Tridib Raman
After so many years, the Thackeray family’s star has finally set in the BMC, and the BJP is wholeheartedly thanking Raj Thackeray for it. For the first time, the BJP’s brand of “Hindutva” prevailed over the Thackeray family’s “Hindutva.” The BMC election was like a trial by fire for Uddhav Sena’s very existence, because the BMC’s budget is so massive that it provided the fuel needed to keep the party running. According to sources, just before the BMC elections, an important core group meeting was convened in the presence of both Uddhav and Raj Thackeray. It is believed that Uddhav urged Raj not to use any abusive language against North Indians, South Indians, or Gujaratis, because Mumbai is no longer the same city where Marathi people held a 70 percent dominance. Now the demographic balance is more or less equal. But Raj Thackeray was never one to give up his habits. He instead immersed himself in the indulgence of turning “lungi into pungi” with relish. The result was that in non-Marathi areas, such as North and East Mumbai, both Uddhav Sena and the MNS were completely wiped out. Yes, Marathi-dominated South and Central Mumbai managed to salvage whatever little respect remained for the two brothers. However, even after winning 65 seats, Uddhav’s party managed a strike rate of only 39 percent, while the BJP pushed its strike rate up to 66 percent. Meanwhile, the loud-mouthed and ill-tempered Raj Thackeray’s party recorded a meager strike rate of just 11 percent. The Congress, which fought on its own, performed relatively well in Dalit and Muslim areas with a 16 percent strike rate and won 24 seats. Uddhav had also requested Raj to contest fewer seats, but Raj stubbornly insisted on demanding 53 seats. Now Uddhav feels that he should have aligned with the Congress instead of Raj; perhaps then his party would not have ended up in such a dire situation. Raj, on the other hand, would have been forced to fight alone and would likely have been reduced to just one or two seats—giving him a clear idea of his real standing.
The Shadow Inside the Camp
Tridib Raman
An important meeting of the Kerala Congress core committee was convened to decide the party’s strategy for the upcoming assembly elections. Shashi Tharoor was not even invited to this meeting. Angered by this, Tharoor raised a huge fuss, insisting that he be included. Following this, Kerala Congress chief K. Sudhakaran immediately spoke to Delhi and briefed them about the entire episode. On Delhi’s instructions, Shashi Tharoor was included in that crucial meeting. It is said that only 14 Congress leaders attended the meeting, and they were strictly instructed not to speak to the media or issue any statements about it, since critical electoral strategy was being discussed. But true to his habits, Tharoor spoke to some local channels. While he did not reveal much about the party’s key strategies, the next day’s newspaper carried a complete, detailed report of the meeting, down to the smallest points. Senior Congress leaders were left stunned. A complaint was immediately lodged in Delhi, and the matter was handled by K. C. Venugopal. From the party president Kharge’s office, Venugopal was told: “From now on, there is no need to invite him to any meeting. This must always be kept in mind.”
Rebellion in the BJD
Tridib Raman
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has expelled its Patkura assembly constituency MLA Arvind Mahapatra from the party for six years for anti-party activities. It is worth noting that Arvind is the son of veteran Odisha politician Bijoy Mahapatra, who was a co-founder of the BJD and was barred by Naveen Patnaik from contesting elections in 2000. Due to his poor health, Naveen Patnaik has been able to devote very little time to the BJD these days. Political observers believe that the BJD, too, is gradually beginning to look like a sinking ship. As a result, several leaders with roots in the old Janata Dal background are in favor of forming a new political party in the state, one that is neither BJP nor Congress. It is believed that Arvind Mahapatra took the initiative, and that 18 BJD MLAs gathered at his residence and expressed their consent to forming a new party. It is understood that this new party could be announced by the coming summer. When Naveen Patnaik learned of this, he hastily suspended two of his party’s MLAs, Arvind Mahapatra and Sanatan Mahakud, with immediate effect. But the spark of rebellion within the party has already been lit.
Has Dhami been Granted a Reprieve?
Tridib Raman
Once again, as Uttarakhand is simmering over the Ankita murder case, its heat is severely shaking the saffron establishment, and in such a situation, the market of speculations was hot: Has the BJP top leadership found a scapegoat in the form of Chief Minister Dhami in this case? Even the names of Dhami’s successors had started circulating in political circles. Meanwhile, Dhami goes to Delhi, where he meets PM Modi, and it is believed that in a way, he has received ‘abhaydan’. Sources claim that in front of the PM, Dhami took the names of some leaders from his own party and expressed his pain, saying, “These are the people (for example, Ritu Khanduri, Anil Baluni, etc.) who are not letting him work properly, and because of this, he is not even able to carry out the full expansion of his cabinet.” It is worth noting that the state assembly speaker Ritu Khanduri has the full support of the party’s central general secretary B.L. Santosh, the current party president J.P. Nadda also wants to see Ritu Khanduri as the next Chief Minister of the state, and this campaign is said to have the support of the BJP’s Chanakya. On the other hand, another leader, Dhan Singh Rawat, is keeping himself in the race for the Chief Minister’s post with the support of the Gujarat lobby, while Anil Baluni, as always, remains a perennial contender. Saurabh Bahuguna, too, is eager to take advantage of this flowing tide. It is said that Dhami has sent a thick file of these leaders’ deeds to the top leadership and has also clearly stated his intention: ‘If the BJP top leadership wants to move forward with its declared policy of no compromise on corruption, then at the moment, there is no cleaner face available to them than Dhami.’ It is understood that now the party high command has also given a signal to Dhami that he can now give a new face to his cabinet on the lines of the Gujarat model. So, Dhami has started preparations to repeat the Gujarat model in Uttarakhand, even if the public is on the streets in Uttarakhand, but every road of Dhami leads to Delhi, because in Devbhoomi these days, voices are silent in custody.
