Fight Against Corruption: One of the Crusaders Arrested Under Corruption Charges!

In the previous post here, I said that in spite of the near-certainty of a ‘walkover’ for the Modi Government the General Elections-2024 could still be no less than a cricket thriller! And, like many of the opposition leaders who have been relentlessly accusing the Government of India of ‘vindictive politics’ I too hereby stay ‘vindicated’! Ha! Ha! The momentous day of 21^st March, 2024 started with the central government freezing the accounts of the Congress party leaving it almost penniless for the looming election expenses and ended (not really!) with the arrest of the three-time Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from his official residence around 9 o’clock in the night on corruption charges relating to the Delhi Liquor Scam that started in 2021-22 leading to the arrests of several leaders of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). CM Kejriwal has been skipping summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) since November last year. After he refused the 9^th summons, the ED, acting upon the alleged evidence provided by a supposed stakeholder in the Scam (bribes for favors) and the subsequent refusal of the Delhi High Court to provide legal protection against arrest to Kejriwal, descended on the CM residence and arrested him following house-search, questioning and seizure of some documents. High drama continued throughout the night as the police and the rapid action forces deployed in front of the CM residence in anticipation had to disperse the huge congregation of AAP supporters who blocked the road to the ED office by dragging away many male and female supporters to the waiting buses.

Incidentally, Arvind Kejriwal was one of the most prominent disciples of Anna Hazare who launched a mass agitation against corruption in 2011 in the streets of capital Delhi, and Kejriwal finally allegedly betrayed his guru-mentor to fulfil his pre-determined political ambitions. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the anti-corruption crusader Anna has come out with support for the arrest along with a lot of lament and sadness. The AAP contested Delhi Assembly Elections in 2013 becoming the second single largest party after BJP, and eventually formed the government in association with Congress (ironical indeed, because the fight-against-corruption movement was directed against the then ruling Congress coalition UPA-2 only), and Kejriwal realizing his cherished of becoming the Chief Minister. However, just after 49 days he ‘ran away’ from the government and joined the streets to where he thought he belonged. Delhi came under President’s Rule for around a year, and in the Assembly Elections of 2015 the AAP secured a landslide of 67 seats out of 70, and Kejriwal became CM for the second time. His party won another landslide in 2020, securing 62 out of 70 with AK becoming CM for the third time. Since 2014 when the BJP-led NDA government came into power and began its reign from capital Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has been breathing down its back in the same capital. Therefore, it’s no surprise too that the NDA Government wants AK and his AAP out of the way, come what may, many BJP leaders having labelled his as the ‘Kingpin of the Scam’!

Even as the massive AAP protests that erupted last night began to envelope the whole country today and its top leaders began getting arrested or detained, almost all of the INDIA Bloc parties and their leaders came out voicing strong support, slamming the central government for the ‘murder of democracy’ and also some of them joining Kejriwal’s party in the streets. Two main points emerge during this dramatic unfolding which, I think, seem a bit tricky and even dangerous.

First, the AAP has been maintaining that Kejriwal refused the summons for nine times, because all in the party feared that the CM could get arrested which they claimed to be the sole objective of the NDA Government. In the previous post I raised the question as to why opposition leaders like AK try to escape from the ED instead of facing the challenge and proving them innocent! While insisting on this supposed strategy last night one AAP spokesperson got mocked at as the grinning news channel anchor asked her if she were happy to be proved finally! As the spokesperson struggled with her answer, I switched the channel as the ‘affiliation’ of the anchor was rather too clear for me! I switched on another channel where I thought at least one of the anchors was only ‘partially affiliated’! the point being that such a strategy could prove to be very tricky for the party.

Second and most significantly, AAP leaders have been maintaining since last night that Kejriwal would go on working as CM from jail as he is not being convicted yet. This is just not right, irrespective of any precedents or not. This could only land the party in deeper trouble legally and it could also trigger a public outcry. There is no dearth of examples of criminal politicians operating from jails to which we don’t normally react favorably.

There could be a possible third point to emerge out the two: that Arvind Kejriwal is being regarded as the ‘sole face’ of the party which lends much credence to the media charge that Kejriwal doesn’t trust any of his associates, either in the cabinet or in the party folds. And therefore, with Kejriwal in jail, there’d be no leader at all to fit into his chair. Then, what about the crucial campaigning in the coming weeks? Who will lead the party? Besides, in a hypothetical situation, when Kejriwal manages to becomes the Prime Minister of India who would fill the CM chair, provided the AAP keeps on winning the assembly elections too! More seriously, this ‘sole face’ situation might very well lead to a logical dissolution of the AAP Government resulting in another round of President’s Rule in Delhi.

As the last reports came in, the first sitting CM to be arrested ever in India has been produced in a Delhi court where arguments from both sides are going on. The ED has asked for a 10-day custody. Earlier, the AAP withdrew its petition from the Supreme Court, because as he was arrested under the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) a bail would be most unlikely to be granted, and there are his colleagues including his deputy languishing still in the Delhi jails. Anyway, more twists and turns are only to be expected in the coming days, just like in a suspense thriller!

General Elections-2024: The Bonds of the Indian Electorate!

By all available indicators, trends and analysis the Bhartiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—more precisely the Modi Government—is all set to perform a rare hattrick of coming-back-to-power in the 18^th Lok Sabha or General Elecitons-2024 that starts on 19^th April and stretches like IPL all the way to 1^st June when the 7^th phase of voting is scheduled with the counting of results scheduled on 4^th June. A host of media reports/opinion polls, analysis by poll experts/psephologists, the confidence of the ruling BJP in achieving a 400+ tally of seats for its alliance, the NDA’s already achieved hattrick of winning three Assembly Elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2023, a divided opposition despite the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance or the INDIA bloc of 27 political parties, and of course, the bonds of an endearing Indian electorate all point to this prediction which is fast becoming a certainty like a walkover before the match even began. The BJP on its own won 282 in 2014, 303 in 2019 and now they predict a tally of 350 seats. Even if they fail to reach 350, they seem almost sure to secure something around 300, and if they do so, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the first ever political leader of India to have achieved a single-party-majority three times in a row—meaning a resounding hattrick on all possible fronts.

The bonds of the Indian electorate seem to be growing warmer and warmer for their beloved leaders and the party, despite the Supreme Court striking down the Electoral Bonds Scheme. Some cynics point out that the vote shares in the previous two General Elections don’t quite bring out the maturing of the bonds of the electorate, because they say that the BJP’s vote share was just around 31% in 2014 and although it increased significantly to nearly 38% in 2019 it’s still lowly in view of the nearly 48% vote share achieved by the Indian National Congress or simply the Congress in 1957 under Jawaharlal Nehru. However, they miss on two points: first, the NDA has been marching along well securing about 45% vote share in the last elections and that since the beginning of ‘coalition politics’ from 1989 onwards the BJP’s achievement of 38% vote share is phenomenal.

