By Sidharth Mishra

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee doesn’t seem to be much enamoured by the what the newspapers in the national Capital have to say about a possible alliance between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Speaking at the rally of Opposition parties at her bastion in Kolkata last Saturday, Banerjee said, “Hum saath ladega aur Dilli mein saatho seat jitega (We shall fight together and win all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital).”

While the Trinamool Congress leader said this, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal heard her in rapt attention. Earlier during his own turn to address the rally, Kejriwal remained focused on spewing venom on the BJP. This was less than 24-hous after the AAP had declared in the national Capital that it would contest all seven seats in Delhi on its own blaming the Congress of being arrogant.

By Sidharth Mishra

On Thursday, the Congress high command appointed veteran leader Sheila Dikshit as its Delhi unit president for the second time. The last time she was nominated to this post was more than two decades back in the summer of 1998.

 The situation for the party, however, is not very different from what it was then with the BJP on an ascendance and the minority voters harbouring a distrust for the Congress following the demolition of the Babri Masjid with PV Narasimha Rao at the helm as the Prime Minister. This had led to a rout of the party in the national Capital in the 1991, 1996 and 1998 Lok Sabha polls, 1993 assembly polls and 1997 municipal polls.

By Sidharth Mishra

Ajay Maken has resigned, for the second time in past six months, as the president of Delhi Congress. Former chief minister Sheila Dikshit is back in Delhi from France, having convalesced from a heart ailment. In the past few weeks she has expressed the view that she wasn’t averse to leading the party once again in the national Capital. This should be the ideal situation for passing the baton back to Dikshit.

However, there are forces within the Congress party who may not be very keen on having Dikshit back lest she become an impediment in their ‘Pan-India’ plans of alliance with the regional forces. The appointment of the next president of Delhi Congress is umbilically connected to the party’s strategy for the Lok Sabha polls in the summer of 2019. The next president of Delhi Congress who would have to bear the burden of leading or rejecting an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).   

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi entered the New Year reeling under severe air pollution. There are no farm fires in Punjab right now and still air pollution condition in Delhi, if not worse, it’s definitely not better than what it was during the harvest time in November first week. The Delhi Government, having blamed one and all for the bad air of the national Capital, has now ordered a study to find out the reasons for the cloak of pollution hanging over the national Capital.

What do we need to study? Will it be possible for the present government led by Arvind Kejriwal to accept the honest findings of a sincere study? Unlikely; especially having come to power riding on populism propelled promises, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) can least take the chance of annoying its vote bank. Thus the souls in the national Capital can live and rest in polluted air for sometimes to come.

By Sidharth Mishra

Revolutions eat their children, goes the famous saying. This maxim was very effectively used by one of the founders of political journalism, Jacques Mallet du Pan while writing pamphlets during the French Revolution, in support of the Royalists. Time may have come to use the famous phrase with context to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was born out of Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement and has since then devoured several of its founding members.

The latest farce in this context was played out in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, where a motion moved to provide succour to the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots ended up demanding stripping late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award bestowed by Government of India. It led to a skirmish among the different factions of the ruling party inside the house, it played out on their WhatsApp group and later spilled over into the news columns.

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi Assembly is celebrating 25 years of its existence in it’s present form. In keeping with the current political trend in the national Capital, this event too has courted controversy. The polls in Delhi assembly, ever since it came into existence in 1993, too were used to be held along with states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh (since 2003), Rajasthan and Mizoram.

The cycle broke in 2013 following the emergence of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The polls five years ago threw up a hung house in the national Capital and Arvind Kejriwal became Chief Minister for the first time, with the support of eight Congress MLAs. Kejriwal did not hold onto the chair for long and soon resigned from office leading to subsequent dissolution of the assembly and fresh polls in 2015.

By Sidharth Mishra

The inauguration of the first multi-modal terminal on the Ganga river in Varanasi last month was publicised by the Centre as a major breakthrough in search for cheap mode of transport. It also was feted as major feet for generating employment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency of Varanasi. The cargo route is soon to be extended up to Allahabad aka Prayagraj.

However, down the stream, the move has not generated much appreciation, as the river closer to the delta especially as it flows east of Patna into Jharkhand and West Bengal before joining the Bay of Bengal. This stretch is home to the threatened Gangetic Dolphins, which ironically has been christened by the government as the National Aquatic Animal.

By Sidharth Mishra

Sometime back Punjab chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh has questioned his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal’s wisdom in claiming that stubble burning in Punjab was solely responsible for the high pollution levels in the national capital. He had wondered how Kejriwal, an IIT graduate, be talking in most unscientific manner. Singh and Kejriwal are political rivals in Punjab and thus the statement was passed off as another instance of political skirmish.

Captain’s dig at Delhi CM, on the hind side, was not without basis. Severe air pollution is a harsh reality that the Delhi government failed to do anything on despite making big claims. The city population has today grown to approximately 25 million with a huge floating population, from 1.7 million people in 1947.