Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s new avatar has been the subject of animated discussions since his return from a mysterious sabbatical. His fiery speech at the party’s Kisan-Khet-Mazdoor rally and his subsequent combative interventions in the Lok Sabha on the agrarian crisis and Net Neutrality came as a pleasant surprise to Congress cadres.
Although it has been widely reported that the Nehru-Gandhi scion had taken a break for 56 days for meditation, party insiders are now convinced that he underwent an intensive training course in leadership and public speaking from an image consultant. They base their case on the sudden change in his body language and the improvement in the delivery of his speeches. They also point to his description of the Modi government as a “suit-boot ki sarkar” and his repartee in the Lok Sabha last week, insisting that this was not an off-the-cuff remark but a clear case of “structured spontaneity”. This has led to fresh speculation in the Congress about the identity of his new speech writers and the person or agency responsible for Mr Gandhi’s image make-over. The guessing game continues and the 56-inch chest may soon start heaving with anxiety.
Maverick BJP leader Subramanian Swamy is proving to be quite a handful for his party. Unhappy that he has not been given any position in the party or the government even a year after the National Democratic Alliance came to power, an impatient Dr Swamy is doing what he is famous for: stirring up trouble for those who no longer enjoy his confidence. Dr Swamy’s latest ploy is to call on Union ministers, engage them in a conversation on policy issues, after which he declares that he would be putting out a press statement based on this interaction. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, known to chat amiably with all his visitors, recently realised the perils of speaking too freely with Dr Swamy. In the course of their conversation on the controversial Henderson-Brooks report on India’s defeat against China in the 1962, Mr Parrikar apparently agreed with Dr Swamy that the report should be declassified.
Dr Swamy went public with this information, much to the embarrassment of the government which has officially declared that it would not be in national interest to release this document. Having learnt a bitter lesson, ministers have become circumspect in their meetings with Dr Swamy. But Dr Swamy is also skilled at fiction. Mum, perhaps then, is the only word.
The ruling BJP and the Opposition may be locked in confrontation over the controversial land acquisition ordinance but that has not stopped finance minister Arun Jaitley from reaching across the political divide to seek help in forging a consensus on the introduction of the goods and service tax. In a tactical move, Mr Jaitley appointed Kerala finance minister K.M. Mani of Kerala Congress as chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on GST.
Mr Mani has been entrusted with the task of ensuring that all states implement the new tax regime, an issue that has been hanging fire since the Congress-led UPA government was in power. Mr Mani’s task has been simplified a bit as BJP-ruled Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which had earlier expressed reservations about the GST, are now on board since their party is in power. With the Opposition leader hard at work for him, Mr Jaitley is of the view that one good turn deserves another. Mr Jaitely has, therefore, agreed to be the chief guest when Mr Mani’s autobiography is released soon.
India and Bangladesh have a shared legacy in Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Not only did Tagore’s family have large estates in Shilaidaha of Bangla-desh, but the national anthems of the two countries was written by the famous poet. New Delhi and Dhaka now want to build on this legacy to further strengthen ties. Both countries are looking at the possibility of plying passenger vessels from Kolkata or Haldia to Chittagong, which would enable Bengalis from the two sides to travel to each other’s country by ship instead of taking the land or air route.
The added attraction here is that passengers would be travelling through the areas which were once traversed by Tagore on a special barge during the period he spent at his family estate in Bangladesh. These journeys inspired him to pen his well-known work, Sonar Tori (The Golden Boat). A model of this boat was presented by the Bangladesh government to West Bengal and is presently on display at Shantiniketan.
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist
