ANOTHER RESHUFFLE?
Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi reshuffle his Cabinet once last time before the Lok Sabha elections? The buzz is that he will. However, there is a view that apart from a few senior ministers, especially Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal, other ministries have not delivered. Hence the PM may want to bring in a set of new faces and upgrade some Ministers of State to showcase the right optics for the 2019 elections. Moreover, allies too need to be accommodated. This is a belated realisation for the BJP leadership, which is finally realising that it needs its regional partners for the coming general elections. Until now the allies have either been kept out like the JDU or given insignificant portfolios like the Shiv Sena. Nitish Kumar is said to be eyeing the Railways portfolio for his party. Will the PM-Shah duo oblige?
THE RIGHT CONTEXT
Recently, while chatting with reporters, BJP chief Amit Shah gave an insight into some of the detailed planning that goes behind every rally and road-show. He credited K.N. Govindacharya, a former BJP ideologue, for teaching him the art of organising a rally, pointing out that it’s not enough to just gather a crowd, the person addressing the rally also has to fit the context. Was he talking about Rahul Gandhi’s pro-farmers’ rally in Mandsaur?
FROM WORDSWORTH TO TEJASHWI
It was interesting to see Lalu’s son, young Tejashwi Yadav quoting William Wordsworth recently. Tejashwi is a school drop-out, for he had opted for cricket over mugging textbooks. But recently after a meeting with Rahul Gandhi in the national capital, he posted a picture of the two of them with a quote from Wordsworth: “Bliss was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.” Wordsworth was of course referring to the French Revolution, but the quote has certainly given an interesting upgrade to Tejashwi’s Twitter profile.