Ego vs Reality
The all-party delegations have returned with a lot of cross-party bonhomie, but there have been some internal disruptions. These have been more to do with individual egos than party stands. For instance, the delegation that was led by the NCP’s Supriya Sule included BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Anurag Singh Thakur and V. Muraleedharan; Congress Party’s Anand Sharma and Manish Tewari; TDP’s Lavu Sri Krishnadevaraya; AAP’s Vikramjeet Singh Sahney; and former UN ambassador Syed Akbaruddin. What apparently did not go down too well with some of the members of the delegation, was Anand Sharma’s consistent posturing of himself as the most important member of the delegation. Perhaps being a former Union Cabinet Minister he saw himself as the most senior voice and tended to drone on and on at the briefings. His attempts to take centre stage belied the fact that it was not he, but Sule who had been appointed as the leader of the group by the government. Also, apart from Sharma there were four other former Union Ministers in the said delegation. Leaving aside the global takeaways, there were two interesting internal footnotes to this delegation—one about Sule’s tact and the other about Sharma’s credentials as a team player.
Political Seesaw
It is a mixed bouquet for Congress leader and CWC member, Manish Chatrath. While he has been made “in-charge” of Indira Bhawan, the newly constructed Congress headquarters at 9A Kotla Marg; he has been stripped of his earlier responsibility—being “in-charge” of Meghalaya. The last move was a reprimand of sorts, post the party’s poor performance in the state elections under his watch. However, Chatrath had also been closely associated with the construction of the new party headquarters, which could explain his new charge. Yet this does not take away from the fact that a person who was once enacting a political role, has now been reduced to just a “logistics” persona. Moreover, if you recall, earlier this year, during the recent Delhi elections, Chatrath had refused to fight elections from his constituency, New Rajinder Nagar, and as a result, was sidelined. He was not even included in the “star campaigner” list. So, the question now arises, is his recent charge a promotion or a demotion for Manish Chatrath; or whether he has just found a safe parking place until the light turns green again?
The New BJP Chief
Has the BJP done a full circle and come back to Cabinet Minister and former Haryana CM M.L. Khattar’s candidature as the next party chief? Given the fact that J.P. Nadda’s successor has to be one who has the trust of both the RSS and the Prime Minister, as well as the seniority to assert his authority over his team, his name does stand out against some others. In fact, it was Khattar’s name that was one of the first to be floated as early as June 2024 when Nadda’s first extension came to an end. Having said this, the party’s delay in announcing its new chief is also puzzling, for Nadda has been in office since 2020 and has served several extensions. The delay could not be for a lack of candidates, for we have seen many credible names do the rounds, from Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Dharmendra Pradhanand Bhupendra Yadav to Vinod Tawde, Sunil Bansal and K. Laxman. If not a lack of candidates or a lack of consensus what other reason could there be for this delay? Especially since the Opposition has made it a point to target the BJP on this issue as we saw during an exchange between Akhilesh Yadav and Home Minister Amit Shah during the last session of Parliament.
