Corridors of power | The wheels of karma, cold shoulders and clever foxes

But politics is not a fixed deposit. It is more like a seasonal fruit. Upset with the unfolding spectacle, Khanna packed up and headed straight to his old friend, Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal. The BJP went fishing for an AAP MLA and instead strengthened the SAD bench. That is what one might call an own goal.
Sources whisper that a former lieutenant of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann tried to broker peace between the BJP and Bharaj, who is herself facing anti-incumbency heat in Sangrur. The mediation, however, appears to have boomeranged. In the end, no AAP MLA was netted, but the SAD got a seasoned catch. Political arithmetic can be cruel like that.

Lonely at the top?

They say it is lonely at the top. For Bhagwant Mann, it seemed positively silent.

When the chief minister was hospitalised recently, the visitor’s log book reportedly remained as bare as an Opposition bench during a treasury speech. Not a single AAP MLA or minister was seen dropping by. No bouquets. No strategic whispers. No bedside solidarity selfies.

The lone visitor was Manish Sisodia, AAP’s state affairs in-charge, who arrived solo—perhaps to hold fort, perhaps to hold the narrative. For four days, Mann remained in the hospital. The silence from his own ranks spoke volumes, and in politics, silence is rarely accidental.

It had an eerie déjà vu quality. Last year, it was Congress MLA Pargat Singh who made a courtesy call during a similar episode, prompting raised eyebrows and raised questions. The AAP’s studied distance had then triggered whispers about what the high command might be thinking.

This time too, the optics were difficult to ignore. For a party that prides itself on discipline and message management, an empty corridor can sometimes say more than a crowded press conference.

The fox in Congress

If the corridors of power were quiet in one camp, they were buzzing in another.

Former Punjab DGP Mohd Mustafa, husband of former Cabinet minister Razia Sultana, stirred the pot with a sharply worded open letter to the Congress high command. He cautioned against elevating a certain state leader, unnamed but heavily implied, to a position of power.

Without taking names, Mustafa ensured everyone started taking guesses.

“The Congress party is built on the sweat of those who fight in the fields, not the schemes of those who fix in the offices,” he wrote, taking aim at what he described as “Chanakyan manoeuvres of a foxy few”. Phones rang across Punjab, but clarity remained elusive. The suspense, clearly, was the point.

He warned that a leader who cannot speak against the incumbent government for fear of “cupboards being reopened” is not a leader but a liability. He advised the high command to distinguish between “shaadi ke ghode” and “race ke ghode”—those fit for weddings and those fit for the real contest. The metaphor galloped across party WhatsApp groups in record time.

There was also a pointed reference to “quintals of yellow metal”, suggesting that when wealth grows heavy, so does silence. In Congress circles, the letter became less a caution and more a parlour game: Who is the fox?

Matter of perception

Meanwhile, perception decided to take centre stage.

When news broke that Bhagwant Mann had been flown from Dhuri to a plush private hospital in Mohali, it did not remain health news for long. Social media quickly connected it to the AAP’s much-publicised sehat kranti. If government hospitals are the showpiece, critics asked, why the private suite?

Almost on cue came chatter about his daughter applying to a top private school in Chandigarh, even as the party showcases its sikhiya kranti in state-run schools.

Supporters argue, reasonably, that a father may choose a school for his child and a patient may choose a hospital. That is fair. But public life has a way of shrinking the private. When leaders advertise transformation, voters expect demonstration.

In Punjab politics, symbolism travels faster than fact. And in the corridors of power, perception does not just matter; it often wins the election.