COOL BREEZE

Nitin Gadkari’s TRP Ratings
The affable Union Cabinet Minister is fast becoming the media’s favourite go to face. Nitin Gadkari has both heft and on ground popularity, which makes him the most sought after at conclaves and other events. More than that it is also the thoroughly professional way his office handles the media, giving email confirmations and discussing SOPs beforehand to avoid any confusion on D Day. In terms of editorial content, Gadkari has an equation with most of the anchors and his candid talk goes well with the audience. All of which makes for some very high TRPs both on mainstream and social media.

Alliance Blues
Post the Haryana loss the mood within the Congress is at an all-time low, especially with allies within the I.N.D.I.A bloc doing a reality check on their equation with the Congress. For one, while the Congress claims that the one reason it stayed out of the Omar Abdullah government was that it was waiting for statehood to be restored but unofficially the real reason is that the NC was only offering it a Minister of State berth. From Omar’s point of view this was consistent with the number of seats the Congress managed to get, however, being the larger national party the Congress was clearly expecting more. What is worse is that this is the template that will be followed by other allies as well, especially in Maharashtra, where the Congress does have a sizeable presence, but one of its regional allies, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena is clearly expecting to be the CM face of the alliance. How will Rahul Gandhi juggle this hot potato?

End of an Era
While the Congress is still contesting the Haryana election result in terms of the election voting machines, there are some whispers about the role played by Hooda Sr. This coming after the Madhya Pradesh loss where again the Congress lost a state it was tipped to win, the party is now questioning the free hand given to regional stalwarts. While this is all very well and while debating this the Congress needs to answer the next big question, which is readying the next rung of leadership. It has appointed Jeetu Patwari as the PCC chief after the Madhya Pradesh loss last year, but what has Patwari done since? Hence, as much as the party would like to blame the old guard, it also has to ensure it has a competent second rung to take their place.