The second point needs a little more elaboration. Vote shares are never a sound indicator if the bonds were warm or warmer. Vote shares don’t straightaway translate into winning more and more seats simply thanks to the fact that many candidates of both ruling and opposition parties have been winning seats by the slightest of vote margins which is a confirmed trend of modern poll and political times and that with the emergence of the regional parties there have been too many parties in the fray, sharing/splitting the pie. But on the other hand, the BJP candidates that won by large margins securing more than 50% vote shares of the constituencies concerned have increased from 136 in 2014 to 224 in 2019, and as per the available indicators this figure is set to get bigger this time. Cynics again counter this by saying that in the case of opposition candidates too, the number of wins securing more than 50% of the votes has increased from 64 in 2014 to 117 in 2019 which is more than that of the BJP in percentage terms. However, with the ruling alliance winning over many candidates/factions/parties across the Indian states to its fold quite a few of the erstwhile popular opposition candidates can turn to popular ruling candidates this time.

How big a challenge is the INDIA bloc? Well, even as the marginalization of Congress continues unabated and many parties having expressed their unwillingness either to partner with to share seats with it, the Bloc has been finding it hard to weather the storm keeping its flock together. Besides, most of the parties in the Bloc are extremely self-interested with the big few among them trying to promote their own prime ministerial candidates. And most significantly, they say an absolute ‘no’ to any leader from the Congress, particularly, Rahul Gandhi, emerging as a PM candidate. This is only natural: how could anyone earthily expect leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav among others agree to having Rahul Gandhi or even Mallikarjun Kharge as their leader should they make it to the Lok Sabha? Then the exodus from the Congress, including very senior leaders continues unabated too. Thus the possibility of the Bloc having a unanimous PM candidate remains a mirage. And, to counter a basically personality-driven party the challengers will have to find a unanimous leader—sooner than later. Not to speak of the ideologies involved. The opposition parties are united only in one issue: that the central agencies have been let loose on them with the express political aim of demoralizing or deactivating them. However, the point remains as to why such ‘vindicated’ leaders like Kejriwal are not facing up to the challenge by confronting the agencies and proving their innocence! To be on a little positive side, the Bloc of late has indeed been making some headway in the South and parts of the East and the West.

Having said all this it must be taken into consideration that the sense of overconfidence is not at all healthy under any circumstances. It would be an insult to the elections of the biggest democracy of the world by presuming it to be a foregone conclusion. One particularly should not forget the surprise loss of the visionary leader-statesman-poet-former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004 when his BJP’s victory was almost a foregone conclusion. The Indian elections are still immensely capable of throwing up surprises, despite all the odds. No doubt, the development story, the growth of Hindu nationalistic patriotism or jingoism, the scintillating Ram Mandir & the dream of Ram Rajya, successes in foreign policy and so on are definitely making the bonds of the electorate get warmer. But on the other hand, some of the bonds could get somewhat adversely affected too by the termination of the Electoral Bonds, the handling of the farmers’ agitation, the promulgation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) just before the elections, taking the celebrated corrupt leaders of all time liberally into the party fold, the unabashed use of the central agencies and other issues. Besides, the BJP or the NDA still remains entirely Modi-centric. A personality-driven wave need not be repetitive all the time. So then, General Elections-2024 could still be no less than a cricket thriller! Get set and Vote!

Welcome Madam President: Draupadi Murmu Elected India’s 15th President!

Draupadi Murmu, a tribal BJP leader from the state of Odisha, has been elected as the 15^thPresident of India after she had secured more than 51% of the votes in the third round of counting that started today morning. Even as more rounds of counting still remain the final election announcement becomes a mere formality. Draupadi Murmu belongs to the Santhal tribe of India and thus becomes the first ever Scheduled Tribe person to become the President of India. And she is only the second woman President of the country after Pratibha Patil, the 12^thPresident during 2007-2012. Madam Murmu was born on 20^th June, 1958 in a village of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Both her father and her grandfather were village headmen (Sarpanch), and so in a way, she’d been associated with public life from her childhood. She had served in the profession of teaching and initially also worked as a clerk in the state irrigation department. In her personal life she had to face a series of tragedies—losing her husband in 2014, then both her sons and a brother in a span of four years. Madam Murmu then sought spiritual solace by joining the Brahma Kumaris and her daughter for family.

 

Draupadi Murmu joined the BJP in 1997 and served two terms as a minister in the state cabinet of Odisha when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was having a coalition government with the BJP in the state. In 2015 she was appointed the Governor of Jharkhand, an eastern state of India with a major chunk of tribal population and she was the first ever lady Governor of the state. As the outgoing President of India Ram Nath Kovind was to complete his term this year, the BJP nominated Madam Murmu as the Presidential candidate for their ruling National Democratic Alliance. The announcement was strategically a masterstroke as no political party in India in the right frame of mind could afford to reject or vote against a woman tribal candidate. The move thus divided the opposition ranks effectively and ensured a landslide for Draupadi Murmu with the combined opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, a former BJP stalwart and now a TMC leader, left only watching from the sidelines.  

 

Celebrations all across the country are in full swing, with a rich unfolding of the Santali and other tribal folk dances, distribution of sweets and bursting of crackers. Particularly for Odisha, a very joyous occasion indeed with the first ever person from the state becoming the country’s President. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already visited the Delhi residence of Draupadi Murmu and officially congratulated her. There’s been a lot of speculation and debates going on in the Indian media about the ruling alliance’s political masterstroke and if the new President is in fact going to be just a rubber stamp. All such politicking should be left out at this historic moment as the first ever tribal lady of the country is going to be sworn in as the 15^th President of India. No doubt, Draupadi Murmu will have many challenges waiting for her in a country where the tribal inhabitants are still looked down upon and the atrocities on them and on the tribal women still being daily occurrences in various parts of the country. We extend our best wishes for the First Lady (not as the President’s wife, but as the President herself) and wish her a very successful five-year career.

The Twisted Maharashtra Climax: Triumph or Loss of Face for BJP?

If the national ruling party BJP, through the bizarre turns and twists of the tale, wants the citizens of the country, irrespective of being their supporters or not, to believe that the party was not behind what unfolded in Maharashtra over the last 9 days the party leadership is under a delusion and totally on the wrong track; because everybody has been getting used to their games over the last few years, from Arunachal Pradesh to Goa. It had been a forgone conclusion that the waiting-in-queue former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis was set to become the CM after a lapse of two and half years, till the last few hours in the afternoon of Thursday, the 30^th of June 2022 when the rebel group leader Eknath Shinde arrived in Mumbai to talk and negotiate with Fadnavis for the formation of the new government, still leaving his 49 or 50 supporters behind in Goa. As per the script both the leaders met the Governor and staked their claims. Again as per the script the oath-taking ceremony was to be held on Friday, the 1^st of July 2022. However, things bizarre started happening very fast after that.