Rise of OBC leaders in BJP
Tridib Raman
Once the BJP was called the party of Brahmins and Baniyas, but since 2014, after the miraculous leadership of Narendra Modi appeared on the saffron stage, this perception has also been consigned to the cold storage somewhere. Modi emerged as the new champion of backward caste politics, and due to this thinking of his, leaders belonging to backward castes have also emerged in various BJP-ruled states. For example, Samrat Choudhary in Bihar, Keshav Prasad Maurya in UP, or Nayab Singh Saini in Haryana. Interestingly, the mutual relations between Samrat, Maurya, and Saini are extremely sweet, friendly, and harmonious. During this time’s Bihar assembly elections, when Samrat appeared a bit weak on the ground in Tarapur, Yogi Adityanath himself called him and expressed his desire to come to Tarapur for election campaigning, but the clever Samrat brushed off this proposal, saying, “My seat is anyway coming, you should go where our candidates are stuck in a tough fight.” Similarly, when Samrat’s son’s admission could not happen in the ‘RK Mission School’ in Deoghar, Jharkhand, it became possible only through Hemant Soren’s intervention. In Haryana, Saini is also eager to come out of Khattar’s shadow. For example, when Home Minister Amit Shah recently came to Panchkula for the unveiling of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s statue, CM Saini stayed with him like a shadow throughout, but Manohar Lal Khattar was not even invited to participate in this event. When Nitin Nabin was suddenly declared the national executive president of BJP, when Nabin was coming to Patna from Delhi for the first time, Samrat Choudhary himself reached Delhi and landed at Patna airport on the same flight with Nabin so that he would not have to perform the formal welcome for the new president. It is said that the BJP high command took this matter quite seriously. When just five days before being elected full party president, Nitin Nabin had to go to Patna again for his chooda-dahi feast, a message went from Delhi in advance to all senior BJP leaders that they would have to be present at Patna airport to welcome their president, so Samrat also had to come, as did Nityanand Rai. Meanwhile, another backward caste leader from UP, Pankaj Choudhary, who has recently been made the head of UP state BJP, is perhaps told that he can handle the responsibility of UP BJP while remaining a minister in the Modi government.
What will happen to Kuldeep?
Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi, who is an expert in changing his political loyalty every moment, seems quite hurt these days by his political exile. He had joined the BJP with many hopes and aspirations, but did not gain much there. Although the BJP did give an Assembly election ticket this time to his son Ajay Bhavya Bishnoi, he lost the 2024 Assembly election from the Adampur seat. Earlier, in the November 2022 Assembly by-election, he had won from the same seat. Until 2024, Bhavya was counted among the youngest members of the Haryana Assembly. These days, neither Kuldeep nor his son Bhavya has any special value or utility left in BJP, and somewhere Kuldeep is also hurt by the attitude of the BJP high command. According to sources, Kuldeep had earlier held secret meetings with some senior Congress leaders and explored the possibilities of returning to the Congress. It is believed that after this, he also met the BJP’s Haryana in-charge and some senior BJP leaders to express what was on his mind. Kuldeep has reiterated before senior BJP leaders his demand that either he or his son Bhavya should be sent to the Rajya Sabha from the BJP’s quota; otherwise, he would be compelled to explore new possibilities for himself. Kuldeep knows that now even in Haryana, the existence of small parties has been eclipsed, the Chautala family’s parties are also struggling to save their existence. In Haryana too, only the Congress vs BJP fight remains, so Kuldeep also wants to remain in one of these two camps.
Congress’s Dilemma on SP
Congress leader and lawyer by profession, Vishwanath Chaturvedi, recently met Sonia Gandhi. It is worth noting that this is the same Chaturvedi who filed a disproportionate assets case against the Mulayam Singh Yadav family and has been relentlessly pursuing the matter against Mulayam and Akhilesh for many years. After meeting Sonia, advocate Chaturvedi expressed his anguish in more or less these words: “Madam, even today I have not been able to understand what exactly is Congress’s stand regarding the Samajwadi Party? Are we friends with them, or are we two separate political streams that cannot walk together? My case is an ‘open and shut case’ in which Akhilesh can be punished immediately, but the party never stands firmly behind me.” Sonia remained lost in thought for some time, then softly said: “We also want the Samajwadi Party to remain in its place, but the question is, how far should we go for that? That is the only thing we need to think about.”
