Shots fired: Across borders, at home

Hello dear readers and welcome to this week's edition of our Political Theatre.

As temperatures cooled across North India following the Dussehra weekend, things got heated on the diplomatic front, with the India-Canada row sparking into life and hitting a new low, and fresh revelations emerging in the alleged plot to kill US-based Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

The turmoil beyond borders found reflection on the domestic front as well: NCP leader Baba Siddique, known for his ties with the who's who of Bollywood, was shot dead in Mumbai, sparking a war of words between the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the ruling Maha Yuti ahead of state polls in Maharashtra in November, which will be held alongside polls in Jharkhand.

With the conclusion of elections in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, Nayab Singh Saini took oath as the Haryana Chief Minister for a second time, while the northern Union Territory finally got an elected government for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

Down south, the MUDA row reared its head again in Karnataka, with the chief of the development body resigning due to 'poor health' and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) mounting a raid on the MUDA office in Mysuru amid allegations of CM Siddaramaiah's involvement in a 'scam'.

The above just scratches the surface—join us as we help you navigate this week's political maze.

A 'raw' deal

The diplomatic row between India and Canada over New Delhi's alleged involvement in the killing of Khalistani separatist and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar hit a new low this week, with PM Justin Trudeau and India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) levelling charges at each other and expelling each other's diplomats.

While Trudeau claimed to have shared 'evidence' of New Delhi's involvement in the killing, the MEA tore the Canadian PM's assertion to shreds, citing his own comment that Ottawa had 'only intel' and not any evidence to prove the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW)'s hand in Nijjar's killing.

The Canadian PM also came under fire in his own country, with an opposition MP accusing the 52-year-old of using the Nijjar row to divert attention from other pressing issues.

As Trudeau escalated the Nijjar issue publicly, the US and the UK were quick to come out in support of their 'Five Eyes' alliance partner.

Soon after, an indictment in a US court alleged the involvement of a former R&AW official—Vikas Yadav—in the plot to assassinate Pannun on US soil. Yadav's alleged co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta was arrested last year in Czechia and is currently in US prison, and it is alleged that he was recruited by Yadav to hire a hitman to assassinate Pannun.

While the US has reiterated that it is currently satisfied with India's cooperation in the investigation, the damaging indictment nonetheless raises question marks about New Delhi's outright denial, adds to pressure on R&AW, and it remains to be seen how the case develops in the weeks to come.

Shots fired

While reports have claimed that India may have enlisted the help of Lawrence Bishnoi's gang networks to carry out Nijjar's killing, the gang grabbed headlines in India this week, with a member claiming responsibility for the cold-blooded murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique in Mumbai.

With the Mumbai Police still verifying the claim, Siddique's son Zeeshan has broken his silence and has appealed for justice, not politicisation.

However, Zeeshan's plea may have come a little too late: even before Siddique's funeral, politicians in Maharashtra fired off shots at each other, with the Opposition blaming the ruling Maha Yuti government for the 'complete' collapse of law and order in the state, and the BJP slamming such 'petty politics'.

History in Haryana and the (re)birth of a state?

Having secured a historic third term in the state, the BJP-led NDA put up a show of strength in Haryana this week, which perhaps overshadowed the uneventful swearing-in ceremony of Nayab Singh Saini. In a related development, the Election Commission of India (ECI) did not spare the Congress of its blushes and outrightly rejected EVM manipulation allegations that the grand old party had levelled in the aftermath of the poll debacle in Haryana.

Further north, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir finally got an elected government (polls were last held in 2014), with National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah taking up the reins of CM. Having been elected as CM of the UT of J&K, Abdullah wasted no time in getting his Cabinet to pass a resolution demanding the restoration of statehood to the erstwhile state.

Murky MUDA

The MUDA row in Karnataka, which never really died down, picked up a notch this week, with MUDA chief K Marigowda resigning due to poor health and purportedly on the directions of CM Siddaramaiah, whose family stands accused in the alleged land allotment scam.

