A mysterious Fadnavis-Raut Mission - Fly on the wall

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group


A mysterious Fadnavis-Raut Mission
The tremors of Fadnavis- Raut close-door 150-minute meeting continue days after the event and even felt in Delhi. The top BJP leadership is also maintaining a studied silence except for saying that Fadnavis is tasked to oversee Bihar elections. There is no general secretary incharge of Maharashtra after the exit of the affable Saroj Pandey. Is the BJP smelling blood in Maharashtra again, not really? The party is in no hurry and feels the present government will crumble due to inherent contradictions. Then why Sanjay Raut’s 150-minute close-door meeting with former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis ? No one is buying the theory that it was held to discuss modalities of Fadnavis’ interview with Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece, Saamana. But there are no takers of Fadnavis’ statement either where he said “politics was not discussed”. Is the turf ready to pull down the Uddhav Thackeray ? The CM’s baiters allege that he has largely been confined to his Matoshri residence even once for eight months and his handling of the economy is dismal. However, Pawar is enjoying fruits of power in Maharashtra and Uddhav is reaping the harvest and never had it so good. Did he dispatch Sanjay Raut as his emissary on a secret mission? Doesn’t look like it! Was Raut playing solo? Political watchers say Sanjay Raut is his own master these days.

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And a Failed Amit Shah- Jagan meet
If the Fadnavis-Raut meeting is shrouded in mystery, another unreported meeting between India’s second most powerful man Amit Shah and Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy ended in a damp squib. The Union Home Minister who was incommunicado since August 2, held a rather long chat with Jagan after declining to meet him twice before. Amit Shah granted the audience after a word came from the PMO to grant him time. Jagan wanted funds for Polavaram project, GST compensation among other favours. But Amit Shah was worried as the NDA has weakened after the exit of Sena and Akali Dal. Insiders say that Amit Shah sounded out Jagan if his party, YSR Congress would join the NDA. Amit Shah is reported to have told Jagan that TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu is also keen to re-join the NDA. But the BJP wants to start a new inning with YSR Congress. It transpires that Jagan expressed his reluctance to join the NDA due to his party’s strong Christian-Muslim-Reddy vote bank. But he agreed to lend support to NDA wherever needed. Amit Shah was not impressed and the meeting ended in a fiasco.

BJP's New Modi from South!
Ever heard of B L Santosh ? If not, the loss is entirely yours. He is the new man on the horizon in BJP. Many in the ruling party go to the extent of saying that he is Narendra Modi of South though not as charismatic as the PM is. If Modi brought BJP in power in Gujrat, Santosh brought the saffron party to power in Karnataka in 2008. If Modi installed Kesubhai Patel as CM, Santosh installed B S Yediyuruppa as CM. Santosh never looked back since then and was promoted as BJP general secretary incharge of the Organisation 11 years later. A chemical engineer, bachelor and 24X7 RSS worker, Santosh is a no-nonsense, tough man. He is tech savvy and a person with an open mind and new ideas. He watched Shahrukh Khan’s “Chuck de India” ten times to understand how the spirit of patriotism can be inculcated among the party workers through visual medium. He reminds of the days of late Sunder Singh Bhandari who built the party with Atal-Advani-Nanaji Deshmukh. The recent shake up in the BJP is attributed to Modi-Shah-Nadda Trimurti. But the man behind the entire exercise where 4 powerful generals secretaries and seven Vice presidents were shown the door is B L Santosh. Of course, some may be accommodated in ministries and others as Governors. But Santosh convinced the RSS and party high command that new blood is needed for 2024 now if BJP wants to gain in five major Southern Indian states, North East and West Bengal. The Growing Beard

Why is PM Modi growing his beard these days? Everyone in the town's talking about it but no one has the answers. Not even those who interact with him. One explanation is that the PM doesn’t want anybody in his immediate proximity due to Covid. A hairdresser to trim his beard can cause infection. Therefore, everybody is kept at arm’s length including those who serve at his official residence. There are a few who feel it may have something to do with ‘divine” help he is seeking to fight Coronavirus.

Why Rahul Gandhi rubbed Sena and Many ?

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

special report

Why Rahul Gandhi rubbed Sena and Many ?

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Dec. 15

Rahul Gandhi may have baffled Congressmen including his mother & Congress Interim president Sonia Gandhi when he rubbed key party ally Shiv Sena on the wrong side by invoking Vir Savarkar.

