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For a change, the customary tea party hosted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at the end of Winter Session for party leaders struck a pleasant note. Unlike in the past, when there would be no conversation, except exchange of courtesies, the brief meeting between PM Modi and senior minister Rajnath Singh with Opposition leaders like Priyanka Gandhi and senior leaders from Kerala like RSP MP NK Premachandran went off very well. Did it have anything to do with the absence of Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi who is known to be stiff when it comes to dealing with PM Modi or anyone in the government? Has Priyanka Gandhi’s presence made all the difference? Did she persuade the Opposition to join the Speaker’s tea party? Senior MPs from Kerala deny it wasn’t Priyanka’s idea to attend the Speaker’s tea. “Normally, at the end of every Parliament Session both the ruling and Opposition leaders meet the Speaker to thank him. Since the Monsoon Session was a washout, we had decided to give Speaker’s tea a miss. It had nothing to do with Rahulji’s presence or absence,” says a Kerala MP. At the same time the Kerala leader concedes that the Speaker’s tea meeting without Rahul Gandhi was a pleasant affair. It perhaps had a lot to do with the informal exchanges PM Modi had with Priyanka and Premachandran. Like Priyanka asking PM Modi about his latest foreign visit and the small talk about Wayanad herbal drink for her throat. BJP sources say ever since she became a MP Priyanka has been reaching out to the government. She had sought out a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah and during the session met with Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. Unlike her brother, she is open to the idea of having a dialogue with the government.
In Odisha, there is a public outrage over the recent three-fold salary hike — from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3.45 lakh — of the Odisha legislators. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have expressed their displeasure over this unprecedented hike. Now, it is learned that Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi is taking corrective steps. Sources say, after the salary hike was passed in the Odisha Assembly, CM Majhi was summoned to Delhi by BJP national General Secretary BL Santosh on December 14. Reportedly, it was conveyed to Majhi about PM’s displeasure over the hefty hike which could be sending a wrong signal to other BJP ruled states which are getting lesser pay and allowances. Santosh expressed his surprise how Majhi could take such a bold and swift decision without consulting the central leadership. Majhi has now been advised to roll back the pay hike decision and the first step is to pass a resolution by the legislature party. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Mahaling said that such an important decision taken without consulting the central leadership was not well received by the Centre. This massive embarrassment has been saved just in time as the Governor is yet to give his assent on the Bill. As a first step towards roll back, a resolution was adopted for reconsideration of the Bill regarding legislators pay hike passed on December 9 at BJP Legislature Party chaired by the CM.
Indians are known to flout any and every rule if they are not watched or stopped. When abroad, they praise and follow all rules and regulations but once back home, their original instinct takes over. It is so widespread that nowadays, even traffic police personnel ignore the violators or at the most, capture them in mobile cameras. Hence, walking even on footpaths is no longer safe since ubiquitous two-wheelers can bump into you, from behind mostly. Traffic anywhere in India is a testimony to this national malady. Therefore, those criticising the British for enslaving India will find it quite unnerving that in Pimpri-Chinchwad in Pune, some foreign nationals were seen stopping two-wheeler riders who were using the footpath and urging them to follow traffic rules. The incident has been recorded by Pune Mirror at Rakshak Chowk in the Pimple Nilakh area. Following its ‘X’ post, there is a barrage of angry retorts. One respondent says, “When outsiders have to teach us how to use our own roads, it’s a serious question mark on our civic sense. Rules aren’t optional, they reflect basic respect for others.” Politician Satyajit Tambe is equally critical. He has lamented in his post, “If foreigners feel the need to point out basic traffic rules, it highlights how urgently we need better civic sense on our roads.” Dr Neeraj Sharma is more direct when he writes, “It’s a shame that we need foreigners to come and teach us civility. I have repeatedly said that we need to change our primary education syllabus and add Civics and civility to it rather than reading about the Battle of Plassey.” The post hopefully serves some useful purpose.
Congress MLC Pradnya Satav’s decision to resign her post and join the BJP has wider ramifications than was initially understood. It is now clear that the most affected individual by her abrupt change of loyalty is none other than Rahul Gandhi. Although the state Congress failed to persuade her to stay over in the party, Pradnya decided to join the ruling party since she felt that no developmental work will be possible in her Hingoli area unless there is a strong political support. Unfortunately for the Congress party, its last leader from Marathwada, former CM Ashok Chavan, is now a BJP MP while his daughter is elected to the legislative assembly on that party’s ticket. Pradnya’s husband Rajiv Satav was a close confidant of Rahul Gandhi, who had entrusted him to handle the last assembly election in Gujarat. In that election, the Congress had won 77 seats, a record in recent times, against the BJP’s 99. After Rajiv’s untimely demise in 2021 in the Covid pandemic, the Congress party sent Pradnya to the state legislative council, a gesture to pay homage to her husband. However, over the past three years, Pradnya realised the importance of political backing and has decided to join the saffron outfit. With her decision, Rahul Gandhi’s leadership limitations have once again been exposed. Nonetheless, on her part, Pradnya has praised Rahul and Sonia Gandhi. But that will be her swan song for the Congress, it is now clear.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s latest attack on GST has exposed visible strain between her and the Chief Financial Adviser and former Finance Minister Dr Amit Mitra. She has questioned his role in backing the indirect tax regime and blamed the Centre for substantial losses to the state. She accused the Centre of collecting GST on behalf of states while withholding their legitimate share, alleging West Bengal has been deprived of Rs 20,000 crore. In an unusually direct reference to her adviser, Mamata questioned Dr Mitra’s support for GST during its formulation and rollout, when he chaired the drafting committee and advocated a uniform tax structure as economically beneficial. She said his position must now be explained in light of continued deductions from GST revenues and the scale of losses claimed by the state. Dr Mitra has pointed to parliamentary statements in which the Centre acknowledged GST fraud amounting to Rs 2 lakh crore. Mamata has countered that while the figure has been officially stated, there is no credible evidence establishing the actual scale of fraud, raising doubts over whether GST has resulted in net gains or losses for states. The remarks come weeks after Mamata publicly admitted that her government erred in accepting GST. She also said that during the GST rollout, Dr Mitra explained the concept of a uniform tax structure to her, an explanation she has since described as misguided, adding that it was based on this understanding that the TMC became the first party to support GST. The public questioning of Mitra highlights growing tensions within the state’s economic leadership amid intensifying Centre-state fiscal confrontations.
The BJP leadership had to recently redeploy Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal once again for handling Tamil Nadu assembly polls. This was apparently being done on request from the Tamil Nadu BJP unit. Even NDA ally — AIADMK chief Edappadi Palaniswami – had conveyed to top BJP leader and Home Minister Amit Shah that Goyal should be in charge of the state. Initially, the party had assigned senior leader Baijayant Panda and Union Minister Murlidhar Mohol to handle the southern state. Party sources felt Goyal had been a good election manager during the Lok Sabha polls and was quite hands on. TN BJP leaders also found MoS Mohol was too distracted and not taking interest in Chennai affairs. So TN BJP chief Nainar Nagendran rushed to Delhi and lobbied with central leadership to deploy Goyal once again so that BJP can give good results in the state. Nainar had cited the experience of state BJP during Lok Sabha polls. Yielding to local demand, the central BJP leadership tweaked its assignments for the poll-bound states. Goyal was given Tamil Nadu charge and Panda was given Assam. The responsibility of winning back Assam assembly elections will anyway largely lie with incumbent CM Himanta Biswas Sarma.
