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Morning, we found, it was a night of the long knives. But was it actually the night of the scorpion? It was raining allegations of corruption and the scorpion was in the house. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in danger of being Rafale stung and there was no antidote other tan to scramble the jets and do a purge of the blue-eyed and the red-eyed along with other eyes. One CBI officer called Bassi was told to take the bus to Port Blair, Kalapaani!

LUCKNOW: It is becoming clear that smaller parties can cause damage to all possible alliances and force new alignments for 2019 Lok Sabha elections in UP.

Come December. It can be the cruellest month for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party BJP. If the present trends continue and the Congress and the other opposition parties can meet the electoral challenge of the assembly polls in the five states-Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana, the results on December 11 might be devastating for the saffron forces. If the BJP loses MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the ant- BJP forces will be getting such a momentum that the most powerful government of the BJP at the centre will be converted into a lameduck one.

For the first time in Central Bureau of Investigation history, the top-dog and second top-dog in the CBI are engaged in an ugly dogfight, each snapping at the heels of the other, leaving it to the imagination as to who is Honest George Washington – CBI Director Alok Verma or CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana? To complicate matters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was drawn into the controversy and his brag “Na Khaunga Na Khaane Doonga” slipped a disc.

It’s been 18 months since France was rocked by the crushing victory of the pro-European Union Emmanuel Macron and his new political movement in the presidential and legislative elections last year. That victory delivered a body blow to the two established parties—the conservative Les Republicains and the Socialists—and, despite an ultimately poor result, cemented Marine Le Pen’s arch Eurosceptic, anti-immigration Front National, rebranded Rassemblement National (the National Rally), as a major political force. The only shimmer of hope was Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose uncompromising anti-austerity message saw for the first time in decades a radical left force outflanking the Socialists in the presidential poll.

Lynching and urban naxals have the same ideological background. While lynching was resorted to by the RSS and its frontal organisations to terrorise Muslims, Dalits and other minorities, traditionally anti-saffron and secular forces, the phrase urban naxal is the latest weapon designed by the RSS to frighten the progressive voices.

One wonders what Pranab Mukherjee, Kailash Satyarthi and Ratan Tata will make of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s latest speech in which he gave a clarion call for an ordinance to build the Ram temple without any further delay.

All eyes are on Rajasthan, as among the three BJP ruled states going for Assembly polls in November-December, Rajasthan seems to be more vulnerable than the other two – Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – for the BJP. The Congress is upbeat with the pre-poll surveys predicting a Congress win in this state, which has not returned the ruling party for two decades and more. In the last eight by-elections, the Congress, reduced to 21 seats in 2013, has been able to win 6 by-polls, including two Assembly seats and one parliamentary election, this year. While the morale of the Congress is up after its recent wins, it has to guard against any internal sabotage.

New Delhi: Even as Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal has begun campaigning for the forthcoming Parliament elections early next year, he is facing a barrage of opposition from about one lakh families living along the yet to be completed Dwarka Expressway. The reason: the Chief Minister is allegedly putting spokes on its completion because of the perceived political benefit to his bête noire the BJP.

Can we say hurtling technology killed the 60 in Amritsar? And we’re not talking of bullet trains. The two trains that mowed people to death would have been least bothered if there were no folks to kill on the tracks. Regardless, it would have hurtled on. What killed the people were the people themselves, bang on the tracks and engrossed in smartphones held head high to make videos of Ravana burning!