No ticket, no party: Udit Raj removes prefix 'chowkidar', adds it back

No ticket, no party

After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denied Dalit leader Udit Raj a party ticket from the north-west Delhi constituency, the aggrieved leader removed the prefix “chowkidar”, or watchman, from his official Twitter handle. He also threatened to quit the party, saying his supporters across India were hurt by the BJP decision. However, the prefix was back a couple of hours later, leading to speculation that the BJP had reached out to Raj with some assurance. The prefix returned around the time when there was a rumour that the nomination papers of singer Hans Raj Hans, whom the BJP had fielded from that seat, were incomplete.

Soon, supporters of Hans clarified his papers were in order. Will Raj remove the prefix from his Twitter handle again and quit the BJP once and for all? We didn't have an answer to that question at the time of going to press.

Corruption slinging

It is common knowledge that Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel (pictured) and former chief minister of the state Raman Singh do not see eye to eye. The two often use social media platforms to target each other. In the heat of electioneering, things seem to have gone a little out of hand. They have ended up dragging their families into a Twitter war. After Raman Singh tweeted, “...if we count all 29 states of the country, Bhupesh Baghel is the only chief minister who is on bail”, Baghel targeted Singh's son-in-law and claimed “his son-in-law is absconding and his wife, son and even the cook are accused of corruption. He should not preach us”. In September 2018, Baghel, who was then state Congress Committee chairman, was jailed in a case involving objectionable CDs of a minister. In March, a case was registered against Singh's son-in-law over alleged financial irregularities in a state-run hospital when he was its superintendent. 

Setting son?

Vellappally Natesan, general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, an organisation close to the Ezhava community in Kerala, has predicted Congress President Rahul Gandhi will win the Wayanad seat. As the leader of an organisation that can move the needle in the case of an inconclusive election, Natesan claims to know the pulse of the people. 

Interestingly, Natesan's son Thushar Vellappally, a leader of the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, is the NDA candidate in Wayanad, and is pitted against Gandhi. Natesan, along with his son, went to vote and told journalists there he didn't know his son was contesting. The NDA has two strong contenders in the region, he added, and they were Kummanam Rajasekharan in 

Thiruvananthapuram and K Surendran in Pathanamthitta. Significantly, he left out his son from the list of "strong contenders".