A new marathon of the opposition unity has started, for which Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar has become the chief architect. The first meeting of the opposition unit is called in Patna on June 23, in which both Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge can attend representing the Congress. Apart from this, senior opposition leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Hemant Soren and MK Stalin have also agreed to attend this meeting. Only the issue of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Telangana CM KCR is still stuck. Actually, it is the Congress party which does not want him to be seen on the same stage with these two leaders. Assembly elections are also due in Telangana in the coming few months, so the Congress fears that if it is seen sharing a common platform with KCR, then its votes in the state may be transferred to KCR’s party ‘BRS’. The emphasis of the Congress was to convene this meeting in Shimla, but when Nitish explained that this new alliance of the opposition unity should start from the land of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, who shook the stove of the then ruling Delhi with his moral force, the Congress leaders accepted. Congress also wants that the new alliance that is taking shape to replace the UPA should meet at regular intervals. If sources are to be believed, after Patna, the next meeting of this alliance can be held in any Congress-ruled state like Himachal Pradesh or Rajasthan. Sources also reveal that Sharad Pawar could be made the president of this new alliance and Nitish could be its convenor.

Afzal Ansari, who was a Member of Parliament from Ghazipur Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh, lost his membership of the Lok Sabha when he was sentenced to 4 years by the court in a case. Now gearing up for Ghazipur by-election, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Manoj Sinha, who won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat and lost the 2019 elections from here, wants to get his daughter-in-law Deepali or son Anubhav Sinha a BJP ticket to retain his hold on this seat. On the other hand, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wants to field Radhemohan Singh, his cousin and prominent leader of SP, from here. Ghazipur used to be a Bhumihar majority seat, but in the delimitation, two major Bhumihar seats here were included in Mohammadabad and Jahurabad Ballia and now Rajput and Yadav votes have become decisive in Ghazipur. Anyway, Yogi argues that Rajputs alone have a cut of 19 percent Yadav votes and 10 percent Muslim votes in Ghazipur. Chandrashekhar’s son and Rajya Sabha MP Neeraj Shekhar is also eyeing this seat. The claim to this seat is also of Virendra Singh Mast.

Ever since the sting of the Karnataka elections, the round of brainstorming meetings is going on continuously in the BJP. Just last Friday, Amit Shah, BL Santosh and JP Nadda had an important meeting with the BJP general secretaries. Actually, this whole exercise of the saffron party is for the upcoming 2024 general elections where the party does not want to appear weak on any front. The first step in this episode can be to change the state presidents. Earlier, the party had appointed new presidents in Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi and Odisha. But many of these leaders are not able to live up to the expectations of the party leadership. In UP too, the Jat leader of Western UP, Bhupendra Chaudhary, was given the presidential innings, but the party leadership is not said to be happy with his performance either. Maharashtra and Jharkhand are also preparing to bring new presidents. In Jharkhand, the party wants to bet on a tribal face as the state president, at present former Chief Minister of the state Babulal Marandi is said to be leading in this race. Although Arjun Munda and Sameer Oraon are also involved in this race, but if sources are to be believed, instead of Deepak Prakash, the name of BJP Legislature Party leader Babulal Marandi has almost been decided. Chandrashekhar Bawankule has become the party president in Maharashtra only in August 2022, but the central leadership of the party is said to be angry with his work and methods, so the command of Maharashtra can be handed over to a ‘pro active leader’. In Karnataka too, BJP has been looking for an alternative to Nalin Kateel for a long time, that means in 2024, BJP does not want to take any risk.

The process of change in the Congress organization is going on. Because Priyanka Gandhi has left UP and taken up Madhya Pradesh, so the search is on for a new in-charge for UP. If sources are to be believed, the Priyanka camp is putting forward Tariq Anwar’s name for UP incharge, but senior party leaders like Salman Khurshid are opposing this. Salman argues that since a Thakur is the Chief Minister in UP, the Congress should put a Brahmin face in charge of UP instead of a Muslim. In this episode, the name of Brahmin leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi of Madhya Pradesh is being put forward. Although the former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat has expressed his desire to retire from politics on many occasions, yet a section of the party is advocating his name as UP in-charge. It is said that the party will decide on UP incharge only after Rahul returns from America. At the same time, there is a lot of talk about replacing the state president of Maharashtra, Nana Patole. It is said that the Mahavikas Aghadi alliance has complained to the Congress high command on several occasions regarding this state president of the Congress that Patole’s unnecessary rhetoric harms the alliance religion. In such a situation, there is a buzz of giving the command of Maharashtra to a senior Congressman.

