By Nora Chopra
RAHUL GANDHI TO LEAD JATRAS OF CONGRESSMEN IN UTTAR PRADESH
Despite the high demand and publicity, Priyanka Gandhi has put her campaigning in Uttar Pradesh on hold. But this does not mean that she will not campaign. Priyanka would start her campaign a month before the elections giving her brother Rahul a chance to be projected. This is the litmus test for Rahul Gandhi. His future will depend on the success of the Congress in UP elections. Rahul will start his kisan yatra from Deoria on September 6. Deona is the political turf of Fazle Masood who has been made in charge of Rahul’s kisan yatra. Masood who had won his first assembly elections from Deoria will accompany Rahul throughout. Rahul will cover the rural areas of the state and even hold khat sabhas in which he would interact with the rural youth of the district. . This yatra will culminate at Lucknow where Rahul is expected to address a huge rally. In Lucknow, the other two yatras are also likely to culminate at the same time. It will be a sangam of the three yatras. During his yatra Rahul will also have bhojan with the rural people mostly the Brahmins. Pressure is however mounting upon the Congress leadership that Priyanka should also join Rahul at the Lucknow rally. But so far, there is no indication from Priyanka. The thinking in the Congress is that Priyanka may over shadow Rahul so it is better that Priyanka should not join Rahul at this juncture.. Meanwhile the Brahmin sammelan which had to take place in Allahabad will now take place in Lucknow. The decision to change the venue was the rain and flood situation.
RAHUL GANDHI ACTING AS DE FACTO CONGRESS PRESIDENT
The formal coronation of Rahul Gandhi may have been deferred till after the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections are over but informally he has started functioning as the de facto president of the party. Now the Congress vice president will be taking a meeting of all the AICC general secretaries every day at 9.30 AM sharp in the morning. All the AICC general secretaries have reportedly received a circular from Rahul Gandhi in which they have been asked to report to him every day so that they can deal with the complaints the vice president has been receiving concerning their department or state. Again the way he is leading the UP campaign despite the publicity of his sister Priyanka Vadra Gandhi to lead the campaign, just shows that he has taken over as president of the Congress party in the absence of his mother Sonia Gandhi.
MODI GOVT USING BLACKMAILING TACTICS TO SCARE CONGRESS LEADERS
Once a journalist close to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has written several books on Modi and the BJP issues during the 2014 election campaign had remarked that if Modi is scared of anyone, it is Priyanka Gandhi. The Dhingra report indicting Priyanka’s husband Robert Vadra has come when the Congress campaign in UP is successfully picking up. The timing of this report is being seen as a move to scare Priyanka. But if sources in the Congress are to believed then Priyanka can convert this into a sympathy move in her favour if she sheds a few tears and says that the BJP is being vindictive, says a senior Congress leader. Priyanka is not the only one whom the BJP is scared of. The BJP is using every trick in its bag to scare the Congress leadership. For this they are using all the investigative agencies to their convenience. The recent visit of the ACB to probe into the Rs.400 crore Delhi Jal Board scam allegedly done by Sheila Dixit is also an attempt to scare the Brahmin leader. If sources in the BJP are to be believed, then the BJP is jittery with the gradual success of the Congress campaign because the Congress is banking on the Brahmin votes which till now had been the base vote of the BJP. In the absence of any Brahmin leader In UP, the BJP is compelled to use these black mailing tactics. .
JAI SHANKAR GIVEN MORE POWERS TO MARGINALISE DOVAL
The national security adviser Ajit Doval is reportedly on his way out. Pressure has mounted on the prime minister from the ministry of external affairs to have a diplomat as his NSA. The foreign secretary Jai Shankar is retiring in January next year. Jai Shankar is supposed to have worked out successful visits of the prime minister to US. After the home minister’s disastrous visit to Pakistan organised by Doval which actually triggered the need for a change, the charge of Pakistan too has now been given to Jai Shankar. This is seen as an indication of Jai Shankar replacing Doval. The only hurdle can be that two officers are senior to him and they may create problems for him. He can even be made the deputy NSA but with more powers than the NSA.
AMAR SINGH HAS NO ROLE IN RAJYA SABHA AS SAMAJWADI PARTY MEMBER
Amar Singh who is famous as a family breaker is upset with his mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav over the patch up within the Yadav parivar. His problem is that by patching up with Akhilesh and Ram Gopal Yadav, Mulayam and his brother Shivpal are now devoid of power and the anti Amar Singh duo Akhilesh and Ramgopal will control the party. Now Amar Singh is not getting the same VIP treatment of which he was used to in his previous stint, Despite his utmost.efforts the party has not given either a Rajya Sabha seat or assembly ticket to his friend Jaya Prada. And even of equal importance is the fact that he may have managed a RS seat but in Rajya Sabha ,the leader of the Samajwdi Party is his bete noire Ram Gopal Yadav who does not allow him to speak in the house. His grudge is that he is not allowed to speak in the house .
CONGRESS WORKERS ANGRY IN WESTERN UTTAR PRADESH OVER YATRA
Resentment is high among the Congress workers of Bundelkhand as well as of western Uttar Pradesh over the high command’s decision to add up the three muslim leaders all from Lucknow and the adjoining areas of Sitapur, Kanpur, Lucknow and Allahabad. In their bid to woo the muslim community the party has recently added up three new muslim faces in their yatras besides Fazle Masood ,Zafar Ali Naqvi and Abdul Mannan. They have also been given the opportunity to prove themselves. While Masood belongs to Allahabad and is living in Lucknow, Naqvi is from Sitapur and Mannan is from Kanpur. Except Imran Masood who is from Saharanpur, not even a single hindu or a muslim leader has found a place in the UP committees. Salman Khurshid who is from Harrukhabad in central UP was a name known internationally but was dropped at the last moment and replaced by Abdul Mannan in the wake of his Balochistan statement. (IPA)