Periscope: All eyes on Amit Shah

Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah will visit Tamil Nadu for three days from Tuesday. He will attend party meetings in Chennai and Coimbatore as part of his efforts to strengthen the organisation in the state. Tamilisai Soundararajan, BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit chief, said Shah’s visit to the state would help to strengthen the party at the grass-root level. She said the cadres were enthusiastic. He would be given a grand reception.
 
Shah was scheduled to visit the state in May to attend party functions and hold discussions with state leaders but this was called off after R K Nagar election bribery charges put Edappadi K Palaniswami’s government in the dock. The rift between the two AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) factions has widened and neither group wanted to dissolve its unit, though both are ranged against party leader Sasikala’s family.

 
Will Shah mediate and use the AIADMK as a vehicle to propel the BJP’s ambitions in a state where it has very little to call its own is to be seen.
 

Chinese checkers
 
Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will begin a five-day visit to India on Wednesday, his first foreign trip after being elected two months ago.
 
The visit, announced by the foreign ministry on Monday, comes against the backdrop of a nearly two-month military stand-off between India and China. China has been making concerted efforts to woo Nepal. Vice-Premier Wang Yang had visited Kathmandu on August 14. Besides holding political talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and top leaders from ruling and Opposition parties in New Delhi on Thursday, Deuba will visit Bodh Gaya in Bihar and the Tirupati Balaji temple in Andhra Pradesh.

 
Foreign Minister K B Mahara said Nepal wanted a peaceful resolution of the military stand-off between India and China. “Nepal does not want to be dragged into the boundary dispute between India and China,” he said. “Both of our big neighbours should maintain cordial relations.”
 
To be or not to be
 
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad has organised a rally ‘Desh Bachao abhiyan’ — pegged as a mega rally of Opposition parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — in Patna on August 27.  But as the Janata Dal (United) faction loyal to Lalu Prasad trembles on the brink of separating from Nitish Kumar, participation in the rally will become a touchstone of loyalty to the anti-BJP cause. Sharad Yadav was replaced as the JD(U) leader in the Rajya Sabha. The question is whether Yadav would attend the rally, though the party leadership has requested him not to.

 
“If he attends the meeting, it will be against the principles for which he fought,” said K C Tyagi, a JD(U) leader, and a loyal to Nitish Kumar.