The man who posed as the purifier and cleanser of politics, Yogendra Yadav has appointed his personal telephone attendant as his party’s Delhi state president!

While on one hand Lalu, Congress and Sharad Yadav are trying to split the Janata Dal (U), Nitish Kumar on the other, too is not sitting idle. Nitish is trying to engineer a split in the Congress by luring away 18 MLAs of whom 12 have already agreed to hop on to Nitish’s ship. Nitish wants this faction to merge in the JD (U). According to JD (U) sources, several non-Yadav MLAs of the RJD, too are being poached by Nitish’s men. The strategy is to reduce his dependence on BJP. For that it is necessary to swell his ranks.

Two persons played a key role in bringing Nitish closer to the BJP once again. They are a minister in his Bihar cabinet – Rajiv Ranjan alias Lallan Singh who must be holding on to some raw nerve of the chief minister and second person is JD (U)’s Rajya Sabha MP Ram Chandra Prasad Singh. Latter is said to be Nitish’s points man in Delhi. Whenever Nitish is in Delhi, all his programs are decided by RCP Singh only. Sources claim the Centre and its investigating agencies seems to have landed its hands on some cases of RCP Singh. BJP knows very well how to exploit opponent’s weaknesses. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Upendra Kushwaha is miffed with the BJP these days. This happened after he was told by the BJP leadership to merge his party in the BJP. It seems he might break ranks with the BJP any moment and resign from the Union cabinet. Those knowing him claim he might tie up with Congress, Lalu and Sharad Yadav faction of the JD (U). He feels that 10 per cent Kushwaha, 16 per cent Yadav, 4 per cent Manjhi and 18-19 per cent Muslims in Bihar could forge a formidable combination which could run Nitish-BJP combine to run for every penny in 2019 parliamentary polls.

BSP chief Mayawati is camping in Delhi for quite some time and her anxiety is rising every day looking at the fate of P Chidambaram and Lalu Yadav. She has been dreading CBI and ED day in and day out. Her close associates are laying the blame squarely on Vaastu of her residence, that is why she has changed her house thrice during past six months and she is yet to overcome her inner demons.
(NTI: gossipguru.in)

The BJP bosses have already started their work in Amethi-Raebareli. Mahendra Singh, a minister in the Yogi sarkar in Uttar Pradesh has been asked to take full charge of the constituency. It is learnt that the Centre is soon going to flood the area with some major developmental projects. The roads and canals there are being worked on. A team of ministers have been asked to work on these. BJP insiders confide also that the party is looking for a local ‘face’ for the constituency. It is for this that party boss Amit Shah recently met Raja Sanjay Singh and his wife. The Raja is still in Congress but is reportedly unhappy. It is entirely possible that he will quit his party and pose a huge challenge to Rahul Gandhi from Amethi. At the same time, in Raebareli, the preparations are to oust Aditi Singh, the daughter of criminal don Akhilesh Singh, who is the Congress MLA. So along with Congress, the BJP is hell bent on clearing out the Gandhi family as well.

BJP steward Amit Shah was camping in Lucknow all of last Monday through Wednesday. The official guise, of course, was a review of the progress of government work. But the real reason could be gleaned from the rather shining faces of the anti-Yogi camp followers. Those in the know say that the relation between Shah and Yogi had turned vitriolic when the former even refused to shake hands with Yogi at the latter’s anointment, whereas he held Yogi’s deputy and bête noire Keshav Prasad Maurya in a bear hug. In Lucknow, Yogi met Shah with all his ministers, but later, Shah summoned ministers individually. Interestingly, Maruya was sitting next to Shah in all these meetings. In fact, some say that many UP ministers did not even turn up at crucial meetings called by Yogi just to ensure that they get to meet Shah and express their grievances. Yogi is well aware of the goings on, but as of now, he is not showing any signs of nervousness.

The changing political season in UP was also seen in Yogi’s cabinet meeting. In one of the recent ones, he simply took off and growled that even the slightest bit of corruption will not be tolerated. He stressed that he has already met the PM and discussed this and the latter has given his clear green signal. He did not forget to say also that the current ministry has been imposed upon him, and if the ministers did not perform as desired within the next three months, then he would sack them and get his own ministers in. Yogi is mighty peeved with one of his lady ministers for having allocated a Rs 300 crore project to her favourite company without calling for a tender. Yogi personally has a clean image and he feels that no spot of corruption should taint his government. Insiders reveal that he has drawn up a list of about a dozen ministers who he suspects of foul play, and has asked investigative agencies to check them out.

A top BJP Jat leader of Haryana had recently invited all the Jat MLAs of the state to his home for lunch. The agenda was clear: to demand that it is high time for a change of guard in the state and the latter must now be led by some Jat stalwart. The community had already been fired up over the issue of reservation; now at the meeting, it was decided that it would launch a huge agitation on the issue of loan waivers for farmers. Even the strategy and tactic of the agitation were outlined at the lunch. But then, one of the renegades had recorded everything in his mobile handset. He sent the recording to state CM Khattar, who right away had it dispatched to party president Amit Shah. The Shah picked up the phone and landed on the Jat leader like a tonne of bricks, so for now, the frustrated Jats in Haryana have been reined in for a while.

A woman MP of the BJP had recently organised a dinner at her official residence. It was a major gathering of BJP MPs and even ministers like Prakash Javadekar and Ananth Kumar were present. Things were going more or less to the script when suddenly two first-time lady MPs got at each other. Starting with heated words, this went on to fisticuffs. When things seemed to get beyond control, central minister of state Niranjana Jyoti was asked to bring peace back. But rather than that, one of the ladies attacked the minister herself. Seeing the nastiness of the situation and anticipating that her dreams of becoming a minister may be shattered, the host then took to the field and somehow restored peace. But then she returned to her seat, she found that the ministers and leaders had deserted the place, fearing more scum to come out.