INDIA SUMMARIZED

What is the takeaway for the Congress from the current round of assembly elections? It is quite simple, really: Where is the Indian National Congress, in spite of some gutsy showing in Tamil Nadu? It has just lost Assam and Kerala and is now in power in six states out of 30: Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur. Its presence, or return to power, in Puducherry is not even notional because it is the All India N Rangaswamy Congress (AINRC), a breakaway faction of the Congress, which is fighting on its own. The Congress is reduced to fighting in alliance with the DMK. Of these six, Karnataka is the only state of considerable size, importance and politics. This is the Congress’ lowest showing ever. Even when it lost power at the Centre in the past, it always was in power in more than a dozen states. When it received its latest drubbing in 2014 at the hands of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, the Congress remained in power in 11 states.

Like the setting of the proverbial cat among the pigeons, the arrival of Subramanian Swamy in the Rajya Sabha has, at least temporarily,changed the narrative in the Rajya Sabha. With his devil-may-care attitude and refusal to acknowledge the existence of sacred political cows, Swamy has effectively broken the Omerta code on Sonia Gandhi and the Dynasty. She is no longer above criticism or treated as some kind of exalted figure hovering far above the rough-and-tumble of everyday politics. You may not like the man, his methods, his choice of words or his kind of aggressive, no-holds-barred political rhetoric, but he has single-handedly established one simple fact: Sonia is a Paper Tigress made to look invincible by excessive political correctness and media circumspection. Her status as someone above the law and criticism has been brought down with a thud. Swamy did it first by forcing them to face trial in the National Herald asset-grab by Sonia & Son. Now, he is taking the fight to