Game of Thrones

Rajasthan’s former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has arguably spent a larger part of her career fighting off leaders from her own party, than she has her Congress rivals. In the past, she had her hands full fighting off Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bigwigs like Jaswant Singh and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, but this time, her challenger is the current Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. It is believed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah would prefer Shekhawat as Rajasthan’s next chief minister (CM) if the party were to win the state elections next year, even though BJP failed when it projected him as the party’s CM face the last time. There are now murmurs of dissension. And across the state, posters asking Raje to save Rajasthan have begun to crop up.

Battle Royale

The G23 group, which has been pushing for reforms within Congress, is closing ranks and making a contest of the coming election for the post of party president. Manish Tewari, a member of this group, will be taking on whoever stands for election, whether it is Ashok Gehlot, Mukul Wasnik, or Rahul Gandhi himself. In fact, the remaining G23 members met after Ghulam Nabi Azad quit the party. They are believed to have formulated a strategy of negotiating for a few berths in the Congress Working Committee if the Gandhi family wants to seek a compromise.

Comedy of Errors

When the news of Ghulam Ali Khatana, a Gurjar Muslim and a relatively lesser-known BJP leader from Jammu and Kashmir being nominated for Rajya Sabha broke out, he was mistaken quite immediately for Ghulam Nabi Azad on social media. Within minutes, social media was awash with posts about Azad being rewarded for quitting Congress with a seat in the Upper House. It took some clarifications before the error was finally realised.

Lunch Diplomacy

Three years ago, when Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came visiting, a lavish banquet was laid out in her honour in Delhi’s Hyderabad House. But this time, the banquet was replaced by a private lunch between just Hasina and Narendra Modi. The lunch is believed to have been a big success. Without the need for any translators, Hasina, who is believed to be fluent in Hindi, and her Indian counterpart spoke and dined for over an hour.

Modi’s Choice

One might have expected that Narendra Modi would attend this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session, but India’s representative this year is going to be Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar instead. It is believed that Modi was more keen on attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation session in Uzbekistan this year. With the Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance, this was probably a no-brainer.

Gajendra Singh ShekhawatGeneral election 2024Ghulam Nabi AzadpoliticsVasundhara Raje