By Anita Katyal
With Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah facing trouble in the ongoing MUDA land allotment scam, there is constant chatter that he will soon be replaced. However, all speculation was put to rest last week when it was officially announced that Siddaramaiah will remain chief minister for a full five-year term. Though the Congress is under pressure to go in for a leadership change in Karnataka, it can ill-afford to do so. Of the party鈥檚 three chief ministers, Siddaramaiah is the only leader belonging to the back classes. At a time when the Congress is making strenuous efforts to woo backward classes and has even set up an OBC Advisory Council, it would have been politically unwise to sack an OBC leader. Moreover, the Karnataka government recently ordered a fresh caste census in the state. The Congress leadership would be left red-faced if it replaced Siddaramaiah now and the census findings later showed that the numerical strength of OBCs is far higher than the other castes. The Congress finds itself constrained from acting against the flashy and articulate Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor who continues to take indirect pot shots at it. But the party has to necessarily play the waiting game as it does not want to rock the boat before next year鈥檚 Kerala Assembly elections. State party leaders also realise it would be disastrous to expel Mr Tharoor so close to polls. But their patience is running out. Since it is politically unwise to seek Mr Tharoor鈥檚 ouster, Kerala leaders have settled for what they believe is the next best course of action. It is learnt that a group of MPs from Kerala met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and suggested that the seating arrangement in the Lok Sabha be changed and Mr Tharoor be either shifted to the back benches or moved out of the Congress bloc and seated close to the Trinamul Congress MPs. On his part, Mr Tharoor insists that he is not joining the BJP but his statements suggest that he is straining at the leash and is looking for an opportune moment to part company with the Congress. Ideally, he would like the party to throw him out as he would then be able to retain his Lok Sabha seat. But the Congress is unlikely to oblige him. Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal had virtually gone underground after his party was defeated in the Delhi Assembly elections early this year. His 鈥渄isappearance鈥 from the public eye was essentially strategic as Mr Kejriwal and his band of loyalists decided to focus on Punjab to ensure that it did not go the Delhi way, especially since the Bhagwant Singh Mann government was showing signs of losing public support. But now that the AAP has won two by-elections 鈥 Ludhiana West in Punjab and Visavadar in Gujarat 鈥 a confident Mr Kejriwal has emerged from self-imposed exile. He was finally spotted in Delhi last week when he organised a mass protest at his favourite venue 鈥 Jantar Mantar 鈥 where he launched a fiery attack against the BJP-led Delhi government for demolishing homes of poor slum dwellers. From Delhi, Mr Kejriwal went to Gujarat to provide the necessary push to the party鈥檚 Gujarat Jodo membership campaign where he announced plans to take on the well-entrenched BJP state government. The bypoll victories have proved to be a real morale booster for Mr Kejriwal who obviously believes that contrary to predictions by poll pundits, the AAP has a bright political future and is well-placed to expand its footprint. The AAP鈥檚 resurgence should worry the Congress as the Kejriwal-led party has been usurping its social base. It is ironic that after agonising over the choice of the party鈥檚 new president in West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party finally zeroed in on Shamik Bhattacharya for this crucial post ahead of next year鈥檚 state Assembly elections. It was only last year that Mr Bhattacharya was packed off to the Rajya Sabha as he had always had his eye on the state presidency. He was also moved to Delhi because the BJP leadership did not want him getting involved in the infighting which has been the bane of the faction-ridden state unit. But the leadership has obviously had a change of heart as Mr Bhattacharya is now being seen as someone who can be depended upon to serve as a bridge between the various factions and resolve the differences between the old and new BJP. For the old-timer Bhattacharya, who has been a lifelong RSS-BJP loyalist, this elevation has been a long time coming. At last, his fortunes are changing.