 

First, the swearing-in ceremony for the formation of the new government was advanced to 7pm today itself, that is say, at least the swearing-in of the new CM. And then, in a joint press conference addressed by Shinde and Fadnavis the latter dropped the bombshell that the new CM was going to be Eknath Shinde, and not himself as was widely expected in media circles.  Fadnavis went on to say that the state BJP would not even be a part of the government, only extending his party’s support to Shinde’s faction from outside.  That announcement left everyone in utter disbelief and it was speculated that the BJP, in fact, wanted to oust the Thackeray family from active politics while still claiming the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray and to show that they’d not been hungry for power at all, not at all having any part to play in the split in Shiv Sena. It was also speculated that Fadnavis wanted to become the kingmaker or the remote control to monopolize the Hindutva space in the state.

 

In another twist just before the oath-taking ceremony Devendra Fadnavis announced that they’d in fact be a part of the new government and that he’d be the new Deputy Chief Minister. This announcement was supposedly made at the directions of the BJP high command in Delhi. And accordingly, the swearing-in ceremony was organized with Shinde taking the oath as the new CM and Fadnavis as the Deputy CM.

 

While the earlier speculations we mentioned could still be valid the question arises as to why the mighty BJP should allow the party to demote itself to a secondary position. Could it be due to factors of compulsion? Because, the only hope of the BJP to recapture power depends entirely on that faction of 49 legislators supporting Shinde who claims to be the real Shiv Sena and should they decide to go back to the Thackeray fold later the BJP would again be out of power. This makes the alliance as unholy as the earlier one looking at a volatile future ahead. So far the defectors have been kept safely away from the hub of politics, but they will have to come back to take oath, join the government and run it.

 

Another question that arises is that if the BJP is agreeable to giving away the post of the CM to Shiv Sena why they didn’t do it in 2019 which would’ve prevented the entire political drama to unleash ceaselessly in the following two and half years and would’ve ensured a BJP CM for at least two and half years seamlessly. Such questions raise the doubt that the BJP has in fact suffered a loss of face under pressing compulsions. One BJP national spokesperson has stoutly justified the move saying that their party is committed to ending family rule in politics across the country; well, that can be too tall a promise. Besides, a long battle lies ahead of Shinde’s faction to fight for the original party symbol and to appropriate the Balasaheb legacy at the same time. On the other hand, the NCP stalwart Sharad Pawar is not going to sit idle and watch the games as a spectator. Only the future can tell on how solid grounds the new alliance stands at the moment.

 

In any case, it’s become a struggle for sheer survival as far as Uddhav and Aaditya Thackeray and their loyalists are concerned. They still have the support of about 16 legislators and a few of the Members of Parliament, and enjoy grass-root support in the metro of Mumbai. But the real test scenario is set to unfold in rural Maharashtra and other districts of the state. They should stop crying hoarse about their own people deserting them, and instead should fight it out in all corners of the state.

Uddhav Thackeray Resigns, Celebrations in the State BJP Camp!

Ahead of the trust vote ordered by the Supreme Court that is to be carried out on the floor of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by 5pm on Thursday, the30^thJune 2022 Uddhav Thackeray has resigned from the post of Chief Minister on his Facebook Live address at 9.30pm today which was taken live on the television news channels across the country. The emotions of Uddhav Thackeray hardly mattered now as his resignation signified the end of his government and the trust vote tomorrow has become redundant. He has also resigned from his elected post of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. What had been billed as the ideal opposition alliance for the country to counter the growth of BJP the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has come to an end too. News of the formation of a new government led by the former CM Devendra Fadnavis is circulating at the moment with some news channels predicting a new government on July 1, 2022. The Governor, after accepting Uddhav’s resignation officially, may invite the single largest party which is BJP to form a new government and prove their majority later or the BJP with the Shiv Sena rebels may visit the Governor to stake claims. Uddhav’s resignation letter was in the process of being handed over to the Governor as the last reports came in.

 

Meanwhile, the holidaying Shiv Sena rebels (now claimed to be 49 including a few independents) along with their leader Eknath Shinde had been shifted from Guwahati to another luxury resort in Goa in the evening today and they are likely to return to Mumbai early morning tomorrow to have discussions or negotiations with the BJP first and then picking up on the government formation process. It’s almost certain that Fadnavis will be the new CM, waiting for more than two and half years. It can called a quirk of nature that the Shiv Sena left the pre-poll alliance with the BJP on the CM post issue, demanding a rotational CM for half of the five-year term each; and in around two and half years only the Uddhav government has fallen.

 

The state BJP has been celebrating in their Mumbai party office with Devendra Fadnavis present and being served with sweets. There are actually three cheers for them: first, they’ve avenged the betrayal of the Shiv Sena in 2019; second, they’ve successfully engineered the biggest split ever in Shiv Sena ranks thus somewhat clearing the way to become the only Hindutva party in the state; and third, they’ve achieved a most significant victory in the run-up to the General Elections in 2024 by recapturing the state with the financial capital of the country. Although Eknath Shinde wants to retain his faction’s identity as the real Shiv Sena it’s going to be a long legal battle to do so. The Shiv Sena earlier made it very clear that they’d never allow the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray to be taken away from them. How long would Shiv Sean exist with the isolation of the Thackeray family is also to be seen in the coming days.

 

There have been protests against the ‘traitor’ rebel MLAs and counter demonstrations in support of Shinde across the state in the last few days which made the Governor order the state police to ensure safety of the rebels once they come back to Mumbai. Interestingly, the pleas for and against disqualification of 16 rebel MLAs as demanded by Shiv Sena is pending with the Supreme Court with a hearing scheduled on 12^thJuly. The apex Court came into the scenario as there’s been no Speaker in the assembly and the Deputy Speaker in charge is qualified to handle the matters relating to issues of disqualification and ordering a no-confidence motion.

(PS: The Final Twist! As on the afternoon of 30.06.2022, former BJP CM Devendra Fadnavis has declared the Shiv Sena rebel group leader Eknath Shinde as the next CM of Maharashtra!! This move has surprised one and all. Is it aimed at finishing off the traditional Thackeray family led Shiv Sena? It'll take time for a much clearer picture.)

Maharashtra Political Thriller: A Shiv Sena without the Thackerays?