With the Election Commission releasing West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls following the SIR exercise, which saw over 58 lakh voters removed across the state on grounds including death and migration, and voter profiles redrawn across districts and border belts ahead of the 2026 assembly elections, there is a disquiet in the ruling Trinamool Congress. What has particularly upset West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is voter deletion in her Bhabanipur constituency – nearly 44,787 voters have been deleted. The CM is also surprised that no complaints are forthcoming since the draft rolls were published. That is why the TMC leadership decided to deploy its booth-level agents for a fresh, door-to-door verification of deleted voters’ names in her constituency. Bhabanipur had 206,295 voters as of January 2025. The newly published draft rolls list has 161,509 names. TMC leaders are particularly upset over a large number of voters being marked “dead”, “shifted” or “absent”. “The party leadership made it clear that no valid voter’s name should be deleted under any circumstances. Every deleted name must be physically verified,” a TMC source said. Bhabanipur is a dense urban seat with many residents originally from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. Mamata is also surprised that maximum deletion of voters, 74,533 has happened in Chowringhee constituency of her close friend Naina Bandhopadhya. In contrast, voter deletion from Nandigram — from where she lost – is just 10,550. The seat is now represented by her BJP rival Suvendu Adhikari. Reacting to names deleted in the SIR exercise, BJP leader Amit Malviya says the process has revealed that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has stayed in power due to votes cast in the names of illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas.
Even a Kollywood super hero takes his vulnerability seriously. TVK chief Vijay’s mega meeting on September 27 at Karur where 41 people died in the stampede must be rankling him. Vijay just pulled the drawbridge across his Panaiyur residential moat, and stayed unavailable, licking his wounds and fearing the worst for his fledgling party. But TN being TN, politics and the election run up are unfolding at a furious pace. Vijay too broke his slumber and planned yet another mega meet…this time in Erode. This time he wasn’t taking any chances. The venue had 40 CCTV cameras, 24 ambulances, 70 doctors on call, supported by 120 nurses, 200 water tanks, with canned water at every point, 3 fire engines and 60 acres as a parking area. Former AIADMK heavyweight points man, AS Sengottaiyan turned Vijay’s GPS and capo di, took over to run the mega event. Having been a confidante of late MGR and JJ, Sengottaiyan is a veteran of political manoeuvring and masterful optics. Is he testing Sengottaiyan’s organisational skills? Even as Vijay was ready to preside over the sea of followers, a bike gang driving rashly crashed headlong …fortunately no loss. The adrenaline run cinema gang escaped with injuries. Vijay, with his confidence boosted, is planning the next meet. Gathering huge crowds is impressive but can this pole-vault him to the top?
The impact of actor-politician TVK chief Vijay, who held his second rally in Tamil Nadu’s Erode district on December 18 afternoon — his first in the state since 41 people died in a stampede in Karur on September 27 — is such that it is already making top DMK leaders rethink their election strategies. With Vijay already setting the tone of his campaign for next year’s Assembly election by borrowing from late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa’s lexicon and calling the ruling DMK as “thiya shakti” or “evil” forces, the top leadership one hears is scouting for safer assembly seats for the 2026 assembly elections. Both his Erode and Puducherry rallies had drawn such massive crowds, that the DMK leadership does not want to take any chance. It is being said that incumbent chief minister MK Stalin, is already toying with the idea of moving to his son Udhayanidhi’s seat– Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni. At present, Stalin represents the Kolathur State Assembly seat. It is another matter that he was recently seen visiting the area. It is also one of the six state legislative assembly constituencies that is part of Chennai North Lok Sabha seat. As for deputy CM Udhayanidhi, he is reportedly toying with the idea of contesting the Tiruvarur seat—the legacy seat in Thanjavur that his grandfather Karunanidhi had won in 2016 assembly polls recording his 13th straight victory since 1957.
