‘Bring Priyanka’ chorus
There is massive discontent in the Congress after the party’s defeat in the Assam and West Bengal. The loss has triggered the demand to give Priyanka Vadra the charge of the party, as else, they believe, the Congress’ existence will be at stake. Rahul baiters call him stubborn and accuse him of being indecisive. They say that the party lost in Haryana and Maharashtra just because of his refusal to change Chief Ministers in the two states. They allege that Rahul has committed the same blunder by not changing Tarun Gogoi as Chief Minister in Assam, something that Himanta Biswa Sarma, who met Rahul before leaving for the BJP, demanded.
Pranab went by rules
President Pranab Mukherjee followed the rulebook when he imposed President’s Rule in Uttarakhand on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet, say sources. He met a delegation of Congress MLAs from Uttarakhand and also consulted legal experts, and finally acted as per “constitutional requirements”, the sources added.
Cong seeks Mulayam’s support
For want of required numbers in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the Congress brass has left it to three “strong candidates” to convince Mulayam Singh Yadav to nominate one of them for the lone Member of Legislative Council (MLC) seat in the state. The three names doing the rounds are of Imran Kidwai, Fazle Masood and Muti-ur-Rehman. It is a similar situation for the Congress for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from UP, as the party needs Mulayam’s support to reach the Upper House and the SP chief is reluctant. The “outsider vs insider” issue has come in the way of Kapil Sibal, who has been lobbying for a Rajya Sabha seat from any state. UPCC leaders are opposed to an “outsider” being given the ticket. In Uttarakhand, Chief Minister Harish Rawat wants his own loyalist in the RS, while PCC chief Kishore Upadhyay wants the state’s lone RS seat for himself.
MCD polls worry AAP
The AAP, which got just five of the 13 Delhi municipality seats, should be worried. It seems to be losing its “grip” on the national capital’s aam aadmi, with its unpopular “odd-even” car rationing experiment. The Congress ended up with five seats since Rajender Singh Tanwar, who won as an Independent, declared he was joining the Congress. The BJP got the rest of the three seats.