Kangana over the moon
Actress Kangana Ranaut made pakodas and chai for her family to celebrate Narendra Modi’s victory in the general elections. Her sister, Rangoli Chandel, tweeted the pakora and chai photos and said, “Kangana cooks rarely, when she is absolutely exhilarated, today she treated us with chai pakodas for @narendramodi Ji’s win #JaiHind #JaiBharat”. Kangana said, “What Modi Ji stands for are very strong set of ideas, vision and strength of human ambition. It needs a headstrong nation to be in sync with future possibilities of greatness. Where we stand today, to even dream of a glorious tomorrow needs audacity. We as a nation are ready for it with Modi Ji. There’s nothing more precious than it. I’m over the moon today, literally!”
Some Bollywood stars wondered whether it was Kangana’s subtle message to Modi: “Give me a Parliament ticket next time.”
Muslim WhatsApp groups issue advisory
A day before the general election results were to come many active WhatsApp groups of educated Muslims sounded a note of caution: “Now onwards, please don’t post any controversial messages.” And when it became clear the next day that the BJP had captured the entire cow belt the administrators of these WhatsApp groups issued another advisory: “Please accept the reality. Don’t be disheartened. Time to move ahead and get busy with your daily life and profession. We are not here to carry on our shoulders the burden of defeated Opposition leaders, whether they are Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati or Mamata Banerjee…”
A fortnight ago, a list of all the states and also of specific constituencies was posted in these WhatsApp groups, and is believed to have been circulated across the country, advising Muslims whom to vote for to defeat the BJP and its allied partners.
BJP’s Youngest MP from Bengaluru
Bengaluru South has elected the BJP’s youngest Lok Sabha MP, Tejasvi Surya (28). He won by a huge margin of 331,192 votes against Congress’ heavyweight B.K. Hariprasad. Surya was chosen by the party to fill the vacuum that was created by the death of Union Minister Ananth Kumar some months ago. Bengaluru South seat has been a BJP bastion since the 90s and Ananth Kumar held the seat for six terms. Kumar contested against tech czar and co-founder of Infosys Nandan Nilekani in 2014 and won by a margin of over 2.3 lakh votes. The RSS-backed Surya’s election campaign largely resonated with a strong Hindutva ideology in a non-issue based campaigning. His supporters hope that he might be inducted into the Cabinet as a junior minister. A young law graduate, Surya’s association with RSS and ABVP, the student wing of BJP, started in his student days. After becoming a designated spokesperson of the party in Karnataka, Surya was a popular face on TV political debates and played a big role in making the party visible in the state.
Mind your hug
Congress president Rahul Gandhi should learn from what Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has to say about his Cabinet colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu’s notorious hug to Pakistani Army chief General Qamar Bajwa during a visit to Islamabad last year. Rahul had once hugged Modi in the Lok Sabha. The CM said that Sidhu’s show of “yaari and jhappi” (friendship and hugs) with the Pakistan Army chief had not gone down well with the public. “How something like that could be tolerated, especially by Army personnel who are being killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists?” he asked. The CM told The Sunday Guardian that he would raise the Sidhu issue with the Congress high command soon.
Khattar tallest non-Jat leader
The emergence of Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar as the tallest non-Jat leader in the state after Bhajan Lal, a former CM, is one the biggest takeaways of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The way Khattar mobilised non-Jats, particularly in the past two years, he is now being seen as even a bigger leader than Bhajan Lal, who enjoyed the confidence of non-Jats for nearly three decades since 1980. For the first time, the BJP has won all the 10 seats.