Opinion Inside Track: Sticking on

When the PM landed in Paris, he was wearing a smart grey-brown shawl with checks that matched his grey jacket. The pattern resembled Louis Vuitton’s trademark squares. Many people, including several in the media, took to Twitter to pan his fashion statement, both for the “extravagance” involved and the fact that the shawl was “not made in India”. (Louis Vuitton shawls are in the range of Rs 1.5 lakh.) However, before the controversy could blow up into monogrammed pin-striped suit proportions, the celebrated French fashion house clarified the shawl was not its. Modi went on to repeat the shawl during his trip, perhaps to make a point.

Low key No. 2

The BJP is keen to clarify that Arun Jaitley was on the stage — and not Rajnath Singh — at the BJP National Executive in Bangalore simply because the party was following a tradition introduced over 10 years ago during Jaswant Singh’s tenure as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. It was then decided that the party’s parliamentary leaders in the two Houses of Parliament would sit on the dais. Before the PM’s nine-day trip to France, Germany and Canada, the Cabinet Secretary issued a note to the five seniormost ministers that in the event of an emergency, they should refer the issue to the Home Minister, indicating Rajnath Singh still maintains his No. 2 position.

Losing ground

There is a feeling in a section of the BJP that Amit Shah and Narendra Modi have bungled in handling the opposition to the land Bill. The united Opposition has cleverly turned the campaign into an anti-farmer issue and the government has shortsightedly tried to counter it by getting into an academic exercise on the merits of the Bill. The choice of Nitin Gadkari and Arun Jaitley as spokespersons on the Bill is considered unsuitable. It would have made more sense to rope in BJP’s rural leaders like Rajnath Singh, Venkaiah Naidu, Chaudhary Birender Singh and Hukumdev Narayan Yadav, leaders say.

Opportunity missed

A month and a half ago, at Amit Shah’s son wedding, it seemed TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi was all set to join the BJP, though Mamata Banerjee had just appointed him vice-president of the party. Trivedi did not seem at all coy about hobnobbing with the enemy at the wedding festivities. But the BJP seems to have lost a golden opportunity to lure Trivedi and a few other TMC dissidents to its side in West Bengal. Mamata now finds herself on a more secure footing with the dissension within her ranks scuttled, at least temporarily.

Getting around ordinance

Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot plans to launch a campaign to “expose” Vasundhara Raje government’s allotment of 600 mines on a first-come, first-serve basis for a 99-year-lease on December 31 last year. The allotments happened just 12 days before the Central government’s ordinance recommending that mining rights all over the country be auctioned. Pilot has moved an RTI application to find out the extent of the “loss” to the state exchequer from the hasty deal before the ordinance. Four major cement factories are among the beneficiaries, he alleges.

Cricket blues

The IPL matches have begun but not a single cricket match has been held in Jaipur, home turf of the Rajasthan Royals team. This is because of the continuing dispute between the two factions of the Rajasthan Cricket Association. After a stormy general body meeting last month, Lalit Modi, once the czar of the state’s cricket association, was ousted. There have been charges and counter charges about the manner in which the EGM was conducted. Amin Pathan, formerly a protégé of Modi, was elected president since he was supported by the government nominees. Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje has ditched her old friend Lalit Modi. But the problems of the RCA seem far from over.