Petitioning the Lord .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has asked Mahakaal, the presiding deity at Ujjain, for a strange wish. That leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, who defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2020 and is now the Union civil aviation minister, not be born in the Congress. Singh was speaking to mediapersons after a visit to the temple. Scindia ret­orted on Twitter, saying his prayer to Mahakaal would be that leaders like Singh are not born in India. Two of Scindia’s lieutenants—state ministers Tulsi Silawat and Mahendra Singh Sisodia—were more specific. Silawat said he prayed Singh is born in China next while Sisodia wished he is reborn in Pakistan. With such ardent bhakts petitioning him, the Lord will for sure have trouble deciding whose wish to grant. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}An Unhappy ManUttar Pradesh cabinet minister Nand Gopal ‘Nandi’ is annoyed with deputy CM Keshav Pra­sad Maurya these days. It was in his presence that former Samajwadi Party leader Rais Chandra Shukla was inducted into the BJP. Shukla had contested against Nandi from Alla­habad South in the last assembly polls, and lost. To have him in the BJP now was “insulting and objectionable”, Nandi said, without naming Maurya. To add insult to injury, Nandi’s wife Abhilasha Gupta, the sitting mayor of Prayagraj, has not been given a ticket this time for the municipal polls. Time to propitiate the planets? .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Say cheese Sachin Pilot hasn’t declared ceasefire in his war against Ashok Gehlot yet. This time, he has accused the Rajasthan chief minister of being hand in glove with BJP leader and former state chief minister Vasundhara Raje. Raje retorted, saying that she and Gehlot were like milk and lemon. Add a drop of lemon and the milk will split, and therefore the two cannot be together. Detractors, though, begged to demur, pointing to the value addition that milk and lemon together achieve, giving us cottage cheese and even milk cake. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Patch-up HourMaharashtra has a history of cousins on the war path, the most pro­minent being those from the Thackeray clan. One set, however, has decided to make up. Pankaja Munde, the daughter of the late BJP veteran and OBC stalwart Gopinath Munde, has deci­ded to bury the hatchet with Dhananjay Munde, NCP leader and the senior Munde’s nephew. Pankaja had lost to Dhananjay in the 2019 assembly polls, but may now shift to another constituency from Parli to facilitate the detente. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}A Whole Lotta DustWhen Samrat Chaudhary took over as Bihar BJP pre­sident in March, posters came up describing him as the “Yogi of Bihar”. Samrat now seems to be taking the role seriously. Borrowing the phrase the UP CM used for the mafia—“mitti mein mila denge” (will grind to dust)—Samrat said they will do the same to Nitish Kumar. Though he clarified he meant that politically, Nitish was quick to dismiss him, saying those who use such words have no brains. Was the barb intended just for Samrat or did it include his UP counterpart too?—With Rahul Noronha, Prashant Srivastava, Rohit Parihar, Dhaval Kulkarni and Amitabh SrivastavaPublished By: Arindam MukherjeePublished On: Apr 28, 2023--- ENDS ---
