Punjabi chole and kurte

Although Punjab Congress leaders admit that Captain Amarinder Singh is their best bet for next year’s Assembly elections, old worries about his laid-back style of functioning have resurfaced. It was precisely for this reason that a large section of Congress workers got disenchanted with the former maharaja during his last stint as state party chief. The old complaints about his inaccessibility and being surrounded by fawning “courtiers” have started doing the round once again. A frustrated Punjab Congress leader recently described Capt. Singh as their party’s Michael Schumacher who, he said, always arrived on the racing track with a band of flunkeys who then proceed to check out his car and make all the necessary preparations for the forthcoming race. Capt. Singh, he said, is also surrounded by a similar coterie whose members have been entrusted with the task of “fixing his turban and his kurta” before he steps out in true royal style. Worried party leaders maintain that Capt. Singh will have to shed his old lifestyle and hit the road to meet the challenge posed by a resurgent Aam Admi Party.

Minister of food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal and her husband, deputy chief minister of Punjab Sukhbir Singh Badal, hosted their annual lunch for MPs and media persons at their Delhi residence last week. And, as always, typical vegetarian Punjabi fare — the state’s signature dishes like sarson ka saag and Amritsari choley — was served. Keen to ensure that the food tasted authentic, the hosts had made special arrangements to ferry the ingredients, including the water to cook the choley in, all the way from Punjab. But their plans ran into a major hitch a night before. The vehicles carrying the water from Amritsar got stuck in Haryana because of the blockades put up by the protesting Jats. Mrs Badal pleaded with the cooks (also from Punjab, of course) that they should use Delhi’s water to prepare the choley but they were adamant that they would only use the water from Amritsar.

A panic-stricken Mrs Badal then sent an SOS to her husband who in turn directed the Punjab Police to escort the vehicles to Delhi from an alternate route. The water finally reached their residence late on Monday night and it was only then that the cooks got down to preparing the famous Amritsari choley. Needless to say, the food was a big hit with the guests.

Concerned about the arrested Jawaharlal Nehru University students, a number of Left leaders have made periodic trips to Tihar Jail over the past week to check about their well-being. However, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja need not have worried. On reaching Tihar Jail, he discovered that at least two senior officers posted there are former JNU students.

They greeted Mr Raja warmly and recalled that they had heard his speeches during their days on the campus. Mr Raja got another surprise when he found out that a large number of officers and other staff posted at the jail hailed from Tamil Nadu. They immediately started conversing with the CPI leader in Tamil and assured him that “their boy” (JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar) was being looked after by them. Clearly, regional ties and old university bonds have their uses.

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders cannot stop poking fun at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury after they were seen together on the JNU campus, in solidarity with the protesting students who were charged with sedition. Taking a swipe at Mr Yechury, a BJP leader was overheard commenting that he is more comfortable with Congress leaders than with his party colleague Prakash Karat. It is no secret that Mr Karat and Mr Yechury have serious disagreements over a host of issues, including the CPI(M)’s relations with the Congress.

Jokes apart, the BJP has no complaints about the proposed Left-Congress tie-up. As a result of this development, its relations with West Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee have improved in the recent weeks. Ms Banerjee made it a point to greet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his last trip to her home state. Finance minister Arun Jaitley also had a long, relaxed chat with her when he visited Kolkata recently. This is good news for the BJP because it needs more friends in the Rajya Sabha where the Modi government is in a minority. On the flip side, the BJP’s growing proximity to Mamata Banerjee is also an admission that the party is in no position to take on the Trinamul Congress in the coming West Bengal Assembly polls.

Tailpiece: Finance minister Arun Jaitley to CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury after his interventions on the discussion on the JNU row and the Patiala House violence in Rajya Sabha: “It is interesting to note that you are now quoting the New York Times is it your new Das Kapital ”

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist