By Nora Chopra
Reversal of fortunes in Uttar Pradesh
If it was time to celebrate for Mulayam Singh Yadav; it also time for Mayawati to do some soul searching. The results of the by-poll in Uttar Pradesh is wakeup call for all parties, including the BJP which had bagged 70 plus out of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha elections and now it lost eight out of its eleven sitting seats in the by-polls. One more reason for the BJP’s bad performance is seen as the absence of the Modi factor. While Mayawati was not there, and Modi was sitting in Delhi, the voters thought better to vote for Mulayam who was in power in the state. However, the Congress continues with its depleting march. In Lok Sabha, it had won only two seats of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi with help from Mulayam, who did not field a candidate in Rae Bareilly. In the by-poll they failed to come second even in one seat. The Congress lost its deposit in all 10 seats except in Charkhari-I assembly segment in Hamirpur parliamentary constituency. Mayawati, who had failed to get even a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections, did not field a single candidate in the by-polls. Though she gave the excuse that she has never fielded candidates in by-elections but she left the field open for her support base to vote for the candidate of their choice, preferably the independents. But sources close to her claim that in view of the Lok Sabha polls where the dalits had moved lock stock and barrel to the BJP giving it the thunderous victory, she had hoped that in her absence the dalits would vote for the BJP to defeat her archrival Mulayam Singh Yadav. But contrary to her expectations, this did not happen. Dalits and OBCs in the entire rural area of western UP either did not vote or voted for Mulayam who managed 8 out of 11 seats plus one his Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Mulayam’s survival was at stake after the Lok Sabha election where he got just five family seats with an underhand dealing with Rajnath Singh. But then he was the only one who ensured he turned the verdict in his own favour. He used the BJP’s love jihad communal agenda to his own favour by polarising the Muslims votes this time. In the absence of Mayawati and Congress in bad shape the Muslims rallied behind Mulayam to defeat the BJP’s communal agenda. He did not use Azam Khan in the election to dissuade the Hindu voters and sought help of Amar Singh to woo the Rajputs who are said to be unhappy with Modi who was treating Rajnath shabbily. The fight for the 2016 elections is now likely to be between Mulayam and the BJP. Mayawati is unlikely to recover her support base. She has even lost her Muslim votes who are upset with her for not visiting them even once after the riots in Muzaffarnagar or countering BJP’s communal agenda. It looks the Mayawati era is over.
Media grapevine flooding Delhi
Ever since the Narendra Modi took charge of the government the rumour market is in full bloom. The rumours are not only about politics and political people but rumours are also making rounds about media and the top guns of the media. Major changes are in the offing in the media world as well. It all started with the TV18 plus CNN-IBN group being bought over by the Reliance group owned by Mukesh Ambani. It resulted in Rajdeep Sardesai leaving the group to look for better pastures. He finally ended up joining as a consulting editor at the India Today Group, which too was in controversy recently. It first hired the former editor of Indian Express Shekhar Gupta who came with a whole band of hounds from the Express group. But sooner than ever Gupta was out. To be blamed were the ego clashes between Gupta and his employer Arun Poorie. Right from the beginning there were problems between the two. Poorie was not happy with Shekhar for bringing a group of journalists on exorbitant salaries not worthy of it. Shekhar is now cooling his heels as adviser to India Today replaced by Rajdeep Sardesai as editorial director to India Today Group. The former Forbes editor Inderjit Gupta is likely to join as the Editor of India Today. But the latest to start a new project is the former editor of The Hindu Siddharth Vardharajan, who is believed to be coming out with a newspaper of some big group. He is believed to be working on a Rs 100-crore project though he has not confirmed its scale. However, the rumour market is abuzz of that Siddharth has been approached by the Congress to start the National Herald but Vardarajan has denied that. He said that it must have been spread by the BJP. Meanwhile, there is also a rumour making rounds that a top industrialist of the country is also toying the idea of entering the media industry.
Old and new rivalries mar Congress
The war of wits continues unabated in the Congress party. It is free for all. Everyone seems to be at each other’s throat. On one hand, leaders speak in different voices and the other is the open criticism of Rahul Gandhi who led the party to the worst ever defeat. As the junior secretaries continue their tirade against their seniors evolving new strategies, the latest to join this war within the party is Ajay Maken, the head of the AICC communication department. On one side, he issue statement contradicting Sheila Dikshit on the BJP forming the government as he sees her a threat to his own possible elevation to become the chief minister one day. The recent fatwa issued by Maken gagging its leaders from airing their views in public was basically also meant for Rashid Alvi and Manish Tiwari, the most accessible persons for the media in the absence of official spokespersons who are just not available. This sudden outburst by Maken is also being seen as his ongoing rivalry with the former party spokesperson and I&B minister Manish Tiwari since their youth Congress days.
Modi fan boys in Congress party
Congress has a whole line of Modi fans. Besides Azad, there’s Digvijays Singh, once the most bitter critic of Modi. He too was all praises for Modi on the PM’s J&K decisions. Janardhan Dwivedi too was highly impressed by the way he implemented the age criteria. Diwedi now wants the same for his party. And then the crafty spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi too is a Modi fan. He is on record praising him after his Red Fort speech. Then who can forget Shashi Tharoor and P Chidambaram. Chidambaram refused to criticise the Modi budget and his economic policies. Tharoor had gushed that Mr Modi is looking to turn himself from a hate figure to an avatar of modernity and progress. (IPA)