Strategic move

The deputy chief minister of Odisha, Pravati Parida, who also heads the women and child development and tourism ministries, is a happy leader at the moment after having successfully implemented one of the key election promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party — 10,000 rupees per annum to women in two instalments under Subhadra Yojana. After extending this benefit to more than one crore women in Odisha, Parida, a first-time legislator, called for a “healthy media interaction” at a hotel. During the presser, she narrated how she not only energised the administration to disburse such a huge amount of money successfully to the beneficiaries but also effectively eliminated unscrupulous elements from the system. With this, she sent a strong message to her critics: despite being a political greenhorn, she knows how to handle the bureaucracy to deliver on promises. Parida knows that to get things right, she needs the support of the media. She thus invited over 100 journalists as well as the owners and the editors of local newspapers and TV channels to the interaction to get their feedback on the Subhadra scheme. Most people obliged and a section of the media even endorsed her views that the Subhadra scheme is a significant step in the direction of realising the ambition of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to create ‘lakhpati didis’.

Tall task

Since the Congress Working Committee session in Ahmedabad earlier this month, KC Venugopal, the general-secretary (organisation) of the All India Congress Committee, has moved his base back to his home state, Kerala. With the assembly election scheduled in Kerala in the summer of 2026, Venugopal has allegedly been entrusted with poll preparations in the state by none other than the veteran party leader, AK Antony. Venugopal has been given the responsibility especially since the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee leadership, led by K Sudhakaran and VD Satheesan, the leader of the Opposition, did not rise to the AICC’s expectations.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress MP KC Venugopal and others during a candlelight march in solidarity with the Pahalgam terror attack victims, in New Delhi. PTI

Venugopal has his task cut out for him if he is to prevent the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front from scoring an electoral hat-trick. Alongside this, Venugopal has also been executing his role as member of Parliament from the Alappuzha constituency in Kerala which saw him attending a parliamentary committee meeting in Jammu and Kashmir in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack. Venugopal, who follows Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, like a shadow, accompanied the latter during his visit to Anantnag on Friday.

Blessing in disguise

Besides busting the tall claims made by the Narendra Modi government about normalcy returning to Jammu and Kashmir, the brutal terror attack in Pahalgam has achieved another impossible thing — it galvanised the political front. The Opposition has extended its “full support” to the government for “any action” to punish the terrorists, whereas the Centre — none other than the home minister, Amit Shah, himself — admitted to security lapses at the all-party meeting after the attack. However, BJP insiders are of the opinion that the fresh wave of religious polarisation that has set in in the country after the attack could earn electoral dividends for the party in the assembly polls in Bihar and West Bengal.

Another thing that the Pahalgam attack has impacted is the BJP’s organisational elections. The party has been under pressure from its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to appoint a “strong organisational leader” and not a “rubber stamp” as party president. The RSS top brass had arrived in Delhi early this week for talks, but the terror attack happened. BJP sources say that the election will be delayed. Modi has been trying to woo the RSS to secure its blessings for a party chief of his choice. Many believe that Modi could go in for a big bang-like action against Pakistan to bolster his image of a strong leader to enforce his will.

Serious commitment

At a time when the Opposition is divided and directionless in Assam, the ruling BJP has launched an aggressive campaign for next month’s panchayat elections. On Friday, the party released its poll manifesto along with two catchy campaign songs and a short documentary of the state government’s schemes as part of voter outreach. This underscored the seriousness with which the party approaches every election campaign.

Several government functionaries contributing to the rural economy were felicitated as part of the outreach. The state BJP president and MP, Dilip Saikia, explained the rationale behind the party’s serious approach to elections. “For us, each and every poll is a final,” he said, in an attempt to shed the perception that the panchayat poll is just the semi-final to the assembly polls scheduled next year. The Opposition clearly has a lot to introspect and catch up on if it wants to stop the BJP’s poll juggernaut.