Glasshouse

A CONGRESS KAMAL BLOOMS

Three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh will fall vacant on June 21. The BJP has the numbers to win two, the Congress one. With incumbent Congress MP and ex-chief minister, Digvijaya Singh, 79, calling it quits, another former CM and old-timer, the 79-year-old Kamal Nath, has signalled interest. After a prolonged lull, the veteran Congressman is suddenly everywhere, appearing on podcasts and interviews and reminiscing about his ties with the Gandhi family. The math, however, is tight; the Congress needs 58 votes to win its seat and currently has 62 MLAs in the assembly. Two MLAs recently lost voting rights to judicial orders, and with the BJP’s well-versed habit of engineering cross-voting, anything can happen. Nath’s camp insists he has the heft to hold the flock together. His critics point to 2020, when a Congress government collapsed on his watch. The high command (read Gandhi family) now has to decide who fits the bill.

BUILDING YOGI’S IMAGE | THE PERFECT PICTURE

The occasion was the inauguration of the new Rapti Eco Park in Gorakhpur, showcasing its transformation from a garbage dump to a ‘waste to wonder’ project. But it was local MP Ravi Kishan who stole the show as he stepped up to ‘direct’ Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who was posing for a photograph next to the statue of a lion in the park. “Maharajji, use the lion’s facetake a low angle,” the actor-turned-neta gestured, as though calling the shots on a film set. The crowd broke into laughter, prompting even the chief minister to smile at the impromptu lesson in how to ‘frame’ a picture. And what better than a leonine prop to project an image of power.

FRONT ROW RIGHTS

With the JD(U) taking both deputy CM chairs, and BJP colleague Samrat Choudhary promoted as Bihar CM, ex-deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha is finding it difficult to adjust to the new pecking order. At the special assembly session convened for the trust vote, Sinha arrived to find the prized front row already full, occupied by the new CM and his two JD(U) deputies, Vijay K. Choudhary and Bijendra P. Yadav, along with others. The second row had seats, but that, evidently, would not do. With some firmness, Sinha had those manning the front bench make space for him too. Guess, in Sinha’s book, where you sit is who you are.

DEVIL IN DETAILS

Actor-politician Vijay has hailed the “unprecedented” 84 per cent-plus voter turnout in the recent Tamil Nadu election, crediting the state’s women and youth for it. The data, though, tells a more restrained story. While turnout has been the highest on record, the increase in actual voters is modest, about 2.1 million, and broadly consistent with the growth in the population. At the same time, the electorate has shrunk by over 5 million after the Election Commission’s roll revision. Now whether all this translates into voter magic for the superstar will be clear on results day.

FAKE VERSUS ORIGINAL

It was the launch of her new party, and K. Kavitha, the estranged daughter of ex-CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), was breathing fire, declaring that his Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) had lost its soul and that he had turned into a mara manishi (robot) controlled by “jackals”. But among the invectives, it was her choice of party name, Telangana Rashtra Sena or TRS, that riled the BRS the most. For, till 2022, that was the acronym it used for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi. In a spirited response, BRS social media handles posted the original and duplicate photos of a popular toothpaste brand, with the advisory: ‘The original is always the original.’

—with Rahul Noronha, Avaneesh Mishra, Amitabh Srivastava, Kavitha Muralidharan and Prasad Nichenametla