But Marigowda’s resignation did nothing to slow the flow of accusations and counter-accusations between the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) soon joined in on the drama and mounted a raid on the MUDA office in search of evidence amid loud calls by the opposition for Siddaramaiah’s resignation.

In a similar development, the Siddhartha Vihar Trust linked to the AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge's family has returned a 5-acre Civic Amenities (CA) site granted to it in Bengaluru by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) earlier this year, which had led to allegations of nepotism.

The MUDA row wasn’t the only major political development in Karnataka: the BJP staged a vociferous protest against the withdrawal of cases against a mob accused of involvement in the 2022 Hubballi riots. While the saffron party claimed ‘appeasement politics’ was at work, the Congress hit back, reminding that similar exercises had been carried out in BJP-ruled states as well in the past.

Of polls, photo-shoots, policies, and politics

With elections around the corner in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, both the BJP-led NDA and the I.N.D.I.A. bloc have stepped up preparations, consolidating alliances and planning high-voltage campaigns in both states. 

While the BJP-led NDA has been prompt to decide who gets to contest from which constituency, seat-sharing has remained an issue for the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, with the constituent MVA yet to finalise an arrangement with other alliance partners in Maharashtra.

With bypolls also due in several Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, including Wayanad, aid for the disaster-hit area became a topic of conversation. While PM Modi may have hoped for some electoral dividends from his earlier visit to the disaster-hit place in August, the Congress and the ruling CPI(M) were quick to snub out any such hope, and accused the PM of having posed for a photo shoot while withholding funds promised by the Centre for relief to Wayanad.

The Supreme Court’s verdict upholding the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 also sparked a wave of approval from opposers of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, with organisations such as AASU, Congress, and the AIUDF calling for the scrapping of the CAA.

Amid all this, the BJP this week began the process to elect a new head of the party, with outgoing party chief J P Nadda set to overlook the election that is slated to be completed by the end of the year.

Elsewhere, Rahul Gandhi clawed his way back into the news, having been conspicuously absent for a while, and used the train accident in Tamil Nadu to attack the BJP at the Centre. Comparing the accident with the horrific Balasore tragedy, the Gandhi scion charged, “Despite many lives lost in numerous accidents, no lessons are learned. Accountability starts at the top. How many more families must be destroyed before this government wakes up?”

Beyond borders but not at the cost of borders

Amid the raging row between India and Canada, External Affairs Minister (EAM) Jaishankar this week took an exceedingly rare trip to Pakistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit being hosted by India’s boisterous neighbour.

Keeping his promise of not holding any bilateral talks with Pakistan, Jaishankar graced the summit with a veiled dig at Pakistan and China, warning of the excesses of terrorism, extremism, and separatism and their detrimental effects on the improvement of bilateral ties.

Jaishankar’s barbs, however, did not seem to affect former Pakistan Prime MInister Nawaz Sharif, who, in a rare gesture, reached out to New Delhi seeking to ‘bury’ the past.

Far from India, Israel had a triumphant week in West Asia as it eliminated Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, while carrying out a separate attack on a Gaza school that the Palestinians claimed killed at least 29, including children. 

As Israel celebrated Sinwar’s death, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon was quick to remind the world that Tel Aviv was still carrying out ‘deliberate’ attacks on UNIFIL positions, and refused to budge despite Israeli evacuation warnings.

With the ‘war’ in West Asia showing signs of escalation and a degree of brutality that the West seemingly did not expect, the US, in a rare slap on the wrist, gave Israel a month to stop its excesses in Gaza or risk losing military aid. The time-frame, however, did not sit well with the European Union (EU)’s foreign policy chief Josep Borell, who warned that such a broad window could lead to the loss of ‘too many’ lives in Gaza, given the brutality of Tel Aviv’s campaign.

That about wraps it up for this week’s political developments from India and around the world.

Join us next week as we bring you more drama from the build-up to the Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections. With PM Modi flying to Russia to attend the BRICS summit on President Putin’s invite and Hezbollah threatening an escalation against Israel, the coming week promises to be an action-packed one, and we hope to find you here for the wrap-up.

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DH Newsletters Team