Buzz over bungalow
Getting bungalows may entail a set-to among the legislators and ministers of the ruling dispensation. A senior leader, also a minister, has chosen a bungalow that has been allotted to a legislator of the ruling party. The legislator, a senior leader of the BJP who was once a minister, has no intention to vacate it. Even during Congress rule, he did not do so. The bungalow may set off bitterness between the legislator and the minister. This is the same bungalow that led to a split between the two senior leaders of the Congress and ultimately to the fall of the government. Likewise, the BJP leaders, living in big bungalows, are in no mood to vacate them. The ministers newly inducted into the cabinet have also kept their eye on these bungalows and are trying to get them allotted. They are pulling out all the stops to get a few bungalows in the Char Imli area allotted.
Lure of lucre
The ministers got their portfolios just a few days ago. Some of them are trying to understand their departments on their own, and others are holding talks with the officials to know about the functioning of the departments they are heading. On the other hand, some of them have begun to work on their agenda. Immediately after getting his portfolio, one of the ministers got on his way to make money. The minister recently sent an accomplice to an officer from whom he sought a list of suppliers. Through his assistant, the minister told the officer that the suppliers should not be given any work without his consent. A few suppliers connected with the department are making rounds of the minister’s residence. These suppliers want some work before the Model Code of Conduct is implemented for the Lok Sabha election. This is the reason why they are putting pressure on the officers. The way the minister is behaving just after the allotment of ministry may land him in hot water.
In a fix
A few leaders in the home district of the head of the state seem to have had their knickers in a twist these days about what they should do. For all these years, they have been opposing the leader who heads the state now. A few of them even demanded tickets from the constituency from where the Chief Minister is an MLA. They spared no effort to trouble him. Against this backdrop, they do not know how to manage their political career. That how flustered these leaders are, came to light when the Chief Minister recently visited his hometown. A few of them were with him, and others just completed the formalities and went away. Nevertheless, a leader, who was never on good terms with the head of the state, seemed to have surrendered to him. The politician has started saying that he has never contested the present head of the state, but some people defamed him for their selfish motive. Many detractors of the Chief Minister know that their difficulties will continue for five years. For this reason, they are no longer ready to confront him.
Bugging video
Horsing around with the BJP leaders has weighed heavy on a Congress legislator. What happened was that the legislator was sitting with his BJP counterparts in an event in the assembly. Someone made a video of this legislator, and posted it on social media, saying the legislator would return to the BJP. The video went viral on social media in the legislator’s constituency. In the video, it was also said that the BJP might field him from any parliamentary constituency. Because of the incident, the legislator is tingled with embarrassment in his own constituency, besides the incident has forced a few senior leaders of the Congress to clarify to the people that the legislator is not joining the BJP. The legislator has changed political parties so many times that people barely count on his assurance. Because the legislator runs a big business, he loves to be with the ruling party. So, the video has intensified concern among the leader of the BJP leaders as well as among those of the Congress in the legislator’s constituency.
Poll predictions
Many bureaucrats can predict the outcome of an election, because they are close to power. At a time when most of the political experts, including a few leaders of the ruling dispensation, were not sure of the BJP’s win in the assembly election, an IAS officer foretold the Ladli Behna Yojna would damage the Congress’s prospects in the election. He made the prediction at a restaurant during a chinwag with some of his colleagues who, however, did not agree with him. Now, everyone knows – what he saw coming, others failed to do. This IAS officer has again predicted that the ruling party will retain all the 28 seats that it won in 2019, and if a former chief minister’s son contested from Chhindwara, the opposition might even lose the lone LS seat that it won. It is known to all that the former chief minister’s son, not a political heavyweight, may not withstand the BJP’s tempest-like poll campaigning. A few BJP leaders, too, do not contest the officer’s claim.
Balloons burst
Two leaders of the ruling party spared no effort to steal the headlines – especially in the electronic media –before the assembly election. They spoke to the representatives of the electronic media every morning. Likewise, a Congress leader, too, met the scribes from the electronic media to give them bytes daily. The purpose was to stay in the limelight. Now that their deeds gave off resentment among their party colleagues and that they lost the election, they have gone into silence as though they had never been in politics. But another politician, also a bragger, has won the election, and become a minister, though he, too, seems to have realised that it is easy to burst a windbag. So, he is conducting himself like a sandbag that silently endures the punches and remains firm.