We’ve been liberally treated with political thrillers like that is happening in Maharashtra at the moment across the country since the last few years, thanks to the aggressive power-politics of the national ruling dispensation (BJP) which fittingly matches its aggressive Hindutva nationalism. However, the present game has been inevitable since the year 2019 when Shiv Sena (SS) parted ways with the BJP after jointly fighting and winning the assembly elections, and after a landslide victory for the alliance in 2014, on the CM post issue, and forming a coalition government Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (Maharashtra Development Front or MVA) with the Congress and the nationalist Congress (NCP). For the last two and half years the state BJP has been a grumpy lot, alleging a great betrayal by the SS and wanting desperately to avenge it; in fact, they’d tried at least three times to derail the coalition so far. This last one, even though the party has continued to be in denial about any involvement, has proved to be the biggest coup within the Sena in history, threatening to finally dislodge the Uddhav Thackeray led MVA government.

 

The most definitive parameter of such political thrillers, the hotel-resort politics, is very much there in this too: first the dissident MLAs (Member of Legislative Assembly) led by Eknath Shinde, one of the senior-most and loyalist leaders of the Shiv Sena, were lodged in a five-star resort in Surat, a city in the BJP-ruled state of Gujarat, and then shifted unexpectedly at the dead of the same night to a five-star venue in Guwahati, of course, the capital of another BJP-ruled state of Assam with one of the most prominently aggressive national BJP leaders, Himanta Biswa Sarma, being the Chief Minister there. Dissident leader Eknath Shinde reportedly moved in there with around 30 supporting Sena MLAs which has increased to 42 (total of 46 including independent MLAs), as claimed by him on the morning of 23^rd June, 2022, for which he’d provided video proof too.

 

As per the anti-defection law Shinde needs to ensure the support of at least 37 MLAs which is two-thirds of the 55 SS MLAs in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly after the 2019 assembly elections. With apparently more than the required number the dissidents can now avoid disqualification and vote for the BJP in case of a no-confidence motion or in terms of showing the numbers to the Governor of Maharashtra to stake claim for the formation of a new Government with the BJP, the traditional partner of the SS on the basic Hindutva issue till 2019. Buoyed by this support Shinde has been claiming to be the leader of the ‘actual’ Shiv Sena, wanting to retain its identity at any cost. So, now we’re faced with a situation of a Shiv Sena without the Thackeray family whereas it was the legendary Balasaheb Thackeray, father of the present CM Uddhav Thackeray, who founded this party on 19^th June, 1966 in the interests of protecting the rights of the local Marathi population of the state.

 

Emotions ran high last evening, the 22^nd of June 2022, when Uddhav Thackeray, a gentleman-politician as always, made an address in social media appealing to all his MLAs to tell him face-to-face if they wanted him to resign that he said he was ready to do anytime, instead of conspiring behind his back. He added that his becoming the Chief Minister was only accidental which is actually true as the coalition partners wouldn’t have agreed to a non-Thackeray for the post. He also threw a kind of bait to Shinde, asking if they could ensure a new Chief Minister from his party only in the new scenario. In a further confirmation of his intentions Uddhav, found to be COVID positive in the morning, along with his family vacated his official CM residence Varsha late evening the same day, and moved to his family home Matoshree, around 9 km away. And we’d witnessed a spontaneous burst of love and support throughout his short journey home with thousands of Shiv Sainiks (Sena workers) and supporters accosting the traditional Sena leader and his bright promising minister-son Aaditya Thackeray on the streets of Mumbai. In my experience of over three decades this could only be only the second occasion of a spontaneous mass outburst of loyalty for a Thackeray, than during the days when Balasaheb lay seriously ill at Matoshree and eventually passed away in 2012.

 

Perhaps, somewhat nonplused by those emotional proceedings Eknath Shinde shied away from his intended press conference in Guwahati last evening, and instead shot off an ‘emotional’ letter to Uddhav this morning alleging a saga of sheer neglect to the SS loyalists by his coalition government that consistently preferred those of Congress and NCP only. However, despite the charged emotional drama MLAs kept on defecting from the Uddhav group and flying over to Guwahati, at times accompanied by BJP leaders.

 

The main spokesperson of the SS, Sanjay Raut has been saying repeatedly that the CM was not going to resign and that once the ‘imprisoned’ flock of MLAs returns to Mumbai it’d be an entirely different scenario as he has claimed to have been in touch with at least twenty dissident MLAs. He has also said that the traditional supporters of the SS have reiterated their binding faith in the Thackerays, have called the Sena dissidents as ‘traitors’ and have warned that they’d defeat them in the next assembly elections. All these claims and counter-claims about the numbers make this abundantly clear that this political thriller is far from over at the moment. Coincidentally, the 80-year-old Governor of Maharashtra has been in a hospital after being proved COVID positive.

 

Eknath Shinde has made it clear that his fight is to save the SS from this ‘unnatural’ coalition and to reunite the party with its traditional Hindutva partner BJP. Therefore, basically, Shinde wants to be the leader of the ‘actual’ or the breakaway faction of the Shiv Sena, and does not want to merge with the BJP. If he’d like to be considered for the post of the new CM, the BJP is extremely unlikely to agree to that with the dislodged former CM Devendra Fadnavis waiting patiently for over two and half years. Further, the Election Commission has to come into the scenario later as to which faction is going to have the right to continue using the old party symbol. Whatever be the future proceedings of this number-game, now apparently not at all in favor of Uddhav Thackeray, a Shiv Sena without the Thackeray family is not a concept that’d have acceptance from the larger Marathi people of the state.

Disturbing Times: Renewed Madness and the Vicious Circle of the Absurd!

Photo: phrases.org.uk

The Pandemic, at best, seemed only to have kept the madness of the modern age in a tight leash as long as it raged, creating a mortal fear over the whole of humankind. So, once the humans had discovered enough protection against it and succeeded in keeping it at bay, the modern-day madness seems to have come back with renewed vigor—to get back what they’ve lost over the last two years in real quick time. We can hardly pinpoint anyone to put the blame squarely on; because it’s affected almost every section or individual of the society. Coming to India, once the COVID-19 restrictions were completely lifted life’s started becoming more than normal. From the daily wage-earners and the vendors to the topmost business tycoons—almost everyone started showing extreme hurry to get back what they lost. The local admin authorities, also full of human beings only, joined in too; even the most discreet procedures were thrown out of the window. Tragedies, conflicts, absurdities and so on began unfolding very fast, peaking in the last few days while also giving the virus one more chance to come back.

 

Caught perhaps in a pandemic-induced mad frame of mind the new government in Punjab, the CM being a popular artiste, suddenly withdrew the security cover given to one of the state’s most popular singers who had been under threat from different gangs for various reasons. And tragically, the very next day, singer Sidhu Moose Wala was brutally gunned down in his car by gangsters chasing him in another car. Moose Wala was just 28 and had all the prime future ahead of him. To add to his there’s been a string of targeted murders of locals and non-local citizens in Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists whom the experts describe as micro-level operators or a kind of hybrid terrorism. Greatly disturbing tragedies, anyway.

