Cool Breeze: Dikshit for Uttar Pradesh

Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Diskhit was quite dismissive of Prashant Kishor’s suggestions to send her to Uttar Pradesh as the party’s CM face. Speaking to NewsX, she said quite candidly that “Prashant Kishor can give suggestions, but the ultimate decision lies with the Congress president.” Moreover, she added that she had not yet been approached for the job. Clearly, Kishor needs to learn that the Congress works quite differently from the JDU. In fact, Congress sources say that his meetings with the Congress vice-president are also not as frequent as he’d like them to be and moreover, his plans of moving into Gurudwara Rakabganj Road have met with a roadblock, for Rahul has told his old team that there was no need for any of them to move out, just to accommodate Kishor’s team. Watch this space for more.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s visit to Sikh preacher Baba Ranjit Singh Dhadrianwale in Punjab raised quite a few cynical eyebrows and accusations that he was not above the Congress or the BJP in playing the “politics of religion”. However, Kejriwal’s supporters let it be known that it was only because of pressure from AAP leader H.S. Phoolka that Kejriwal made the visit. Many in AAP were against this visit, but in the end, Phoolka won and even tweeted pictures of the two of them boarding the Swaran Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Amritsar. Is Kejriwal happy that he visited Dhadrianwale’s Dera or is he distancing himself from the move?

Is Najma Heptulla looking for a sinecured post retirement perch amid rumours that she could be dropped in the impending Cabinet reshuffle? This seems to be the case, for her camp has let it be known that she would not be averse to shifting to the Vice President’s bungalow when the vacancy arises in 2017. In fact, not being made Vice President was one of the reasons why she left the Congress in 2004, after having been the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha for 16 years. The BJP did field her as its VP candidate in 2007, but she lost to Hamid Ansari. But at the time, she had L.K. Advani’s backing. This time round, the BJP does have the numbers, but does she have the same rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as she did with Advani? Despite her supporters’ best efforts, that seems a bit doubtful. If the PM elevates Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, would he then field another woman for the post of Vice President?