Civilian honours such as Padma awards and Bharat Ratna are usually declared prior to January 26, even though the award ceremony is held later. However, the announcement that veteran BJP leader L K Advani was to be honoured with the nation’s highest civilian award was made on February 3, a week after Republic Day. The Advani family was taken by surprise when PM Modi first tweeted the news and followed it up by a telephone call to his residence. The belated announcement was reportedly due to pressure from Sangh Parivar veterans, that to ignore the man who initiated the yatra for restoring the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya while honouring Opposition leaders like Karpoori Thakur and Pranab Mukherjee (in 2019) seemed incongruous.
Shortly after Modi became PM in 2014, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was decorated with the Bharat Ratna, while Advani and M M Joshi were honoured with the lower order Padma Vibhushan. Although Advani was originally Modi’s mentor, their friendship soured after 2013, when, in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, Advani had to perforce give up his PM ambitions to make way for the youthful and more popular Modi. Once the Advani award announcement timing broke with tradition, the government realised it could make use of awards to score points with farmers and voters in Andhra by adding P V Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh and M S Swaminathan to the exclusive Bharat Ratna club.
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Fall from grace
Also Read The Geological Whisperer. Time Crunch of Finding Treasure: Can We Speed Up Mineral Exploration? Atmanirbhar women for Atmanirbhar Bharat AI in India’s banking sector: RBI action needed A Trump reprise? During the pandemic, Mumbai’s dynamic Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal was hailed as a hero for streamlining operations to contain the spread of Covid there. His then boss, CM Uddhav Thackeray, also earned kudos because of BMC’s good work. Surprisingly, Chahal managed to retain his post when Eknath Shinde took over as CM. Now, many of Chahal’s former admirers are disillusioned as they feel that he is actively backing Shinde’s dubious projects, which would further erode the city’s environment and green spaces. Chahal also has plans to appropriate 120 acres of green space presently accessible to the general public, which was with the Mumbai race course. The Royal Western India Turf Club’s high-powered, well-heeled managing committee members hastily fell in line with the proposal fearing it would otherwise meet the fate of Delhi’s Gymkhana Club, which was taken over by the government.
Chahal is also under a cloud as the entire Rs 500 crore for development of Mumbai’s civic facilities has been allotted to the 21 ruling party MLAs in Mumbai in the last two years, while 15 Opposition MLAs have received almost nothing. His defence is that he allocated the money on the basis of the directions of Mumbai’s two guardian ministers, Mangal Prabhat Lodha and Deepak Kesarkar, affiliated to the BJP and the Shinde Sena respectively. But Chahal is expected to exercise discretion in such matters.
Weathervane politicos
Jokes about Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s notorious habit of switching allies abound. Actually, those with a socialist background have a higher propensity to be dal badloos. George Fernandes showed the way back in 1977, when he spoke passionately in defence of the Morarji Desai government in Parliament one day and the very next morning, defected to the Charan Singh camp. The late Ram Vilas Paswan was a reliable indicator of which way the political wind was blowing and managed to secure a cabinet berth in successive BJP or Congress central governments. Even RS Deputy Chairperson Harivansh Narayan Singh is a former socialist. Incidentally, Charan Singh’s grandson, Jayant Chaudhary, though not a socialist, is keen on his RLD joining forces with the BJP in western UP, though he has already formalised an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav.
Keeping them guessing
PM Modi likes to keep his ministers on their toes. Senior leaders have been warned of the importance of standing for polls, even if it is for a local municipality, rather than the lazy route of backdoor entry through the RS. Word in the party is that no RS MP should expect more than two terms. With the tenure of 56 MPs in the RS ending this April, including nine central ministers, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mansukhlal Mandaviya and party president J P Nadda, there is considerable tension. The deadline for filing nomination papers for new RS seats is February 15, but the powers that be have yet to disclose their plans. A few like Mandaviya, Pradhan and Vaishnaw have already pinpointed potential LS constituencies in their home states, but most are still in the dark.
Civilian honours such as Padma awards and Bharat Ratna are usually declared prior to January 26, even though the award ceremony is held later. However, the announcement that veteran BJP leader L K Advani was to be honoured with the nation’s highest civilian award was made on February 3, a week after Republic Day. The Advani family was taken by surprise when PM Modi first tweeted the news and followed it up by a telephone call to his residence. The belated announcement was reportedly due to pressure from Sangh Parivar veterans, that to ignore the man who initiated the yatra for restoring the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya while honouring Opposition leaders like Karpoori Thakur and Pranab Mukherjee (in 2019) seemed incongruous.
Shortly after Modi became PM in 2014, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was decorated with the Bharat Ratna, while Advani and M M Joshi were honoured with the lower order Padma Vibhushan. Although Advani was originally Modi’s mentor, their friendship soured after 2013, when, in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, Advani had to perforce give up his PM ambitions to make way for the youthful and more popular Modi. Once the Advani award announcement timing broke with tradition, the government realised it could make use of awards to score points with farmers and voters in Andhra by adding P V Narasimha Rao, Chaudhary Charan Singh and M S Swaminathan to the exclusive Bharat Ratna club.
Fall from grace
During the pandemic, Mumbai’s dynamic Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal was hailed as a hero for streamlining operations to contain the spread of Covid there. His then boss, CM Uddhav Thackeray, also earned kudos because of BMC’s good work. Surprisingly, Chahal managed to retain his post when Eknath Shinde took over as CM. Now, many of Chahal’s former admirers are disillusioned as they feel that he is actively backing Shinde’s dubious projects, which would further erode the city’s environment and green spaces. Chahal also has plans to appropriate 120 acres of green space presently accessible to the general public, which was with the Mumbai race course. The Royal Western India Turf Club’s high-powered, well-heeled managing committee members hastily fell in line with the proposal fearing it would otherwise meet the fate of Delhi’s Gymkhana Club, which was taken over by the government.
Chahal is also under a cloud as the entire Rs 500 crore for development of Mumbai’s civic facilities has been allotted to the 21 ruling party MLAs in Mumbai in the last two years, while 15 Opposition MLAs have received almost nothing. His defence is that he allocated the money on the basis of the directions of Mumbai’s two guardian ministers, Mangal Prabhat Lodha and Deepak Kesarkar, affiliated to the BJP and the Shinde Sena respectively. But Chahal is expected to exercise discretion in such matters.
Weathervane politicos
Jokes about Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s notorious habit of switching allies abound. Actually, those with a socialist background have a higher propensity to be dal badloos. George Fernandes showed the way back in 1977, when he spoke passionately in defence of the Morarji Desai government in Parliament one day and the very next morning, defected to the Charan Singh camp. The late Ram Vilas Paswan was a reliable indicator of which way the political wind was blowing and managed to secure a cabinet berth in successive BJP or Congress central governments. Even RS Deputy Chairperson Harivansh Narayan Singh is a former socialist. Incidentally, Charan Singh’s grandson, Jayant Chaudhary, though not a socialist, is keen on his RLD joining forces with the BJP in western UP, though he has already formalised an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav.
Keeping them guessing
PM Modi likes to keep his ministers on their toes. Senior leaders have been warned of the importance of standing for polls, even if it is for a local municipality, rather than the lazy route of backdoor entry through the RS. Word in the party is that no RS MP should expect more than two terms. With the tenure of 56 MPs in the RS ending this April, including nine central ministers, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mansukhlal Mandaviya and party president J P Nadda, there is considerable tension. The deadline for filing nomination papers for new RS seats is February 15, but the powers that be have yet to disclose their plans. A few like Mandaviya, Pradhan and Vaishnaw have already pinpointed potential LS constituencies in their home states, but most are still in the dark.
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