Is Shivraj Singh Chouhan losing his relevance in Madhya Pradesh politics

A closed-door meeting was held recently between Rakesh Singh, Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar and state organisational general secretary Suhas Bhagat

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is searching for a new state party president for its Madhya Pradesh unit despite the incumbent Rakesh Singh trying hard to retain the post for a second term. A closed-door meeting was held recently between Singh, Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar and state organisational general secretary Suhas Bhagat. Later, another meeting took place among these three at Tomar's residence. The point to be noted here is that former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan (pictured) was not present in any of these meetings. While Chouhan said he was busy attending national election committee meetings in New Delhi, there are rumblings that he is fast losing relevance in state politics.

Connectivity issues

The main auditorium at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi was packed by the time Amazon.com Inc chief Jeff Bezos started speaking at a company conclave on Wednesday. But for many in the audience — which comprised retailers and Amazon partners among others — there was a problem. And this problem related to a telecom company. The signal reception for the subscribers among the audience ranged between severely poor and nil. So all the pictures they excitedly clicked or the updates they wanted to send to the outside world via social media remained stuck in the devices. Since a rival mobile service provider was a business partner of the event, it didn’t take long before some of them began to float conspiracy theories.

Principal's problems

A Madhya Pradesh government school principal has come under fire after notebooks carrying pictures of Veer Savarkar were distributed for free among students of his school. These notebooks were distributed in November last year by an NGO and had pictures of Savarkar along with those of the NGO’s office-bearers. All would have been fine if the volunteer organisation had not uploaded photographs of the event on social media, after which a "fan group" of the ruling party intimated its IT cell in Bhopal following which a complaint was lodged against the principal. Many employees’ unions have come out in support of the principal, an awardee of the President’s Medal, and said his suspension would only create fear among teachers.