Hunooz Dilli Dur Ast
(First published in ThePrint, 3 July 2018.)
Nobody asked Nitish Kumar to join hands with the BJP. He did so on his own, blaming it on corruption charges against his deputy CM, Tejashwi Yadav.
In truth it was a brazenly opportunist decision made with the calculation that the opposition had no prospect of dethroning Modi in 2019. “Nobody can defeat Modi in 2019,” Nitish Kumar had declared after switching sides. Continue reading “To defeat Modi, the opposition needs to woo Nitish Kumar back”
(First published in HuffPost India, 20 October 2015.)
PATNA — The visuals of the Grand Alliance’s outdoor campaigning stand out not only for the lack of clutter, but also for their colours. The hoardings, the 300 raths traversing Bihar, the election stage–everything in the Grand Alliance’s election campaign in Bihar is blood red in colour. Some of the hoardings are yellow, and some of the early Nitish Kumar hoardings were in a bright multi-colour pattern that would have better suited a mobile phone advertisement. Continue reading “Why Red And Yellow Are Nitish-Lalu’s Colours This Bihar Election”
(First published in Mumbai Mirror, 2 August 2015.)
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s official residence in Patna, 7 Deshratna Marg, is heavily guarded. People from across Bihar wait to be called in. They want their grievances addressed. Mobile jammers disable their phones, and men in uniform have a tough time controlling the crowd that is desperate to get in.
Only three houses away, at 10 Deshratna Marg, lives Lalu Prasad Yadav. Access here is easy. People seem to enter and leave with ease. All you have to do is name the person you want to meet. Lalu Yadav doesn’t give appointments to journalists. They simply walk in. Continue reading “Yes, we clan: The sibling rivalry in Lalu Prasad Yadav’s home”
For Scroll.in, 12 November 2014
First they came together against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in 1977. Then they came together to defeat Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. On those occasions it had taken support of the Bhartiya Janata Party (known as Jan Sangh in ’77) to oppose the Congress. Now, India’s hoary socialists want to come together once again to oppose the Bhartiya Janata Party. Continue reading “Why Janata 3.0 is doomed to failure”
Shivam Vij 