The case of the leaked hotel video footage showing Patidar activist Hardik Patel meeting Congress leaders is very curious. It turns out that the owner of the hotel, Ummed Singh Champawat, is a primary member of the BJP. But before he joined the BJP in 2014, he was a leading light of the Congress party and contested several assembly elections on a Congress ticket.

In fact, the BJP was at loggerheads with him then and even filed a complaint that he was running a call girl racket in his hotel. The complaint was ultimately quashed by the court after Champawat alleged that he was being targeted because he belongs to the Congress. It was after this that Champawat made overtures to the BJP and finally joined the party in 2014, just before the Lok Sabha polls. He obviously felt that the Congress had no future in Gujarat where the BJP had been in power for 22 years.

Interestingly, despite Champawat’s connections with the BJP, Congress leaders have continued to patronize his hotel, located at Airport Circle in Ahmedabad. During the recent bitterly contested Rajya Sabha elections, Congress leader Ahmed Patel stayed at the hotel even as Amit Shah worked overtime to have him defeated.

During Rahul Gandhi’s last trip to Gujarat, the Congress vice president and Ashok Gehlot were both booked in the hotel. The police procured the relevant video footage of Hardik Patel from the hotel, citing security as the reason.

The question is: how did this footage land up in the hands of BJP leaders and the media? Clearly, the Congress didn’t realize that they would be let down by someone who was once a loyalist. It has turned out to be a costly mistake with the BJP capitalising on the footage to allege a “secret deal’’ between Hardik and Rahul. It will be interesting to see where Rahul stays on his next trip to Gujarat.

Threats to Ansari

Former vice president Hamid Ansari has been the target of BJP/RSS trolls and bhakts ever since the interview he gave to a TV channel when he demitted office. He had talked about the insecurity of Muslims in that interview. Although retired, he continues to receive hate mail via email and post. But what he got in the post recently was a real shocker. Someone sent him a cheque for Rs. 1 lakh with a letter demanding that he leave India immediately along with his family. The letter said he should move to some Muslim country. The money was meant to insult him as a “donation’’ towards air fare. Ansari has passed on the letter and cheque to the union home ministry. But there has been no response. In fact, the home ministry has indicated to the former vice president that it will soon be reviewing his security and probably scaling it down. This is being done despite the hate mail and threats he receives regularly.

Many voices

Was Dineshwar Sharma appointed as interlocutor for Kashmir with an eye on US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit? It certainly seems so because Sharma is still to be given a brief for his new assignment and government ministers are speaking in different voices, creating confusion. The appointment was made a week ago but Sharma is still awaiting clear cut instructions from the Modi government about his role.

The most important question on which he needs clarity is whether to engage with the Hurriyat or not. While Rajnath Singh said there will be no restrictions on who he meets, minister of state in the PMO, Jitendra Singh, who is an elected MP from Jammu, has categorically ruled out talks with Hurriyat leaders who he described as people who indulge in violence and hawala transactions.

Jitendra Singh also said Sharma is not an interlocutor but an emissary. This suggests that he is not empowered to suggest solutions. He will only act as a messenger boy. Rajnath on the other hand, declared that he will have full powers. With Tillerson arriving in India for a crucial first visit, the Modi government was under pressure to prove that credentials on Kashmir.

The centre has been under fire for adopting a muscular approach and not engaging the people of the Valley in dialogue. It seems Sharma’s appointment was a hasty move to satisfy Tillerson. Curiously, Sharma is still waiting to meet Modi. This is another indication that the government is in no hurry to begin the dialogue process.

Caught napping

It defies belief but it now appears that BJP leaders in Gujarat had no clue that Hardik Patel’s associate Narendra Patel would turn around and bite them within 24 hours of joining the party. They used to say that not a leaf moved in Gujarat without Narendra Modi’s knowledge. He had total control over the state with eyes and ears everywhere to inform him of every movement and every impending event.

Things seem to have changed after he moved to Delhi and handed the state over, first to Anandiben Patel and then to Vijay Rupani.

Anandiben, for instance, was not properly briefed about the Hardik Patel led Patidar agitation. She was taken by surprise as the movement swelled and spread. Rupani was equally clueless about Narendra Patel’s intentions. He failed to tip off the leadership that this associate of Hardik could be a mole.

Arun Jaitley, who is in charge of the Gujarat elections on behalf of the BJP, was in Gandhinagar the day Narendra Patel joined the party. A couple of hours after Jaitley flew back to Delhi, Patel turned the tables on the BJP. He held a press conference, threw down Rs 10 lakhs in crisp 500 rupee notes and accused the BJP of bribing him to join the party. BJP leaders were left running for cover after the allegation.