Piyush cuts his teeth as fixer; Nitish extracted pound of flesh

Is railway and commerce minister Piyush Goyal now emerging as the Narendra Modi government’s new troubleshooter, a role played admirably by the late Arun Jaitley in the past? That’s the buzz in the capital’s political circles as Mr Goyal was dispatched last week to mediate with floor leaders of Opposition parties who have held up parliamentary proceedings to press their demand for an immediate debate on the recent Delhi violence. Mr Goyal obviously met with no success as the first week of the second leg of the Budget Session proved to be a total washout. Mr Goyal is clearly not in the same league as Mr Jaitley, who had, over the years, cultivated friends across party lines. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party has no choice but to turn to Mr Goyal as there is no one else who can be entrusted with this responsibility. In fact, the young minister is also being deployed to “pull up” media houses if they step out of line and tip off “friendly” media-persons with information that serves interests.

Fthe government’s

ormer Congress president Rahul Gandhi dwelt at length on the different traits of people hailing from Tamil Nadu and Kerala in a recent informal conversation with party MPs from the two states. According to the NehruGandhi scion, Kerala people are more flexible while Tamilians are extremely rigid. In this regard, Rahul Gandhi added as an afterthought, he is a lot like the Tamil people as he is equally uncompromising. He made it clear that he does not wish to return as Congress president and that people had not understood that he intends to stand by this decision. He had spoken in the same vein when Congress leaders tried to persuade him to change his mind after he stepped down as party president last year. “You obviously don’t realise it but I can be very stubborn,” he repeatedly told the pleading leaders. Rahul Gandhi’s casual observation assumes significance as there is a section in the

Congress that take over the once again.

Eis pressing him to party presidency

ager to get back his old kursi, former Madhya Pradesh chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan had been urging the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to give him the go-ahead to dislodge the Kamal Nath-led state government ever since the Congress came to power over a year ago with a waferthin majority. However, he was held back from doing this because his party leaders (read Amit Shah) were not keen to hand over the state to Mr Chouhan again as he had fallen out of favour. But equations have now changed. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh came to Mr Chouhan’s rescue and brokered a truce between him and the party’s central leadership. As a result, the former chief minister was given the necessary green signal to proceed with plans to destabilise the Congress government. This explains the recent flurry of activity in Bhopal when the BJP went into overdrive to poach

Opposition MLAs to bring down Kamal Nath. This project also acquired urgency as the next round of Rajya Sabha elections are around the corner and the BJP is determined to win a maximum number of seats to push up its strength in the Upper House.

Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar was sending out feelers to his former alliance partner, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, till two months ago about a possible patch-up before this year’s Assembly elections. But Nitish Kumar seems to have cooled off after his present ally, the BJP, declared that the JD(U) president would be their chief ministerial face. From the way events have unfolded it would appear that Nitish Kumar was essentially hobnobbing with the RJD to exert pressure on the BJP to concede to his demands. He realised that the BJP, which is more vulnerable after a string of losses in Assembly polls, cannot afford to let him go and has no choice but to accommodate him.

It was precisely for this reason that Nitish Kumar recently ensured the smooth passage of a resolution in the Bihar Assembly rejecting the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register in its present form while helpless BJP lawmakers were forced to support it.

BJP insiders maintain that the collected works of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are currently being put together and edited by former journalist Kanchan Gupta who is chairman of the Kolkata-based Raja Rammohun Roy Library. It is being assumed that the “works” are basically a collection of Mr Modi’s speeches as the Prime Minister is not known to be a writer. It’s a big assignment for Gupta who was initially coldshouldered by the Modi government because of his earlier proximity to veteran leader L.K. Advani but was rehabilitated after a long wait.

Anita Katyal is a Delhi-based journalist