Fifa World Cup 2018 final: Puducherry LG Kiran Bedi's French connection

Puducherry LG Kiran Bedi, known to make sensational statements, posted a message on Sunday that left many irritated, if not outright angry. After the France-Croatia FIFA World Cup final match, she tweeted, "We the Puducherrians (erstwhile French Territory) won the World Cup. Congratulations friends.” One Arya Gangopadhyay tweeted a shot of Emmanuel Macron fist pumping after the team’s victory, and said, "Your President." Twitter user Avanish Kumar asked, "What if England was in the final and won? Then you would say we Indians, erstwhile British territory, won the finals." For the records, India, ranked 97 in the world, did not qualify to play in the tournament.

Maya's game

At a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers’ meet in Lucknow on Monday the party's national vice-president and one of the two national coordinators, Jay Prakash Singh, said, “The entire country wants to see behenji (as Mayawati is popularly known) as prime minister.” That statement gave away the crux of the party's strategy for the coming Lok Sabha elections. While BSP supremo Mayawati was absent from the gathering, her message was conveyed loud and clear by her trusted lieutenants: That Mayawati is a key driver of Opposition unity. The tone was set by that picture from the swearing-in ceremony of H D Kumaraswamy, when she was hugged by a beaming Sonia Gandhi on the dais. If there was any doubt in anyone's mind, Singh was there to spell it out: “Like Ravana was killed by Ram, Kans by Lord Krishna, Modi will be defeated by Mayawati.”

Give me red

Congress Lok Sabha member Sushmita Dev led other women members of the party on Monday to demand passage of the Bill to reserve a third of Parliament and assembly seats for women. They drove open-top Jeeps near the Congress headquarters in New Delhi. Police barricades didn't allow them beyond the vicinity of the Congress office. Some in the party found it intriguing that the women sported kurtas in red, a colour associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Uttar Pradesh-based Samajwadi Party. Not that the two parties were complaining.