 

As we mentioned at the beginning, even the minimum public safety measures were thrown away, almost everywhere in the country. And another tragedy happened. Kolkata’s humid heat is known to all who’ve experienced it. The 31^st of May 2022 was one such humid day when the heat was sweaty and unbearable even inside homes, under the whirring ceiling fans or even the struggling ACs. And, on that very day a popular playback singer in Hindi and in several south Indian and other languages, Krishnakumar Kunnath (famous as KK) was invited by local organizers in Kolkata to perform in the gloomy evening in one of the city’s premiere auditoriums, Nazrul Mancha.

 

Reports, dismissed as rumors, say the hall was more than packed as there were no restrictions on controlling entry of the extra hundreds of avid audiences, and that the AC was not functioning properly which is not surprising because we find the ACs getting weaker as the attendees get more and more on various occasions. The singer was seen wiping his sweat away and complaining to the organizers frequently. But, as a professional and for the success of the glamour event, he sang for nearly three hours. Then he felt uneasy complaining of chest pain. Surprisingly, he was taken to his hotel, instead of rushing him to the nearest hospital out of sheer common sense. KK collapsed in his hotel room and was declared dead on finally arriving in a hospital. KK, only 53, died of a heart attack as per the postmortem report. But was there nothing that could’ve triggered it in a person who had no previous history of heart problems?

 

Also perhaps severely affected by the post-pandemic madness, one advertising agency in Mumbai released ads on a male deodorant that directly promote the gang-rape theme even as there’ve been reports of rapes and gang-rapes taking place all over the country almost daily. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has promptly suspended the ads ordering those to be taken out of air everywhere. However, the question remains as to how those horrid ads passed layers and layers of the approval procedures. Or perhaps, it clearly pandered to the ‘tastes’ of a great majority of the stakeholders concerned. The same madness to recover what was lost by hook or by crook.

 

As the latest to happen to the continuing saga of greatly disturbing proceedings, one lady spokesperson of the ruling party (BJP) made some adverse remarks to Prophet Muhammad on a public platform yesterday. One more major communal riot unfolded on the streets of Kanpur as a result. The BJP, obviously concerned by the reactions of Qatar and the greater Arab world, suspended her along with one more male spokesperson for giving provocative speeches. The lady said later that she didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments; she was only pained by the alleged insults to ‘her Lord Shiva’. The other complained of serious threats to his life.

 

And then, the absurd of the absurd! A party that came to power on the strength of its aggressive Hindu nationalism and being condemned as a communal party all the time, the BJP is now accused by some of appeasing the Islamists! Well, we believe in one God or one Creator who may have various forms as per the beliefs of various other religions. We advise people, irrespective of to whatever extent they are being driven by the post-pandemic madness, to desist from fighting for ‘your God’ and ‘our God’ which can only bring us all to the brink, the world making a full circle, probably heading for the End.

 

The megastar Salman Khan today has received a letter threating death to him and his father Salim Khan in the ‘Moose Wala’ way. This could be another ‘vicious circle’ of the singer’s murder involving various probable gangsters of an unknown quantity. While in the US, apart from the mad shootings, there was report of a security issue with President Biden even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has crossed hundred days.

North East: Ambit Of AFSPA Reduced In Three States, Final Triumph For Irom Sharmila!

In a historic move today the Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has announced a reduction in the ambit of the dreaded Armed Forces Special Powers Act-1958 (AFSPA) in three North Eastern states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. As per the details of the announcement the AFSPA has been removed in 23 districts of Assam, in 7 in Nagaland and in 6 districts of Manipur (under 20 police stations). The home minister said that this decision is made following a drastic improvement in the security situation of the insurgency-infested states and a palpable progress in moving toward peace and development. He claims the move as a credit for the devoted commitment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. No doubt, the present Chief Minister of Assam Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, after defecting from the Congress, had led BJP (ruling Bharatiya Janata Party) to victory in Assam in 2016 and in 2021, and has contributed immensely in establishing dominance of the BJP in nearly all states of the region. So then, some credit is obviously due to the ruling party and a positive move like this is always welcome despite the others on the contrary.

 

The AFSPA has, for the last few decades, always been bitterly contested in the three North East states and in Jammu and Kashmir for its draconian provisions of allowing the army and paramilitary forces to search or arrest or detain any property or individual without any warrant and also the right to shoot anyone on justified or mistaken doubts while enjoying full immunity against prosecution. Massacres of civilians have been happening in all these states over the decades and the Act has been consistently opposed on human rights violations. The United Nations had also questioned the constitutional validity of the AFSPA in view of basic human rights.

 

The AFSPA comes into force whenever the Government of India decides to declare a certain area as ‘disturbed’ due to the failure of local administration to control law and order or to carry on the counter-insurgency operations effectively. Once the AFSPA becomes operative the local police lose their powers to prosecute anybody and have to ask for the approval of the central military forces to go ahead. The killing of 14 civilians in Nagaland in December last year by paramilitary forces had ignited strong opposition against the Act one more time. In 2016 the Supreme Court of India made filing FIRs compulsory for any extrajudicial killings irrespective of whether the victims were common persons or terrorists. The Court was giving this verdict after examining the petition filed by the families of the victims of extrajudicial killings in Manipur seeking justice for the alleged fake encounters of 1528 civilians since the enforcement of AFSPA.

 

History was created in the protests against the AFSPA in Manipur in November 2000 when a massacre of 10 civilians at Malom convinced a young lady of 28 of the state to undertake a fast unto death. The massacre happened on 2^nd November and the lady started her hunger strike on 5^th November, vowing to not eat, drink, comb her hair or even look into the mirror. Three days after her strike the police arrested her on the charge of trying to commit suicide and remanded her to judicial custody. And her hunger strike continued for nearly 16 long years during which she got repeatedly arrested and released briefly every year while she was nasally force-fed (nasogastric intubation) in jail to keep her alive in custody. The lady is Irom Chanu Sharmila, called the ‘Iron Lady of Manipur’ and Mengoubi (the fair one), who came to be known as the ‘world’s longest hunger striker’.

 

Irom Sharmila has been an icon of public resistance and a human rights activist, widely acclaimed nationally and internationally. She came into contact with all crusading national and international leaders and also a few Nobel laureates. As the AFSPA continued to be in force in all her years of fast Irom got increasingly disillusioned and finally ended her fast on 9^th August 2016 with the objective of entering politics to carry on the fight more effectively. Declining offers from several parties she formed her own political party and fought the Manipur assembly elections in 2017, but lost miserably that made her give up all hope for her own people and land.

