Delhi Confidential: Silent on NRC

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray

The silence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on the proposed nationwide NRC is discomfiting to the Congress. The common minimum programme of the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress specifies that the three parties will take a “joint view” after holding consultations and arriving at a consensus on contentious issues of national importance. But there has been no consultations so far on the NRC among the parties. The Sena’s support to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Lok Sabha had enraged the Congress. The Sena then nuanced its stance in Rajya Sabha and stayed away from voting. Interestingly, Thackeray’s silence is in contrast to the likes of Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik who have come out opposing a nationwide NRC after supporting the CAB.

On Record

The BJP’s training programme, after successfully completing a massive membership campaign, is considered to be one-of- its-kind as the party has become a political force with the largest pool of trained human resources working on political engagement. Now, the party wants to put all those efforts and programmes on record. It is set to release a coffee table book on how it accomplished the mission of ideologically training its members. The book — Training For A New India: Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya Prashikshan Mahabhiyan — edited by former Organiser weekly editor R Balashankar and Hemant Goswami, narrates on the BJP’s growth from 2014, training sessions in the states, different morchas and how technology was used for the purpose.

The Counter

As Congress president Sonia Gandhi has become the voice of her party on the issue of protests against the new citizenship law, the BJP has fielded Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to counter her. On Monday, Gandhi came out against police action on Jamia students, attacking the government for not having any “compassion” in “shutting down people’s voices”, while Sitharaman warned that “people must be wary of jihadists, Maoists and separatists” infiltrating student protests. On Friday, when the Congress president, in a video message, slammed the government for using “brute force” against the protesters, Sitharaman was fielded to convey that the government will not start the NRC exercise without consulting the stakeholders.

Double Role

Information and Broadcasting Secretary Amit Khare, a 1985-batch IAS officer, was appointed as higher education secretary last week. Before this announcement, Khare was already holding additional charge of the school department since October 15. There is a strong buzz in the bureaucracy that the government may not appoint a full-time school education secretary. In other words, like the early 2000s, the HRD Ministry could have only one secretary looking after both school and higher education.