How the strategy to switch Congress legislators to BJP was interwoven? Sources say that it is Akhilesh Das, the well-wisher of BJP who dug the roots of the strategy. The BJP’s font was handled by Lucknow’s Mayor and BJP’s President Amit Shah’s close aid Dinesh Sharma. From Delhi he got the support of Bhupendra Yadav and Shiv Prakash. Sunil Bansal was kept out of the loop. It is said that the news was leaked from Bansal that Shiv Prakash is coming from Delhi as he had to meet few people in Piccadilly hotel and he will return to Delhi the same day. But his plan is not mentioned in Party’s programme. He is on a secret mission. The news spread in the jiffy; soon media flocked outside Piccadilly hotel. The main door was almost covered by the plethora of cameras. When the legislator of Congress willing to join BJP got to know about the media he stepped back. After a lot of request one, Congress Legislator was made to enter inside the hotel from a back door and was made to meet leaders who came from Delhi. The Congress leader Pramod Tiwari got to know about this and he tried to inform Rahul but somehow could not do so. Then he gave all the information to Priyanka Gandhi. It is said that infuriated Sunil Bansal called Krishnagopal and expressed his pain that if all the tickets will be distributed to outsiders then what will be left for the loyal party workers.

Rahul Gandhi after his Bahraich rally met all his legislators in Lucknow for dinner and shared their concern. It is said that Rahul in this meeting assured his legislators that he is in touch with Akhilesh and soon the chapter of Congress- SP coalition will be closed. Rahul apprised them that he had a telephonic conversation with Akhilesh and he is quite excited for the coalition with Congress but an only hitch is a number of seats “he is ready to leave 55 seats but we want 70 seats.” According to sources, SP is now ready to leave 62 seats for Congress. The hitch is about 4-5 seats only. This includes seats of Malihan and Amethi. SP does not want to leave these seats for Congress. But the big leaders of Congress are willing to contest election from here.

After all the question is why Rahul Gandhi is in a huff for the coalition with SP? In the Assembly election of 2012, 27 legislators of Congress were elected. Nine among them left the party. According to sources among the remaining 18 legislators, 9 legislators were allured by BJP and they were quite close to few leaders of BJP. The grand plan of BJP was to include those nine legislators of Congress in BJP that too in the presence of Modi in Lucknow. The idea was to deepen the saffron roots and topple down the courage of Congress. Anyhow the Congress leader got a clue of this plan. He immediately informed Priyanka Gandhi in Delhi about it. She further apprised Rahul over the phone without any delay. According to sources after Priyanka’s phone call Rahul immediately talked to Akhilesh and said that he agrees with what Akhilesh said in HT summit in Delhi and want it to happen as early as possible. It is said that Akhilesh also agreed to him and began working on distribution of seats.

Why did Najeeb Jung leave the tug of war with AAP? Sources say that since last two months Jung met BJP president Amit Shah and once with Prime Minister. As per the sources, he was asked to do something against Kejriwal and he was not convinced to do it. Moreover, he was also apprehensive that his name was often aligned to RSS and BJP and Muslim society were not able to get over it. It is said that in his meeting with PM, Jung talked about his resignation however PM asked Jung to ponder over his decisions. Indeed, he did not move from his decision. This is why he was shown the way out. In the race of Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi, Ajay Raj Sharma, Anil Baijal, K.J Alfonso are in the list. Among them, Alfonso is Prime Minister’s choice.

The chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis’ talented wife Amruta Fadnavis’ music video is viral. Attired in short red dress complemented with high heeled shoes, she is doing a jig with Amitabh Bachchan in a video titled ‘Phir Se’. It has been shot in a famous studio of South Mumbai’s refurbished Royal Opera House. Amruta was seen dancing on the steps of choreographer Ahmad Khan. This video has been produced by Bhushan Kumar of T -series.
Amruta has also sung for the movie Jai Gangajal and her debut was a Marathi movie “Sangharsh Yatra” a biopic made on late Gopinath Munde’s life. Amruta is employed at a prominent post in Axis bank

The corridors of power are agog with the informed rumours of a major reshuffle in the Modi government’s upper echelons immediately after the coming Uttar Pradesh state polls early next year. The ruse for the changes will be ‘bad performance. And if the desires of the RSS of anointing the now ailing Sushma Swaraj as the next President of India is consented to by Modi, then it is possible that Arun Jaitley may be made the next foreign minister. Two names are flying about for the finance minister’s post: the powerful RSS heartthrob Nitin Gadkari, currently surface transport minister, and rail minister Suresh Prabhu. However, there is a buzz also that a successful technocrat may be given the responsibility of finance. The name of Piyush Goel was also doing the rounds, but so far there is no sign of RSS’ green signal for him.

It is now clear why PM Modi raised the bogey of fog for cancelling his rally at Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh. The fog was less atmospheric than political. It is learnt that when the PM landed at Lucknow airport, a chopper had taken off to assess the crowd at Bahraich rally, The report was alarming, the assessment said that there were less than 10,000 people there, so the PM quickly decided to refrain from attending an embarrassing situation. However, he did agree to give a phone-speech, so state party president Maurya took the phone, held it up to the loudspeaker and Modi spoke his mind for the people of Bahraich.

The gestural and postural changes in Baba Ramdev’s body language suggests that not everything is not hunky dory with the Yoga icon. The strange statement of declaring West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee as “PM material” could be a part of his strategy to hit out. They say that theSangh is a bit unsettled by the Baba’s aggressive marketing policies for his FMCG operations. The Nagpur triumvirate – Mohan Bhagwat, Bhaiyaji Joshi and Dattatreya consider Ram Dev as nothing but a businessman donning the saffron garb. The PM himself, and the next most strong man Nitin Gadkari have ‘special sentiments’ for the Baba, but that is not going down well in Nagpur. Sources believe that the times are changing, and may be that is why, Mamata is PM material for the materialistic Baba.

Why is the saffron high command upset with BCCI chief Anurag Thakur, and why did he have to change his political track? Thakur’s political guru suggested that he gets closer to BJP boss Amit Shah’s son Jai Shah. It is not suddenly that Jai was seen sharing a convivial time with Thakur and BCCI mandarin Rajeev Shukla in Florida, USA, during a T-20 match between India and West Indies. It is learnt that PM Modi too was sitting in the same privileged box. Modi has a son-like affection for Jay. But the moment the camera picked them up, Modi realized the game and asked Jay to stay away from the cricket bosses, but by then Thakur was hit-out!

Informed sources say that while Rajnath Singh and party stalwart Kalraj Mishra are being sidestepped in the issue of ticket distribution of UP state polls, it is the UP state body which is ruling the roost. Sunil Bansal is calling the shots, they say. He is said to be the now blue-eyed boy of party boss Amit Shah. Even the state party secretary Pankaj Singh, Rajnath’s son could not have a word edge-wise in the choice of his own seat, sources aver. They say that this peeved Nagour and Bansal was given a earful, and then only did Pankaj get the seat he desired. Rumours are that it is only after this that state head Om Mathur started distancing himself from the ticket distribution process.