The Rajya Sabha seat that rankled
Congressmen are privately unhappy about the Rajya Sabha seat given to Rahul Gandhi’s favourite general secretary, K.C. Venugopal. There are two reasons for this. One, most blame Venugopal for persuading Rahul to contest from Kerala, thereby endangering his Amethi seat. Second, Venugopal’s stint in the Lok Sabha wasn’t very exemplary, so why field him for the Rajya Sabha? The second reason is applicable to Kharge as well, for he failed to make a mark as the Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha. When the need of the hour is articulate speakers or those familiar with the art of negotiating legislations, why send these two to the Upper House? Then again this is a party that prefers Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as the leader of the Lok Sabha to a Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari or even Rahul Gandhi himself.
Swamy’s repartee
In a recent interview to NewsX, Dr Subramanian Swamy created quite a stir when he questioned Chinese claims of withdrawal, pointing out that if we believe the Chinese then we may be caught unawares as in 1962. He advised the National Security Advisor to read the Art of War before buying what the Chinese tell him. When asked how it was that both he and Rahul Gandhi were speaking somewhat similar stuff, Swamy came back with a quick retort stating that if it was so, then Rahul was probably plagiarising what he was saying. Clearly, this is one leader who is never at a loss for words.
Cow belt Politics
The Vikas Dubey encounter death has once again brought the focus back on the politics of the cow belt with the BJP alleging that Dubey was actually a member of the Samajwadi Party. This claim was supported by Dubey’s mother and got Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party chief to promptly deny this, stating that it was a “wicked trick of the BJP” that made Dubey’s mother make this claim. While Akhilesh has been talking about the encounter raj in UP under the Yogi government, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too went on the offensive, commenting that Uttar Pradesh has become “apraadh pradesh”. And Jayant Chaudhary, vice president of RLD, in true Jat style, talked about Yogi’s “thok-de rajniti”. Clearly it has been a while since the Opposition has come together on one platform to take on the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, but though they are on the same page against encounter deaths, it’s clear that they are however not sharing the same platform anytime soon. Especially when Congress workers from the state are putting up Akhilesh Yadav’s posters in his constituency with the word “missing” under it.
Who was afraid of Vikas Dubey?
It seems as if this gangster from Kanpur had access across party lines dating back to the Rajnath Singh government in UP, the Akhilesh Yadav government after that and even in the current Yogi set up. A picture of him attending a wedding with BJP MP from Kanpur, Devender Singh Bhole, is doing the rounds. Records from an STF investigation (2017) indicate that Dubey has taken the name of BJP MLAs Bhagwati Prasad Sagar and Abhijeet Singh Sanga. Both have since denied the connection. As many as 31 gram pradhans in Kanpur region were said to be under his influence. As for those wondering why he had surrendered, well there is a video doing the rounds of how the UP police demolished his house and SUVs. Interestingly, amongst the fleet of cars at his house, a government Ambassador with a UP 32 numberplate was also discovered. He is also said to have boasted of “one on one” meetings with Mayawati, albeit at public functions. The fact that he was well entrenched within the police was clear from the fact that he was tipped off about the raiding party coming to arrest him, and positioned himself so he could shower them with bullets, killing eight cops when they arrived. While both the Congress and the SP have alleged that Dubey was killed before he could spill the beans, one thing is clear, this was one gangster who had connections cutting across all party lines.