Monday Briefs

Some interesting developments which happened during  this weekend, which I would like to share with you.

1 Rainfall- During this monsoon season Mumbai has seen unprecedented rains, and city came to standstill on quite few occasion. During this monsoon season the rainfall in Mumbai created an all time record of rainfall (during June-September period which is considered as monsoon season) when it crossed the figure of 3452 mm which was record till date, and this happened 65 years back in 1954. The figure till date has crossed the 3600 mm mark and still one week of September is remaining.

Secondly one village known as Patharpunj in Satara District of Maharashtra has become the wettest place in India, by displacing Cherrapunji and one more town in Meghalaya. Here till last Friday(June to Sept 20) the rainfall had touched 9421 mm. In the corresponding period Cherrapunji had registered rainfall of 6083 mm. Pathapunj, a village with 600 inhabitants suffered heavy losses during this monsoon season- the rice crop is fully damaged, people have lost their houses and even cattle, which were washed away by the surging river. The rainfall in this village had never crossed the 6000 mm mark annually.

Is the climate change responsible for the heavy rainfall in the part of Maharashtra.?

 2 Election Commission has announced the elections for Maharashtra and Haryana assemblies on 21^st Oct 2019, with results on 24^th Oct. In both the states ruling NDA is in the comfortable position, and easily will come back to power. As opposition in both the states is in complete mess. In Maharashtra the main opposition to BJP/Shivsena govt is Congress/NCP alliance, and it has been observed that both these parties are in shambles and there have been exodus of leaders from these parties and all of them are in rush to join either BJP or Shivsena. Both these parties initially were very glad to welcome leaders from Congress and NCP, but now they are moving cautiously and scrutinising the leaders from these parties, as they do not want to antagonise their own party cadre and leaders, who are aspirant for contesting the elections from the various constituencies.

Classic examples are the case  of Narayan Rane and Chhagan Bhujbal. Narayan Rane was earlier with Shivsena and for short term he was CM of Maharashtra during 1994-99 rule of Shivsena/BJP. When Bala Saheb Thackrey made his son Udhav Thackrey the Executive President of the party, he left the Shiv Sena and joined Congress with the condition that in future he will be offered CM’s post, but nothing of this sort happened till 2014 and then Congress/NCP lost the power in 2014. Afterwards he started sending feelers To BJP, they were willing to accept him in their party but BJP’s partner in govt Shivsena put their foot down and said if Rane is admitted in BJP and given ministership they will quit the govt. So Rane was asked to float his own party and BJP helped him to secure a seat in Rajya Sabha.

In the case of Chaggan Bhujbal, he quit Sena in 90s and joined Congress. The problem was he was expecting CM’s post when in Shivsena/BJP came to power in 1994, but Bala Saheb made Manohar Joshi CM, and so Bhujbal felt unhappy and quitted the Shivsena. Afterwards when Sharad Pawar came out from Congress and formed national Congress Party (NCP), Bhujbal joined hands with Sharad Pawar, and he was Deputy CM of Maharashtra when Congress/NCP came to power in 1994. But afterwards he lost his Deputy CM post due to wide spread allegations of corruption against him and his family members. He was in prison for more than 2 years after 2014, after coming out on bail he is sending feelers to Shivsena that he wants to come back, initially Udhav Thackrey was willing but Sainiks( grass root workers of Shivsena) were against this move, and hence his entry in Shivsena in unsure.

Congress is not having any creditable leader in Maharashtra, and most of the  leaders are either spent force or they facing corruption charges and their image is soiled. In NCP, the influence od Sharad Pawar is dwindling and his nephew Ajit Pawar, who was earlier Deputy CM in last Govt of Congress/NCP is also facing corruption charges against him, and their is tussle between him and Supriya Sule (Pawar’s daughter) about the number one position of the party after Pawar.

Looking into all these, it seem certain that Devendra Phadnavis will once again CM of Maharashtra. BJP/Shivsena still in discussion about the final seat sharing formula, but this time BJP is on stronger wicket and looks imminent that Shivsena will become junior partner and not equal partner, where seat sharing is concerned.

3 Recently on the occasion of Hindi Diwas BJP President & Home Minister Amit Shah made a statement that Hindi should become common link language of India, and people should learn this language. So there was much uproar in political circle that BJP govt is trying to enforce Hindi as national language, and the protest was much more prominent in Southern region.

Superstars of Tamil film industry Kamal Hasan and Rajnikanth also entered the fray. Friends you should know that both of them have launched their political parties, and waiting for the proper time to enter political field. Now these two superstars have no problem of acting in Hindi films and their southern language films being dubbed into Hindi, and making moolah from the Hindi speaking belt, then why the resistance in promoting Hindi. There is an Hindi proverb which fits into this situation perfectly, which says “ Haathi ke Khane Ke Daant Aur, Dikhane Ke Daant Aur”, which loosely means Elephants have two sets of teeth –one for eating and  one for showing.

Whenever there is a talk of Hindi as common link language, there is always resistance from certain southern political parties. They are willing to accept English as common communication language but not Hindi. Mind it, English is not even an Indian language, they are ready to accept foreign language but not an Indian language which is spoken and understood by more than 70% of Indians. What an irony.

What you say my friends.

Waiting for your comments/views/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

23^rd Sep 2019.