Off the Record: December 13, 2021

The Viraat connection

About a fortnight ago, the top leadership of the Indian Navy underwent a change with a new navy chief, Admiral R Hari Kumar and two new Commanders-in-Chief for the Mumbai-based Western Naval Command (Vice Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh) and Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Naval Command (Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta). Curiously, INS Viraat remains the common factor linking the trio as Kumar, Singh and Dasgupta commanded the aircraft carrier at some point during their four-decade-long careers in the Indian Navy. Incidentally, Admiral Kumar becomes the fourth navy chief in the last two decades to have commanded the guided-missile destroyer INS Ranvir that produced the maximum numbers of flag officers to date, apart from the carriers. The other three skippers of INS Ranvir, who rose to become navy chiefs in the first two decades of the new millennium are Admiral Nirmal Verma, Admiral Madhavendra Singh and Admiral DK Joshi.

Kalyan Ray, New Delhi

Blurring party lines

Twelve suspended MPs have been sitting on a protest at Gandhi Statue in Parliament since December 1. Many of their parties don’t see eye to eye. Whether it is Congress or Trinamool, Left or Trinamool, at the political level they are at loggerheads. But the action against the MPs, which their parties call unconstitutional and illegal, has brought them together. Now they eat together, discuss issues and keep building bridges. On Friday, the leaders decided to suspend the protest for one more day in respect of Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat. Some of them were okay with the decision but none left the protest site as others were not in sync with the idea.

Shemin Joy, New Delhi

Govt extra-careful this time

This Winter Session, the government is moving in a cautious manner. Though it has remained adamant on an apology for revoking the suspension of 12 MPs, it is not rushing through the Bills. On the first day, when Surrogacy and Art Bills came up for tabling, the government did not go ahead with passing the Bills amid disruption. It waited for a day to get it passed. It seems like the government does not want to send a message that it is using the din to pass Bills. But the Opposition seems to be not impressed. It feels people should not read too much into it. The Opposition leaders say that the Bills passed in Rajya Sabha in the past few days are not contentious ones and the government is using it to showcase that they are benevolent.

Shemin Joy, New Delhi

A new BJP-Sena alliance

After the weddings of Vicky Kaushal-Katrina Kaif and Tejashwi Yadav-Rachel Godinho couples, now a union of two top families of Maharashtra politics is making news. Ankita Patil, the daughter of BJP leader and former minister Harshawardhan Patil will marry Nihar Thackeray, the grandson of late Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray. Nihar is the son of late Bindumadhav Thackeray. Popularly known as Binda, he was a film producer who shot into national fame with ‘Agnishakshi’ starring Jackie Shroff, Manisha Koirala and Nana Patekar. Nihar, a lawyer, and Ankita will tie the knot on December 28. Ankita is a member of the Pune Zilla Parishad from the Congress and serves as director of the Indian Sugar Mills Association.

Mrityunjay Bose, Mumbai