 

She then married her longtime fiancé Desmond Coutinho, a Goa-born British national, and left Manipur to live in Tamil Nadu and then in Karnataka. Fortunately for her, although there had been much discontent and rage among her supporters after her decision the Supreme Court verdict contributed to some extent in reducing AFSPA excesses. Today, Irom Sharmila’s astounding sacrifices have got some rewards at last and we salute the Iron Lady of Manipur at this historic moment.

 

Assam Chief Minister today has addressed the media expressing his gratitude to his central leadership and welcoming the decision while saying that the presence of the central paramilitary forces in Assam has become insignificant now and is set toward near-full removal with only three districts remaining under AFSPA after the decision. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh who just got his second term wholeheartedly welcomed the announcement and hoped that this would enable the state move fully in the path of peace and development. We also hope for the complete removal of the dreaded Act in all the states including Jammu and Kashmir in the near future while, at the same time, fully understanding the compulsions of the Government to carry on its counter-terrorism operations effectively.

Assembly Elections-2022 Results: BJP Set To Win The Semi-Finals 4-1, A Decimated Congress Confirmed As The Cause Of Split Opposition!

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has created history in the volatile state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), interspersed with President’s Rule on many an occasion over the past decades, by overriding the anti-incumbency factor that has been in operation in the last 25 years to retain power, and Yogi Adityanath is set to become the first ever Chief Minister of UP to have two consecutive terms. Although the election battle in the state had been fought with open polarization tactics with the Hindutva campaign in full flow the victory with a comfortable majority is still an unprecedented achievement in light of the hurdles of the last two years—the woes of the migrant workers in the COVID-19 pandemic first wave; the abysmal management in the COVID-19 second wave with the rain of deaths and bodies floating the river Ganga; the farmers’ agitation and violence; the uncontrollably high unemployment rate; and the palpable anger of the citizens felt on almost every locality of the state.

 

As per the latest figures the BJP is heading for around 270 seats out of a total of 403 even as the counting for the assembly elections in 5 Indian states continue, although not able to accomplish the 300+ seats target this time as achieved in the last elections. Now the BJP has two paramount winners—PM Modi and Yogi—and the future is surely going to hang on the performances and the magnetism of these leaders. It is believed that the results of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections always have a direct impact on the outcome of the General Elections thanks to its 80 Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian Parliament) seats as the largest state of India. Therefore, as per that belief the ruling BJP seems set to perform a hat-trick in the 2024 General Elections.

 

The other major highlight of the Assembly Elections-2022 results is the landslide victory for the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) winning an overwhelming 92 seats out of 117 seats in the Punjab assembly elections as per the latest reports. This is like a dream-come-true for the Delhi CM Kejriwal who has been trying extremely hard to build a national presence of his party AAP, and now he has been able to extend it beyond Delhi, to an important state of Punjab. He had announced Bhagwant Singh Mann, AAP’s sitting Lok Sabha MP as the CM-face well before the polls, and the popular actor-comedian has won hands down with a victory margin of over 58000 votes.

 

The people of Punjab, bearing the brunt of the farmers’ agitation and the consequent wrath of the central government, were left clueless by the classic personal feud between the two Congress Sardars—the erstwhile CM Capt. Amrinder Singh and the cricketer-comedian-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and the spineless conduct of their regional parties—and have wholeheartedly welcomed the populist model of Kejriwal already tried successfully in Delhi despite the ruling BJP breathing heavily over his shoulders. The captain, dismayed at the betrayal by the Congress high command, formed a new party and fought the elections in alliance with the BJP; but he failed miserably to create an impact. Both Amrinder and Sidhu lost their seats among many other stalwarts, such is the sweeping wave for change.

 

The BJP has eliminated the Congress in the states of Uttarakhand and Manipur retaining power clear majority apart from Uttar Pradesh; in Manipur the BJP is going to form the government on its own for the first time. The situation in Goa is still tricky even though BJP seems to inching its way to a simple majority. In light of its previous stunt of grabbing power despite Congress being the single largest party in 2017, it is almost certain that BJP would retain power again having 20 seats out of 40 already. The results are so far based on leads/trends; nevertheless, the leads seem to be conclusive as victory marches in various cities hit the streets.

 

The BJP thinktank’s much-touted slogan of a ‘Congress mukt Bharat’ (Congress-free India) comes as a political masterstroke at this juncture. The thinktank knew very well that Congress being the oldest and the longest-ruling political party of India no united opposition can be viable without its inclusion. And in every election the party has been decimated and demoralized to such an extent that it has now become a clear liability for any aspiring opposition to stop the BJP, the Maharashtra model being the only exception. The dynastic pattern of the Congress has also been targeted repeatedly with a clear objective. Slowly over time, dissidence and defections grew within Congress with many of its promising leaders leaving the party and all other opposition parties became wary of the fact that once an alliance is formed with Congress, the latter’s dynastic leaders would have to made CM or PM faces which the ambitious regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Kejriwal cannot ever agree to. Add to that the BJP’s tireless wooing of the regional parties in various states.  

 

So, we’ve seen split oppositions in all the five states that made the BJP retain power in 4 and the AAP in 1 state. This way, the road is very clear indeed to another landslide by BJP in the General Elections-2024. By continuously decimating the Congress the BJP seems to have succeeded in eliminating a united opposition in the largest democracy of the world. Unfortunately, the process thus unfolded has sort of legitimatized the use of polarization and mixing religion with politics, the increasing loss of the true values of secularism, growing assaults on the democratic institutions and constitutional authority, and the spewing of venom and hatred between communities all over the country that is set to go on infecting us nobody knows for how long.

 

A few Congress spokespersons have no other option but to admit in television interviews that their party’s antics in Punjab just four-five months before the elections were extremely uncalled for. The party High Command has, for reasons unknown, totally yielded to the comedian’s never-ending demands making him party president, ousting a performing CM Captain Amrinder Singh, installing the comedian’s protégé as the new CM Charanjit Singh Channi who incidentally has lost both the seats he contested as per the latest reports and giving the comedian all the power as he feels like in running the government or the election campaign. Other dissident but very experienced Congress veterans have also said that the Gandhi (read dynastic) leadership has outlived its relevance. It is also a quirk of nature that another actor-comedian has come in to replace the black comedian to make the people of Punjab feel better, hopefully!

The Endless Congress Dilemma Is Advantage BJP And A Constant Bottleneck For United Opposition!

