Pick It up from Piketty

Still the Unwanted • Doctor Tourism • Homeless in Delhi • Sugar Rush and Modi

French Economist Thomas Piketty would find this intriguing. The economist, whose book, Capital in the Twenty First Century, has been flying off the book shelves worldwide, is a hot favourite among the ruling BJP’s top political leaders. The book, a defining work on the dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital and the long-term evolution of inequality, is something that not too long ago would have been an adda favourite among the Left-leaning. Top leaders of the CPM are this season locked in a debate over the political-tactical line adopted by the party in the 1978 Jalandhar Congress. By pulling the carpet from under the CPM’s leadership with great timing, the saffron party has at last managed to appropriate the former’s key agenda. As one leader put it, “The Left has finally left. Shut the door behind them, someone.”

Still the Unwanted

Another BJP leader in Delhi shopping desperately for a job, home and hearth is the man whose name was once being mentioned as possible Chief Minister for the capital. Those, indeed, were the days. VK Malhotra managed to wrest a poll ticket for his son from the oh-so-Punjabi ‘uppah class’ Greater Kailash seat. But after that fell flat and the world around him moved on to focus on the new phenomenon of Arvind Kejriwal, the not-so-Vijay- Kumar Malhotra has yet to find his feet in the newly rearranged political framework. Word has it that Malhotra has been looking for a gubernatorial post. Something that would come with a large government bungalow attached. Sadly, the BJP’s powers that be didn’t seem very entertained by his shenanigans on that count, conveying that his services had been adequately compensated in the past.

Doctor Tourism

The 1964-born Parvez Dewan had been appointed tourism secretary in 2012 and was to retire end October. So, when Dr Lalit Panwar popped into the PM’s office to brief him on an unrelated issue, Modi, impressed by the lucid briefing, asked the good doctor whether he was a medicine man by profession. Panwar replied that he had a doctoral degree. “What in?” shot back the PM. “Tourism,” came the pat reply from the man. Modi, famed as a doer, had shot off instructions in a short while, and the good doctor saheb was launched on an new mission: Tourism secretary. It was just days before that Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram was shunted aside and named as Dewan’s replacement. Call it Russian roulette.

Homeless in Delhi

One BJP leader out of housing quarters and no longer flying high is the once-upon-a-time Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain. The pint-sized minority- community poster-boy of the BJP is finding himself homeless in Lutyens’ Delhi, suddenly. Hussain is believed to have sought the help of Venkaiah Naidu to send out feelers to Modi, suggesting that he was an apt candidate to head the National Parliamentary Forum. NaMo seems to have different plans. He has decided to keep the man grounded. It wasn’t just a house that Hussain lost this year. He lost his seat, Bhagalpur, in the polls to an RJD candidate, at a time when every lamp post was raking in votes at the hustings in the name of Modi.

Sugar Rush and Modi

Policy meetings chaired by the PM, which show little sign of easing up in the coming months, start precisely on time and carry right on through lunch, with no let up for the diabetic. Modi, known in a lighter vein among party and government leaders as the man ‘who won’t eat and won’t let others eat,’ recently hosted one such lengthy meeting where the assigned lunch break went ignored. Leader after leader droned on with no let up. As the lunch hour was about to end, Minister for Power Piyush Goyal, the man assigned to speak next, got up to start his address. But the diabetic dozen had had enough. A senior minister could take it no more and virtually snarled at Goyal, directing him to zip up. Lunch break was finally declared. That brought the real sugar rush to the afflicted.

Arvind KejriwalNarendra ModiParvez DewanThomas Piketty