Congress blinks

The threat from the Left to pull out of the government has not deterred some key members of the UPA government from planning visits abroad this month. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to visit South Africa and Nigeria. Sonia Gandhi has a five-day trip to China lined up. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has left for Moscow, Defence Minister A.K. Antony is due to reach Russia next week and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath is scheduled to go to Canada. Either the government is confident about its survival or else its representatives feel they might as well enjoy themselves while the going is good.

Stage fright

BJP president Rajnath Singh’s efforts to protect former general-secretary Sanjay Joshi from being totally marginalised within the party have met with scant success. Joshi, formerly the RSS’s point man in the BJP, was stripped of his general-secretary’s post after a nod from higher-ups in Nagpur who had veered around to the view that there was substance in the controversial sex videotape allegation. Singh, nevertheless, subsequently nominated Joshi to the party’s national executive, which upset L.K. Advani. Joshi, conscious of the disapproval of a powerful section of the BJP, developed cold feet and did not attend the national executive meeting in Delhi earlier this year. For the recent national executive meet, Joshi flew down to Bhopal, but once again stayed away from the deliberations, reportedly on the advice of the party president.

Piloting his future

Sachin Pilot is so obviously the face of the future in his home state of Rajasthan that the BJP government cannot hide its peeve towards him. Pilot was singled out for “special treatment’’ when he was arrested during the Gujjar agitation this month. It was a baptism by fire in real politics for the soft-spoken, articulate MP, the youngest in the country. Pilot was kept along with hardened criminals and not permitted any contact with lawyers or party workers during his three-day incarceration, while all the other agitators were housed in makeshift temporary jails, allowed to keep cellphones and to mingle with other demonstrators. The Rajasthan government may have to pay a heavy price for its vindictiveness. It has only helped project Pilot as a martyr to the Gujjar cause. Also, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee will have to rule on a demand by Pilot that a breach of privilege be moved against the state government for violating his rights as an MP.

Who’s with whom?

While Narendra Modi’s non-political opponents target the Gujarat chief minister for his anti-minority record, the Congress, in the coming elections, is more keen to project Modi as more anti-Patel than anti-Muslim. Up and coming Congress leader Bharat Solanki actually told a journalist that Modi, Advani and Musharraf were in league. Ironically, Bharat’s father Madhavsinh was the man who had forged the winning KHAM formula (Kshatriya, Harijan, Advisasi & Muslims) for the Congress party. Eventually, the isolated Patel community turned to the BJP and till this election was its support base.