Due to the death of BJP MP from Pune, Girish Bapat and Congress MP from Chandrapur, Suresh Narayan alias Balu Dhanorkar in Maharashtra, by-elections are to be held on these two Lok Sabha seats. There is also a possibility that the bypolls to these two seats should be held along with the Maharashtra Assembly elections. Sources reveal that the BJP wants to hold the Maharashtra Assembly elections ahead of time so that it can overcome the current political instability there. The BJP is asking its former MP Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, who is currently the chairman of the National Commission for Backward Classes, to contest the Chandrapur bypoll. Sources reveal that he turned down the party leadership’s ‘offer’ saying that only a few months are left for 2024 general elections, thus what is the point of pouring so much money into elections for merely few months. In such a situation, Devendra Fadnavis has offered Pratibha Dhanorkar, the MLA wife of the late Dhanorkar, to contest the elections on a BJP ticket. But the central leadership of the BJP is currently in favor of maintaining a distance from the Dhanorkar family, as the ED is currently probing the luxurious hotel built by the Dhanorkar family in Nagpur.

Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has repeated several times in the last two months about the expansion of the Shinde government’s cabinet, but that rare moment never comes. There is a joke on this in Maharashtra that ‘if the wife has gone to the make-up room saying she will get ready in ten minutes, then what is the need to knock on the door every half an hour?’

Sorry, this entry is only available in Hindi.

Party people have a common complaint with Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge that it is difficult for the common workers of the party to meet him. On the other hand, many other senior party leaders like Pawan Bansal like to meet party workers regularly. So, keeping in mind the sentiments of the party workers, one day suddenly Kharge announced through his social media platform that he will organize his Janata Durbar on this Thursday i.e. June 1, which will be convened at the party office at 24 Akbar Road, New Delhi where even a small worker of the party can meet him without taking time and can speak his heart. Kharge’s message had a wide impact among party workers and they marched towards the party headquarters in large numbers on Thursday. But look at the coincidence, on the same day at 9 am, ‘VIP route’ was started on Akbar Road and policemen were deployed on a large scale around the Congress headquarters. Because on the same day the Prime Minister of Nepal Prachanda Dahal Kamal was to meet our Prime Minister Modi at Hyderabad House. Usually, Akbar Road is kept free from ‘VIP route’ to go to Hyderabad House, but on that day this route was preferred, so a large number of workers could not enter their Congress headquarters. But only a few who could reach the Congress headquarters and interestingly, they were only treated to a few photos and were then moved away. They could neither speak their hearts out to Kharge nor could Kharge listen to what his party soldiers wanted to say to him. Just pay attention to this series of coincidences that as soon as the public court of Kharge got over around 2 o’clock in the day, the policemen standing outside also lifted their tents from there.

The Chandrapur seat has fallen vacant due to the sudden demise of Suresh alias Balu Dhanorkar, the lone Congress MP from Maharashtra. Now there is hue and cry among the party leaders regarding who will be the candidate from Congress in the Chandrapur by-election. Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole wants to field late Dhanorkar’s MLA wife Pratibha from here, while another section of party leaders is in favor of giving ticket to former Chandrapur MP and trade union leader Naresh Puglia. The then Shiv Sena MLA Dhanorkar had ‘joined’ the Congress a day before the nomination for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He was a big ‘liquor businessman and had no shortage of money’, perhaps that is why at that time he had got veteran leaders like Mukul Wasnik and Vijay Vaditwar to his side and it was these leaders who then stopped Puglia from rebelling. In 2019, under the alliance, the Chandrapur seat had gone to the BJP from the Shiv Sena quota, due to which Balu had to leave the Shiv Sena in a hurry and join the Congress. On the other hand, Naresh Puglia, a strong contender for this seat, is one of Rahul Gandhi’s special confidantes. Remember, when Rahul Gandhi went to Vidarbha to meet Lilavati and Kalavati at their house, it was Puglia who helped both of them financially at the behest of Rahul. When a Vidarbha farmer who had invented a revolutionary seed committed suicide, it was on Rahul’s advice that Puglia got his son employed in the ‘Ballarpur Paper Mill’. A section of the party here is protesting against giving ticket to late Dhanorkar’s wife Pratibha, saying that the party should learn a lesson from the Jalandhar bypoll where late Congress MP’s wife Kamaljit Kaur was defeated and after 24 years Congress lost its traditional seat of Jalandhar to AAP.

Even though the opposition parties have made the non-inauguration of the new Parliament House by the President a nationwide issue, President Draupadi Murmu seems to be unaware of these things. Recently, when the King of Cambodia HM Norodom Sihamoni arrived on his 3-day visit to India, our President appeared in a new avatar. When there is a scene of salute at Fort Court, usually the PM is leading in this convoy and the President behind. This scene has been common since the era of predecessor Kovind. But this time the scene was different. This time the President was walking in front. As soon as the VIP car of the King of Cambodia stopped to welcome him, the President was standing at the front. She was chatting very well with the king. When the time for the photo shoot was fixed, the PM was seen standing to the right of the guest. According to the protocol, the PM should have been on the left, the President gestured to the PM to stand on the left, but the PM raised his hand and said, ‘I am right here’.