The only political party that is always having the last laughs on the pathetically prolonged Congress dilemma and its manifestations is obviously the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is greatly advantaged to stage a hat-trick of victory in the 2024 General Elections, even though the biggest national democratic exercise is more than two and half years away. The oldest political party of India, the Indian National Congress (INC or simply Congress), has been suffering consecutive routs in both the General Elections since 2014 and in most of the Assembly Elections in recent times, leading everyone to believe that the only second pan-India party, apart from the BJP since 2014, is caught in the throes of an irreversible decline and fall. It still remains a party bound irrevocably to the Gandhi family, despite the repeated failures of the leadership and internal conflicts led by several veteran Congress leaders called the G-23 demanding a change in leadership and holding organizational elections for more than two years now, after the debacle of the 2019 General Elections. The Congress High Command, instead of listening to their own stalwarts and discussing openly the issues, has been following a confrontational line thanks perhaps to the grand advice offered by the old guards, always supporting the Gandhi leadership in a mental framework akin almost to sycophancy and slavery.

 

The resignation of the then Congress President Rahul Gandhi after the rout in 2019 and his steadfast refusal to hold the post again, the growth of the G-23, the growing dissidence all across the country, the mess the party created in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh losing power after coming back to electoral victories, the continuing drama in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and the pending meet of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) failed, as always, to convince the ‘high command’ about the urgent need for structural changes and democratic reforms within the party. Instead, the loyal old guards pitifully prayed to Rahul Gandhi to reconsider and failing to do so requested the erstwhile President Sonia Gandhi to be the interim president to which she obliged. Thanks to a caustic remark by one of the most prominent Congress veterans of the G-23, Kapil Sibal, that he was not aware about who had been the taking the party decisions as there was no permanent leadership, the ‘high command’ finally called for a CWC meeting recently.

 

But alas, no crucial decisions were taken in the meeting about making the Congress united and strong. What had been seen and heard was that Sonia Gandhi confirmed herself as a full-time president and that a new president would be elected after she complete her term which is almost one year away and during which the crucial assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab are to take place. Lady Gandhi further accentuated the divide by telling the 23 leaders of the differently-opinionated group to approach her directly for discussions and not through the media, failing miserably to understand why at all the G-23 was forced to go to the media. The old guards again pleaded with Rahul Gandhi to resume next year to which Rahul assured of reconsideration. Of course, the CWC promised party elections and a new president during August-September, 2022. The two leaders of the G-23 who were present in the meeting, unfortunately, lacked the courage to make bold demands which raises questions about the potent political impact of the group. The party gleefully delighted about the proceedings is again the BJP, because as long as Congress remains dynastic and weak it’s their furtherance of the ambition to capture the whole of India by 2024.

 

As is now obvious, the biggest setback that looms due to the prolonged dilemma of the Congress is for the prospect of forming a national united opposition front—as an effective force to counter the BJP expansion—notwithstanding the ardent efforts of Mamata Bannerjee who defeated the BJP loud and clear in her state of West Bengal. While the Congress high command always supported Mamata’s efforts the Congress state party in West Bengal did everything for a division of votes by forming an alliance with the Communist Party-Marxist (CPM) that directly favored the BJP plunge in the state in the West Bengal Assembly Elections-2021; it is only due to the mature decision of the voters who never wanted a communal party to come to power in their secular state that helped Mamata achieving a landslide, and of course, the electoral-strategy wizard Prashant Kishore who joined Mamata’s Trinamool (grass-root) Congress (TMC) was a great help in terms of strategy and planning. Ironically, the same Prashant Kishore who expressed his willingness to join the Congress to help them lead a united opposition has still not been realized.

 

This puts all the political opposition parties of the country in a dilemma too: they realize that any united front cannot be formalized without the participation of oldest political party and its pan-India status; but as has been proved in Bihar where the promising young leader Tejashwi Yadav lost by an agonizing margin to BJP in the Bihar Assembly Elections-2020 due mainly to the non-performance of his prime ally Congress and in Assam where the Congress failed to work out an understanding with the emerging regional parties and instead joined forces with another communal party thus effectively creating a division of votes which clearly favored a worried BJP retain power in the Assam Assembly Elections-2021; barring Maharashtra where Congress is still sticking successfully to the opposition coalition government in spite of the some stray contrary comments made by its leaders now and then, in most of the other states the party has been viewed as a liability for any opposition alliance.

 

The case of the state of Punjab which is always considered the unassailable stronghold of the Congress party comes as the latest case in support of the party being called a liability and mostly, inadvertently or otherwise, favoring the BJP in expanding their roots. The Punjab crisis led to the ousting of the strong Chief Minister and Congress veteran Captain Amarinder Singh who now is reported to be moving toward joining the BJP, like numerous other promising Congress leaders leaving or planning to leave the party over the past two years. The Congress high command, mainly Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, sided with a comically inconsistent Navjot Singh Sidhu who, even after fulfilling his target of assuming the state Congress chief post and having a change of chief minister and government, recently resigned from the post and a few days later did an about-turn rejoining his post, supposedly after his talks with the Congress ‘high command’, and in an immaculate dynastic hold the party is projecting Priyanka Gandhi as the new Chief Ministerial face for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early next year. Punjab too will go for assembly elections during the same time and the present Congress-created crisis favors the BJP strongly to consider make a tremendous fight to gain power for the first time.

 

Nobody can guess with conviction how and when this Congress dilemma is going to end or end the party itself from the Indian election scenario. For any tangible action by Congress one will have to wait for another year. In this perspective the role of the G-23 is crucial in trying to debate within the party and convince the party for a change that is so much needed to change its tag of an ‘unreliable ally’ in all forthcoming electoral alliances. There have been issues always to counter the ruling power: the disastrous handling of the Second Wave of COVID-19 and the vaccination hassles; the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) movement; the ever-rising fuel prices crossing the 100-rupee mark and still moving ahead; the still unresolved farmers’ agitation and the recent violence in Lakhimpur-Kheri in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh leading to deaths of four farmers; the increasing communal divide and lynching cases; and the alleged bulldozing of democratic norms and values. Rahul Gandhi, of course, makes the right kind of noises, but he vanishes afterward, at times into his unpredictably mysterious sabbaticals; and not allowing the Indian Parliament to function is clearly not an alternative. The oldest political party of India must introspect very intensely indeed and time is running out.  Else, the monopoly of the BJP is set to continue like a juggernaut and in the furtherance of its most loved ambition of having a one-party and much-hyped Congress-free democracy in India.

The Ephemeral Sardar!

