik found the Congress more of an attractive choice over the Sena, and started his hobnobbing with the party. When the Sena got wind of this, it gave Hardik quite an earful. Meanwhile, as Hardik’s relationship with the Congress got warmer, the BJP started its own forays into Patel’s pasture. It is known that many of Hardik’s close associates are going to contest the state polls as lotus candidates, for the BJP’s singular strategy if the wear out Patel.