Has sibling rivalry caught up with the Gandhis? According to Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu, a former Congress leader now in the BJP, insists that the Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi set off for a visit to Germany in midst of Parliament’s Winter Session only after his Parliament speech on electoral reforms went bust and was compared with his sister Priyanka’s speech on Vande Mataram. Sources say the minister spoke about the sibling rift to give context to negative statements being made by the LoP about India — such as “Manufacturing is declining in India” in Germany. It is being said Rahul is apparently upset that his speech made no impact while Priyanaka’s created a buzz. Yet, there are few takers for stories of rifts between the Gandhi siblings. Younger sibling Priyanka regularly defends Rahul against the BJP’s political attacks. She had also fiercely defended Rahul’s trip to Germany. While it is true that both Rahul and mother Sonia have ensured that Priyanka does not have any role in the Congress, party sources say Priyanka has been micromanaging floor protests in her brother’s absence in the last few days. On the penultimate day of the Session, Priyanka used Question Hour to meet Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari to sort out issues about her Wayanad constituency. However, too many disruptions cost Priyanka an opportunity to speak about air pollution in Delhi/NCR. The Lok Sabha was adjourned as soon as the house passed modified MNREGA or the new Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025. The House had sat till wee hours — till about 1.30 am — discussing the bill. Speaker Om Birla rejected Opposition pleas to send the Bill to a Standing Committee; After all, 99 speakers participated in the discussion.
For a change, the customary tea party hosted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at the end of Winter Session for party leaders struck a pleasant note. Unlike in the past, when there would be no conversation, except exchange of courtesies, the brief meeting between PM Modi and senior minister Rajnath Singh with Opposition leaders like Priyanka Gandhi and senior leaders from Kerala like RSP MP NK Premachandran went off very well. Did it have anything to do with the absence of Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi who is known to be stiff when it comes to dealing with PM Modi or anyone in the government? Has Priyanka Gandhi’s presence made all the difference? Did she persuade the Opposition to join the Speaker’s tea party? Senior MPs from Kerala deny it wasn’t Priyanka’s idea to attend the Speaker’s tea. “Normally, at the end of every Parliament Session both the ruling and Opposition leaders meet the Speaker to thank him. Since the Monsoon Session was a washout, we had decided to give Speaker’s tea a miss. It had nothing to do with Rahulji’s presence or absence,” says a Kerala MP. At the same time the Kerala leader concedes that the Speaker’s tea meeting without Rahul Gandhi was a pleasant affair. It perhaps had a lot to do with the informal exchanges PM Modi had with Priyanka and Premachandran. Like Priyanka asking PM Modi about his latest foreign visit and the small talk about Wayanad herbal drink for her throat. BJP sources say ever since she became a MP Priyanka has been reaching out to the government. She had sought out a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah and during the session met with Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. Unlike her brother, she is open to the idea of having a dialogue with the government.
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Editor’s Note: Short Post Noticed By People Who Matter
Four years have zipped by and we are crossing another milestone on 31st January 2025 – it’s our 4th Anniversary. It feels good.
Looking back at the 1460 days, I must say Short Post has made its mark with people who matter via 4000 stories published in the areas of politics, business, entertainment and sports. All made possible by the unflinching commitment and dedication of our senior editors, most of whom have been part of this journey from Day One.
Small pack, big impact is in essence the story of Short Post which was launched at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. It shows our conviction. In all humility, I can say, we have created a new niche in the news segment space like Hindustan Unilever which created a new segment, when it launched CloseUp Gel.
Yes, we have created a brand (in a limited sense), created demand (readers) and created supply (senior journalists). But we are facing teething problems like all start-ups. What makes us happy and confident is the recognition of our efforts. For instance, we have an arrangement with the OPEN Magazine, part of the $4.5 billion Kolkata-based Sanjiv Goenka-RPG Group. This arrangement sees around 10 Short Post stories posted on OPEN Magazine website every week. This arrangement is testimony that our content has been well received! Also, I may add that the Maharashtra government has recognised Short Post and has allowed our senior editor to cover the Assembly sessions. Ditto: Odisha.
Our goal is to ensure that Short Post becomes a habit. I would like people to keep checking their smartphones to know the latest Authentic Gossip. As regards AI and the fear of it disrupting all businesses including media. On that, personally, I have no such fear as I am confident AI cannot smell news particularly Authentic Gossip. That’s the place we are well entrenched.