He was fairly loved as a cricketer, a right-hand batsman and a part-time medium pace bowler, graduating from the tag of a ‘stroke-less wonder’ during his poor debut to ‘Sixer Sidhu’ in later years; he was the most loved as a commentator and television comedian for his famous one-liners and extempore humorous verses and eulogies; and what he has been as a politician we’ll come back to later on. Yes, we’re indeed talking about the gloriously or infamously unpredictable, the compulsively impulsive, the mysteriously ‘principled’, the all-occasion fun-orator, the allegedly inefficient team-builder and the powerhouse of passion, Navjot Singh Sidhu who in fact managed to display all of the emotions in easy abandon like the colors of a rainbow. He has been a Sardar (of the Sikh religion) with an uncanny difference and his continual fight with another Sardar (Captain Amarinder Singh, the former Chief Minister of Punjab) is one of the Indian political classics.

 

Thanks to his good performances in the domestic circuit of Indian cricket Navjot Singh Sidhu was selected for the national Test team in 1983-84; but his debut was very poor which earned him the tag of a ‘stroke-less wonder’ from a journalist, and was dropped from the team. The Sardar, as usual, showed his emotions, and later claimed in an interview that the tag had entirely changed his cricketing life. Navjot was later recalled to the one-day international (ODI) team and he performed very well in the ICC World Cup-1987, creating a world record of scoring four consecutive half-centuries on debut. He was marked out as a great hitter of sixes, particularly off the spinners, which changed his tag to ‘Sixer Sidhu’. He also earned praise from many international cricket commentators and experts. His cricket career began; however, a career that lasted till 1999 was not without upsets and turmoil thanks to the Sardar’s emotions.

 

He was recalled to the Test team in 1988 and had relatively successful outings in the New Zealand tour of India, the Indian tour of the West Indies and India’s tour of Pakistan. He was dropped again in 1992 for his poor run with the bat in India’s tours of England and Australia. Navjot was recalled to Team India later that season and the best part of his cricketing career lasted till 1996 when he walked out of a Test Series against England in England complaining of a difference of opinion with the then India Captain Mohammed Azharuddin. The BCCI banned him for the next ten Tests as a punitive measure. This episode somewhat confirmed his inability to get on with a team or in team-building. Sidhu made his way back to Team India in the 1996-97 tour of the West Indies where his only double century earned the unique distinction of being one of the slowest innings in the history of world cricket. After a poor performance in India’s New Zealand tour of 1998-99 Sidhu was dropped again for the upcoming tour of Pakistan, and the Sardar announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in 1999. In all, he played 51 Tests with 9 tons including a double ton and 136 ODIs.

 

In the meanwhile, the tempestuous Sardar was involved in a road-rage incident in December 1988 when he hit a senior citizen on the head who later died in the hospital. This homicide case dragged on till 1999 when a trial court acquitted him of murder charges; but in 2006 the Punjab High Court reversed the order convicting him and his associate guilty of culpable homicide. Sidhu and the associate appealed in the Supreme Court, and the Apex Court stayed the order in 2007. Finally Navjot Singh Sidhu was acquitted of culpable homicide in 2018 by the Supreme Court, but the court still convicted him of ‘causing a hurt’, and fined him without, fortunately, ordering a jail term.

After retiring from an eventful cricket career Sidhu became a cricket commentator, a television personality and a politician in the span of the next 4-5 years. His cricket commentator career was cut short abruptly as he got fired by the sports channel for swearing live on air, although his one-liners on air made him an extremely popular commentator. Navjot, however, continued as a cricket expert in various new channels and renewed his contract with the same sports channel in 2012, but due to contractual dispute it ended in 2014 during the IPL. In the region of television he started appearing as a judge in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge (2005-2008) and also acted in various television programs. He had been a permanent guest in the most popular shows of Comedy Nights With Kapil (2013-16) and The Kapil Sharma Show (2016-2019). He was ousted from the latter show due to his alleged pro-Pakistan remarks on the show and his closeness in to the new Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan who was once the most loved fast bowler in international cricket and other Pak army dignitaries that created a national outrage.

 

The political career of Navjot Singh Sidhu also began in 2004 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and won the General Elections of 2004 from Amritsar, his favorite constituency. But he had to resign from the Member of Parliament (MP) position due to the reversal of his homicide case. However, Sidhu fought again in a by-election immediately after the Supreme Court stay and won. In the General Elections of 2009 Sidhu won again on the BJP ticket. In 2014 General Elections he refused to fight as he was not given the ticket from Amritsar. To keep him in the party the BJP nominated Sidhu as a Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament) member. The unpredictable Sardar took the oath in April 2016 and resigned in July the same year. After attempting to form his own political party Sidhu joined the Indian National Congress party in January 2017. He was given the Amritsar constituency in the Punjab Assembly Elections of 2017 which he won with thundering majority and became the Tourism Minister in the cabinet formed by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.

 

It is hardly possible for the ephemeral Sardar to stay put in a particular position. Losing his television job, hurt by the Captain’s direct opposition to his Pakistan links and the snub by the Election Commission in the campaign for the General Elections 2019 Sidhu started his lasting fight with the Chief Minister and resigned from cabinet, addressing his resignation letter to the Congress high command. The seemingly dormant volcano in Sidhu erupted and he started attacking the Captain’s government openly. Finally, the Congress high command, considering his popularity in various sections of the state and the forthcoming elections, had to bow down to his wishes, and Sidhu was appointed the Congress president of the state on 18^th July 2021. Now in power, he began to garner support from the Congress MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) for himself. The happenings hurt the 79-year-old Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh so much that he tendered his resignation on 20^th September 2021 putting the state in a crisis just four months ahead of Assembly elections-2022.

 

Under Sidhu’s supervision a new Chief Minister was appointed by the Congress high command who was a Dalit which happened for the first time in the state, and two Deputy CMs. The unpredictable Sardar seemed to be happy as he was seen around the new CM. But all hell broke loose when Sidhu resigned from his Congress president post on 28^th September 2021 placing the Congress high command in an unprecedented dilemma. Sidhu reportedly was not happy with the two Deputy Chief Ministers and that a few of the new ministers were not his choices. He said that he is fighting for the state’s future and there could be no compromise with that having also said that he would continue to serve Congress. Protesting voices against Sidhu were heard within the Punjab Congress as they could not accept someone opposing a government led by a Dalit for the first time.

 

Hurt and saddened, the former CM Captain Amarinder Singh met the India Home Minister Amit Shah and said to media that he would leave Congress definitely, but would not join the BJP. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arving Kejriwal also did not reveal his cards about the likelihood of Navjot Singh Sidhu joining his party. And as is usual, nobody can predict the next moves of the unpredictable Sardar. As per latest reports Sidhu today met the new Chief Minister Channi with the latter announcing that all issues were resolved. It has to be seen how this crisis is going to conclude, if at all, with four months left for the elections. At the moment the Congress party that has always won assembly elections in Punjab is at a total loss, and the BJP that has never won there is at an advantage to stage a maiden victory.