Cause for concern

It is widely known that the Bharatiya Janata Party president, Amit Shah, is second only to the prime minister of the country. But many members of the saffron party believe that Shah is no less important than Narendra Modi. The BJP chief is even known to speak on government affairs with authority. This was evident when Shah - and not any senior minister in the government - was made the lead speaker at an event to mark the fourth anniversary of the Modi-led dispensation at the Centre.

Senior ministers in Modi's cabinet, such as the external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, and the transport minister, Nitin Gadkari, were also present on the occasion. However, they sat quietly behind Shah. A few days ago, Shah addressed the media and aggressively defended his party's disastrous push to form the government in Karnataka after the recently-concluded assembly elections. Significantly, around the same time as his address to the media, the prime minister was away in Sochi, meeting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. News channels that were covering the meeting between the leaders of the two nations quickly switched over to Shah's live press conference. Given that it is made clear on many occasions that Shah matters - and, at times, matters more than the prime minister of India - ought Modi to see the BJP party chief's growing shadow as a cause for concern?

Battle of wits

The writer-filmmaker, Shirish Kunder, has built a reputation of sorts for his quick wit, mostly on display on Twitter. On one occasion, he posted this message on the social networking site: "Kabaddi is a true Indian sport. Everyone get together and pull down the one person trying to achieve something." At another time, he wrote, "There may soon be a generation that believes Eid is celebrated because a Salman Khan film is releasing."

However, Kunder does not seem to be the only one with a sharp wit. On the occasion of his 45th birthday, Kunder's wife, the filmmaker, Farah Khan, wrote on social media, "Happy birthday to an above average husband."

Power house

Jyotiraditya Scindia wants a house in Bhopal. The senior Congress parliamentarian has written a letter to the Madhya Pradesh government seeking a residence in the state capital. Scindia has been a member of parliament for 16 years now, but this is the first time he has considered availing himself of the rather generous scheme of granting government accommodation in Bhopal to all parliamentarians from the state.

Congress insiders say that Scindia's desire to have a house in Bhopal stems from his wish to be in the running for the post of chief minister - assembly elections are slated to be held in Madhya Pradesh in November. The Congress has appointed Kamal Nath as the state party chief and Digvijaya Singh as the head of the party's coordination panel. Both Nath and Singh have palatial government houses where daily meetings and briefings are held. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that Scindia wants to set up a third Congress power centre in the state capital.

Crunch time

Things are moving rather favourably for the Opposition these days. In Kairana, Uttar Pradesh, the combined strength of the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress is behind the Rashtriya Lok Dal nominee, Tabassum Hasan, for a crucial Lok Sabha by-election.

The BJP, for its part, is leaving nothing to chance, given that the seat belonged to it. With an eye on weaning away a share of the constituency's 5.5 lakh Muslim voters, the BJP's managers had reportedly persuaded Tabassum's brother-in-law, Kanwar Hasan, to stand for the election, albeit as a Lok Dal candidate. However, a few days before the vote, Kanwar withdrew his candidacy in favour of his sister-in-law.

Kairana is a test of the unity between the Muslim and Jat communities as well, and many believe that if the vote goes against the BJP, then getting a majority in the Lok Sabha elections next year will be a tough call for the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance. All eyes are now on the results in Kairana, which will be declared on May 31.

Tongue tied

On the occasion marking the fourth anniversary of the BJP-led government at the Centre, the Union defence minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, was tasked with putting up a PowerPoint presentation for print journalists. Ministers in the BJP are known to happily carry out the party work assigned to them by the BJP boss, Amit Shah, claiming that they hold their positions of power because of the party.

Sitharaman, however, appeared to have failed to live up to the party president's expectations in making the presentation. She was speaking in English. An emissary was sent to urge her to also speak in Hindi - possibly in keeping with the BJP's claim of the greatness of Bharatvarsha? - and she did try to do so, but could not sustain it. English ended up dominating her presentation.

Footnote

• Social media have now become the in-thing for BJP MPs. The prime minister has been informally picking the five best MPs every month. Closer scrutiny reveals that Narendra Modi's choices tend to include those who were active on social media. Thus, more and more MPs are employing social media platform specialists to draw the PM's attention. Sceptics, however, continue to point out that the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 will be fought on the ground, not on social media.