BJP Appoints Communication Ambassadors
In view of the upcoming general elections, the BJP is putting a communication strategy into play, the cornerstone of which is to ask its MPs to stop making statements on issues which they have no expertise on. Senior Cabinet ministers will be deployed on sensitive and key issues such as Piyush Goyal, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Nitin Gadkari and, occasionally Arun Jaitley. These were the faces who appeared on TV during the recent Vijay Mallya meeting Jaitley issue. Clearly, the party is moving into election mode.
Fighting for the Dalit Vote
The early release of Bhim Sena leader Chandrashekhar has not gone down too well with Dalit leader Mayawati, who had always been claiming that Chandrashekhar was a stooge of the BJP to dent her vote bank. The 30-year-old Dalit activist was arrested in January 2017 for his alleged role in the Saharanpur clash between Dalits and Thakurs. He has been released two months before his due date which was 1 November. Although he is attacking the BJP, there is a fear among the BSP that his party will be used to divide the Dalit vote, just as they allege, “Owaisi is used to divide the Muslim vote”. Already, the Congress is claiming that if the BSP drives a hard bargain in Uttar Pradesh, then it will tie up with the Bhim Sena. And so it begins.
Bihari Brothers Divided
With Tej Pratap and Tejashwi Yadav fighting over their father’s legacy and the senior Yadav behind bars, the state BJP is hoping to see a divide within the family which will then lead to a divide within the RJD vote bank. The biggest worry for Nitish Kumar and the BJP in Bihar is that the RJD leader’s vote bank remains intact despite the many cases against him. If they could divide the brothers, then they sense a glimmer of hope in the state.
Trouble in Karnataka Congress?
The recent moves by the Jarkiholi brothers who hold sway in North Karnataka is worrying the Congress. Ramesh Jarkiholi, who is a sitting minister, and his brother Satish (an MLA) control as many as 15 MLAs and have acquired somewhat the same aura that the Reddy brothers hold within the BJP. The Maharashtra Chief Minister recently met with Satish in Satara, while B.S. Yeddyruppa gave a statement indicating that some prominent leaders will soon join the BJP. This has led to speculation that the two brothers—along with their band of MLAs—may cross over to the BJP. The reason for the Jarkiholi brothers’ disenchantment with the Congress is D.K. Shivakumar’s attempts to expand his base into the Belagavi region of North Karnataka, which is their stronghold. Both Shivakumar and Satish harbour CM ambitions. Shivakumar knows that in order to realise this, he has to increase his influence beyond his stronghold in South Karnataka and so has propped up a loyalist, Lakshmi Hebbalkar, to wrest the cooperatives and other smaller banks from the Jarkiholi brothers’ control in the recent Primary Land Development Bank elections. And so, the state Congress is besieged with the oldest of political woes—a clash of egos.