The hum is that Delhi State Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel recently got a call from a top RSS mandarin. The man apparently reminded Goel that as Speaker, he has limitless powers, and he can disqualify any Aam Aadmi Party legislator at any time. The caller suggested that the two of them should sit together and discuss ‘something big’. But Goel’s reply is still ringing in the ears of Nagpur. Apparently, Goel simply cannot stand the sight of Union Science & Technology minister and another top RSS member from Delhi, Dr Harsh Vardhan. Reports said that Goel shot back over the phone: “Fine. You sack Harsh Vardhan from the party and then we can sit down and discuss your plans any time!”

Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and her son Sandeep Dikshit are now seriously peeved with the Congress, rumour-mongers allege. A senior BJP leader is known to be an old pal of Sandeep’s. To test the waters, he called up the Congress Young Turk over the phone and said, “Hi, long time we haven’t met, so why not have a cup of coffee together one of these days? Your place or mine?” Without putting too fine a point on etiquette, Sandeep, who realised the gambit said: “Of course, we can have coffee together. It is also a fact that I am upset with my party. But there is no question of me leaving the Congress.” So the day for coffee meet was decided and the BJP leader went to meet Sandeep at the latter’s residence at the appointed hour. To his utter surprise, though, he found his party’s top leader Venkaiah Naidu, sipping the coffee with Sheela Dikshit!

A powerful leader in the Modi ministry called up Arun Shourie recently, for the latter has been seriously annoyed with PM Narendra Modi. The caller said over the phone: “We need to meet you… we want to assuage your annoyance. Sources say that Shourie is very close to the mandarins of a top industrialist family in the country, and so is the caller and the family also felt that since this affinity is common, the two can meet and Shourie can be asked to stop his vitriolic attacks on the PM. So when the twain met, Mantriji asked Shourie why he was so upset with the boss. Shourie, sources tell us, said that just after the victory in the 2014 general elections, Modi had visited Shourie at his residence and told him: “You will have to shoulder a big responsibility in this government.” However, the media got wind of it and a pro-Congress news channel started flashing the ‘breaking news’: Arun Shourie to be the next Union finance minister!” But typically of Modi, soon after, he even refused to meet Shourie. Having heard the story, this minister, who is close to the RSS, met the PM and told him of Shourie’s ire. But, again, typically of Modi, instead of being sympathetic, the PM blasted the minister for ‘unnecessarily meddling in things’. Shourie got the message and told the minister: “Well, let the PM follow his dharma, and let me stick to my karma.”

BJP fast gaining ground in Odisha and all the woes are those of Biju Janata Dal CM Naveen Patnaik. The clear signs of his frustration are that on the one hand, he is repeatedly knocking on the BJP’s doors in Delhi to establish a more amicable relationship, and on the other, he is sparing no effort to upset the party’s apple cart in Odisha. The BJP central leadership has made it clear that central minister from Odisha, Dharmendra Pradhan will be the party’s face in the next state polls. This has enraged the anti-Pradhan camp, and Patnaik is reportedly trying to fish in that troubled water. He has told these dissidents that if they join his party in adequate numbers, he will settle them in his ministry. Meanwhile, the Shah-Modi duo has finalised the candidature for the two Rajya Sabha seats coming up to be filled. One of them is Giridhar Gamang, and the second is Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo who is the husband of three-time BJP MP Sangeeta Singh Deo.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has finally chosen her godfather in Delhi, and it is none other than the powerful Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley. She has made it a habit of touring Delhi at least once every week. Interestingly, one top BJP leader, a lawyer close to Jaitley joked with her, the bird’s tweet: “These Delhi campaigns of yours will bear little fruit. I guess even Arun will get to know of the next changes in Rajasthan from the TV news!

AAP party emblem of one time, Kumar Vishwas seems to have made up his mind about joining BJP. Last week he clearly dropped such a hint in an interview given to India Today. Party sources say that Vishwas had in fact made up his mind of quitting the party the very day when he had twitted after AAP’s terrible outing in Punjab last month. Apparently, Kejriwal had gotten his Personal Secretary Vaibhav Maheshwari to launch a bitter battle against Kumar on social media. Maheshwari said that leaders queue up to take credit for any poll victory, but shy away after losing them. Right after this, the entire E-Army of Kejriwal took to the social media amphitheatre. But even at that hour, Kejriwal did not move his little finger in Vishwas’ support. And like his former party colleague, Shazia Ilmi, Kumar Vishwas too is using his party platform to join the BJP.

The AAP must now brace itself up for some more shocks in Delhi. Next year, it is slated to send three leaders to the Rajya Sabha. During the honeymoon days, it had been decided to send Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Kumar Vishwas. But then, all good things come at and end and so did the honeymoon. And though Vishwas is still in the party as a seriously disgruntled leader, the other two have already left. Now scuttlebutt is that the new threesome is Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Ashish Khetan. But there is no trusting Delhi’s political quicksand, and who knows, maybe things will suddenly change!

After its bumper victory in the Delhi Municipal Corporation polls, the BJP is all set to usher in some major changes in the corporations. As per norm, the corporation elects three mayors for the three segments in which the town is split. But it is being heard that the party may well select just one single Mayor for the three set-ups. The party is now in serious confabulations over whether they could to this, and may be have three separate Commissioners for the three municipalities.

Though the judiciary in the country has been majorly responsible for establishing the rule of law and keeping the people’s faith in it intact, some members of the same haloed portal often take steps that tarnish that image. It is said that when a chief justice from a southern state was transferred to an important north Indian state, he was greeted ceremoniously. So much so that a company from Hyderabad was paid Rs 65 lakh to plant special grass in the compound of his residence. But the irony is that within three months, the judge was transferred to Delhi, and the new judge who replaced the first judge did not like that grass, so he has promptly asked the grass to be uprooted and replaced by a variety that he likes.

From the very day that Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister of UP, one roaring Delhi BJP leader seems to be saying ‘meow’ all the time. It has been a record for Harishankar Tiwari that he had been a minister in each and every government in UP, whether it be BJP, BSP or SP governments. But there can hardly be two swords in scabbards. Not with Yogi around. So very soon the sleuths of economic and other offences outfits have started camping in Tiwari’s Gorakhpur home. Tiwari supporters somehow managed to give this a Thakur Versus Brahman angle, and they expressed their rage by even destroying the gate of the commissionaire. In this hour of crisis, the former right-hand man of Tiwari, Brajesh Pathak came to no aid. Pathak, a close friend of Tiwari’s son Vinay Shankar, had first joined the BSP, and now he has won from a BJP ticket. The man at the forefront of the hammering of Tiwari is Gorakhpur MLA Radha Mohan Das Agarwal. It may be recalled that when the BJP had refused to give Radha Mohan a ticket for UP, Yogi had given him a ticket from his own Hindu Yuva Vahini and he is now an MLA. And today, Radha Mohan is at the vanguard of making Gorakhpur crime-free.