Decoding Digvijaya
Digvijaya Singh does it again. He has been caught on camera telling party workers that he would not be campaigning for the party in the coming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections as whenever he campaigns the party loses votes. That’s an intriguing admission, because prior to this, Singh had been touring the state, meeting party workers post his Narmada yatra. Being a two-term Chief Minister, he is also the party’s tallest leader in the state. While Pradesh Congress Committee chief and his good friend Kamal Nath played down Singh’s statement, it was the rival camp that shed light on it when MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan pointed out that it was the Congress that had alienated Digvijaya by not putting up a single poster of his in the state. Shivraj is right, the posters put up by the state Congress have various leaders, including all and sundry, but not Digvijaya. When his followers started a Digvijaya4CM campaign, he had tweeted saying, “Whoever has started Digvijay4CM is not my well-wisher. I have been CM MP for a decade and there is no question of my going back on my statement that I AM NOT A CM CANDIDATE.” But never underestimate Diggy. After all, he has learnt political strategy from the best—the wiliest of them all, the late Congress leader Arjun Singh himself.
The Birthday Bash
One of Lutyens’ Delhi’s most iconic landmarks, the Taj Mansingh turned 40 this year and the event was well timed with the Tata Group’s fresh lease over the hotel. If you recall, it was after a seven-year court battle (with its share of political intrigue) that the Tata Group’s Indian Hotels Co. Ltd (IHCL) was able to renew its 33-year-old lease on the hotel via an auction conducted by the NDMC, where it outbid the ITC Hotel chain. Established in 1978, the celebrations recreated some of the hotel’s favourite dishes from down the ages, and even converted one of its halls into the famous Number One discotheque (from the 1980s) for the evening. Those who were present that evening included Niti Aayog chief Amitabh Kant, BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi and former Cabinet minister Anand Sharma. After all, what’s a party in the Lutyens Zone if it doesn’t have any politicians?