Modi's Obsession With Nehru

The satta market is accepting bets on how many times Modiji will mention Nehru at his election rallies, says A Ganesh Nadar with a wink.

Obsession is the only word I can think of when I hear Shri Narendra Modi talking about Jawaharlal Nehru. Why this obsession only a well experienced psychologist will be able to tell me.

Earlier, it was Smriti Irani's obsession with Rahul Gandhi that intrigued me and now it looks like she has passed on the baton to Himanta Biswas, the chief minister of Assam.

Down South, Dindigul Sreenivasan, the AIADMK treasurer, four time MP and former minister has vowed to wipe out the BJP from Tamil Nadu. I always thought their primary enemy was the DMK.

It seems Sreenivasan was upset that at a meeting when they were allies not long ago BJP supporters raised slogans that Annamalai, the BJP president in Tamil Nadu, would be the next chief minister.

According to Sreenivasan, the only person fit to be Tamil Nadu chief minister is his leader Edappadi Palanisamy.

I am impressed that Edappadi has been able to gain the absolute devotion of his party, which I thought only MGR and Jayalalitha hitherto enjoyed.

It seems the oil companies lose Rs 3 on every litre of diesel they sell. Now if only the government, which owns the oil companies, granted them enough subsidy from the Rs 50 tax it collects on every litre of diesel it would be considered an act of kindness to the oil companies.

If Modiji and his party don't intend to reduce fuel prices just before the Lok Sabha elections, they are taking a huge risk and may regret it.

Modi ji will this week select an election commissioner who will help conduct the Lok Sabha 2024 elections.

Assisting him in the selection will be a minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

Now who has a majority in this committee? And who ensured it?

It was the BJP majority Parliament who voted out the Chief Justice of India from the committee.

While the women wrestlers have gone back to their training and Brijbhushan Saran Singh is lying low, the attention moves to the CEO of the Indian Olympic Association.

He has been sacked by the IOA executive committee. Why?

The CEO was appointed with IOA President P T Usha's support.

The IOA's executive committee points out that there was no transparency in his appointment and he does not deserve the exorbitant salary he is being paid when athletes in this country have to be supported by agencies like Olympic Quest.

IOA CEO Raghuram Iyer enjoys Usha's support, but not the backing of 10 out of the IOA's 15-member executive committee. President versus committee is a familiar game in India's sports bodies.

There is so much cricket happening these days that sometimes I don't know whether India is playing South Africa or England. It seems we are playing against both. One is the national team and the other is the U-19 team.

M K Stalin, Tamil Nadu's chief minister, traveled to Spain to attract investment. Of all the countries in Europe, why Stalin chose Spain baffles me.

One wise guy tells me that it is because "Spain has bull fighting which is akin to Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu" and that Stalin wants to introduce Jallikattu in Spain and make it truly international. :)

L K Advani is being awarded the Bharat Ratna. He took the BJP from 2 MPs to 84 MPs in one election with his rath yatra that caused so much unrest in the country in the late 1980s.

Advani deserves to be called BJP Ratna, he is already the party's Margdarshak, but by selecting him for the award I think the BJP is doing an injustice to the other Bharat Ratnas.

The satta market is accepting bets on how many times Modiji will mention Nehru at his election rallies. The number getting the most bets is 370. :)

A Ganesh Nadar looks at events, politics and people with a different prism. These are his personal views.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com