Newsmakers of the Week | TMC MP Mahua Moitra, Karnataka Cong MLA, NCP leader from Haryana village

Facing an FIR and several police cases across the country over her remarks on a controversy over a film poster featuring Goddess Kaali, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra remained defiant. On Wednesday, Moitra tweeted: “Jai Ma Kali! The goddess Bengalis worship is fearless & non-appeasing.” While her remarks were endorsed by a large number of the TMC’s young social media volunteers, Moitra may find the support dry up soon. With its vigorous invocation of Bengali sub-nationalism at odds with its plans to expand in other regions, the TMC was quick to officially distance itself from Moitra’s remarks. While it was precisely her fiery oratory and articulation that fuelled Moitra’s meteoric rise in the TMC after she joined it in 2010 – with the party looking for faces to represent it in the national capital – her star has been on the decline.

Karnataka Congress MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan

Early this week, as visuals of the Karnataka Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (ACB) raid on the properties of Congress MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan came in, many were struck by the opulence of his three-storeyed house in Bengaluru’s Cantonment area – complete with tall columns, arches and chandeliers. Among Karnataka’s richest MLAs, Zameer’s family runs National Travels, a transport business that runs a fleet of inter-state services. Zameer’s supporters in the party and his family, however, questioned the timing of the raids and alleged that the BJP government was trying to divert attention from two high-profile arrests. Read Kiran Parashar’s report on the Karnataka MLA who started his career in the JD(S) and was among those who left the party with Siddaramaiah to join the Congress.

Sonia Doohan: National president of the NCP students’ wing

One of the characters at the heart of the Maharashtra political drama has been a politician from Haryana’s Hisar. She is 30-year-old Sonia Doohan. The national president of the NCP students’ wing, Doohan was held along with an aide for allegedly using fake identification documents to check into Hotel Taj Resort and Convention Centre in Dona Paula, Goa, where Shiv Sena MLAs who had rebelled against Uddhav Thackeray were staying. It was Doohan who was at the fore in November 2019 too when the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis had tried to form the government with the NCP’s Ajit Pawar, after the Assembly poll results threw up a split verdict. Doohan was credited with “rescuing” four NCP MLAs from right under the BJP’s nose from a hotel in Gurgaon, Haryana. Sukhbir Siwach and Mayura Janwalkar bring you this report on the “feisty” youngster who made her way in politics despite her humble beginnings

UP Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak is known as a leader unafraid of speaking his mind and for whom his approachability is a key strength. The “Brahmin face” of the second Yogi Adityanath government, Pathak questioned Health Secretary Amit Mohan Prasad earlier this week over the transfer of doctors. The 58-year-old first came to the limelight as a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader when he won the Lok Sabha election from Unnao in 2004. Though Pathak remained with the party despite its loss in the 2012 Assembly elections, he jumped ship to the BJP ahead of the state polls a year before the next Assembly polls. Pathak’s rise in the ruling party was equally quick. He was rewarded with a Cabinet berth in the first term of the Adityanath government, serving as the Minister of Law. After the BJP retained power in the elections earlier this year, it pulled off a surprise by replacing its old hand and former Lucknow Mayor Dinesh Sharma with Pathak as a Deputy CM.

PT Usha

Sprint queen P T Usha, along with music maestro Ilaiyaraaja, acclaimed screenwriter V Vijayendra Prasad, and philanthropist and spiritual leader Veerendra Heggade, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha this week. Since her retirement in 2000, P T Usha has been a constant presence at national track and field meets along with her trainees from the Usha School of Athletics based in Kinalur in Kerala’s Kozhikode. Usha dominated the sprints and the 400 metre for over a decade at the Asian level. She now has a new role to play.

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