But he was fully aware of what he was doing at the mammoth rally at the Ramlila Grounds on Saturday when he said “My name is not Rahul Savarkar. My Name is Rahul Gandhi and I will not apologise”.  Obviously, he was telling the saffron parties that Savarkar had apologized to the British. But he was not the one to do so.

Insiders say that Rahul Gandhi deliberately  invoked Savarkar’s name to rub the Shiv Sena on the wrong side. While the “Bharat Bachao Rally” was aimed at targeting the BJP and NDA, Rahul deviated from the script and provoked the Sena. Sources close to Rahul Gandhi told Lokmat that the scion of the Gandhi family was never in favour of the Congress-NCP-Sena alliance . Yet, due to political compulsions Sonia Gandhi gave the go-ahead to the alliance. But Rahul was never happy about it and he went public the moment he got an opportunity to pass the snide remark. It’s a different matter that Sonia Gandhi who spoke after him went according to the script and ignored his remarks.  It also transpires that immediately after the public rally, she got in touch with senior party leader Ahmad Patel to handle the situation. It was these behind-the-scenes activity that Sena’s Sanjay Raut’s tweet was guarded and the matter subsided.  But it clearly emerged that Rahul Gandhi’s remarks were well thought of and not a spur-of-the-moment statement.

Sources say that several of the Congress stalwarts including Chief Ministers were also unhappy that Instead of appreciating them, Rahul Gandhi chose to  congratulate  party general secretary Mukul Wasnik for mobilizing a massive crowd at the rally. He called out Wasnik and patted his back for the successful rally in front of thousands present. Rahul Gandhi did not name a single party leader for mobilizing such a mammoth crowd. The Chief Ministers - Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Kamal Nath (Madhya Pradesh) and Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda worked for weeks to bring crowds from their respective states.

On the contrary, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi congratulated her workers from UP who had come in large numbers and they cheered repeatedly when she spoke.

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by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Modi wants all CMs at Patel Statue Unveiling Event 

BJP rushed to placate Nitish Kumar 

Efforts to bring Naveen Patnaik too  Uddhav Thackeray disincline : 20 BJP CMs in toe 

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Oct 29

Prime Minister Narendra Moi is working hard to ensure the presence of Chief Ministers of all the states at unveiling of 'Statue of Unity' dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, on October 31 in Gujrat.

Modi wants to tout the ceremony as symbol of unity of the country and is in touch with every chief minister and top leaders of parties to be present when the statue is unveiled.

So keen was Modi to ensure the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the venue that he directed BJP Chief Amit Shah to seal the Lok Sabha seat sharing deal with JD (U). Shah rushed to Delhi cutting short his election campaign and made huge concessions.

As Modi wanted that all the NDA CMs be present at the statue of unity-- the BJP has its own band of 20 and it wanted nitish kumar, KCR, Palaniswamy and even. Nitish was unwilling to come.

Gujrat's senior-most Minister Saurabh Patel sought time from Nitish Kumar to invite him for the unveiling ceremony 20 days ago. But Nitish Kumar excused saying that he was traveling. The BJP was informally conveyed if the presence of Nitish is required, the seat sharing issue be settled. Similar efforts are on the persuade Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to travel to Gujrat to be part of this unity.

Modi is also keen to ensure the presence of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the venue. The BJP leadership has also conveyed to Patnaik that its not keen to disturb his apple cart.

PM Modi made it clear to the Chief Ministers of non-BJP states that is not a party function and its dedicated to the country’s tallest leader who unified India 70 years ago.

The efforts are also being made to ensure the presence of Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray at the venue. When contacted, Sanjay Raut, Shive speokeman and Rajya Sabha MP said, “We are busy in the Ram Temple movement beginning November 25.  

Barring Capt Amrinder Singh (Punjab), Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) and Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), V Narayansami (Puducherry) Chief Ministers and Governor of Jammu & Kashmir are expected to attend the ceremony.

The statue touted to be the world’s tallest statue, will have a viewing gallery at the height of 193 metres from the sea level which can accommodate 200 visitors at a time. The security & intelligence agencies are making every effort to check the safety of all the VVIPs together at one place at such a height.

Nearly 3,400 labourers and 250 engineers worked round-the-clock at the site of the statue at Sadhu Bet island on Narmada river. The 182-metre tall statue will be unveiled on the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel. The statue has been built at a cost of Rs. 2,389 crores. Modi had laid the foundation stone for the project on October 31, 2013 when he was the chief minister of Gujarat.

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