🎭 Political Theatre | EC, oppn face-off in Bihar and Omar's leap of defiance

Greetings readers!

In the run up to the Monsoon session of the Parliament, several issues that are likely to become the highlights of the session have already started to rear their heads.

While the Election Commission is planning to expand the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) excercise of electoral rolls in Bihar to all over India, the opposition Mahagathbandhan and several other parties are seeing it as a prelude to the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

On the geopolitical front, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had a fiery confrontation with his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar at the SCO meet in China. US President Donald Trump meanwhile has asked for release of grand jury documents in the Epstein case. The Wall Street Journal in the meantime published a story where Trump's name appeared on a risque 2003 personal note to Jeffrey Epstein, prompting the US President to sue the publication.

So hang tight as we unfold major political developments of the week for you in today’s DH Political Theatre.

The burden of proof

Nearly 8 crore voters in poll-bound Bihar are carrying the burden of proof to show that they are eligible to vote, that too – for leaders who have barely shown they are worth it. For a state whose youths are hustling in the country’s Tier 1 cities for work, the EC has provided a new side hustle of gathering documents for their kin back home.

The Congress, part of the Mahagathbandhan alliance in the state, is vehemently opposing the SIR as a "deliberate and diabolical" move to rig elections through large-scale disenfranchisement, with Rahul Gandhi asking whether the poll body has completely become the BJP's "Election Chori branch".

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has rubbished the poll body’s claim that more than 35 lakh voters were not found at their registered addresses across Bihar during the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Earlier, Yadav did not just dismiss another EC claim, he flushed it down with flair.

Responding to the poll body's claim, citing its sources, that BLOs have found many voters from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar in Bihar’s electoral roll, Yadav said, "Hum wo sutra [sources] ko mutra samajhte hain… iska koi adhaar nai hai. [We consider these sources as urine, waste]."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing a rally in poll-bound Bihar, vowed to develop Motihari like Mumbai and Patna like Pune. If only urban development was as effortless as alliteration.

Omar vaults ‘prohibitory wall’ to salute martyrs

Fitness matters.

Among qualities like resilience, strong conviction, a willingness to challenge the status quo, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah added another must-have quality for people wanting to uphold freedom if expression in a democratic country—fitness.

The 55-year-old CM scaled a wall to reach the Martyrs’ Graveyard in Srinagar amid an alleged house arrest and heavy police presence, further escalating the confrontation between the elected government in Jammu and Kashmir and the Lieutenant Governor-led administration over the observance of Martyrs’ Day.

Abdullah has alleged that he was manhandled by the police.

The tense standoff came a day after top political leaders from both mainstream and separatist camps were barred from visiting the graveyard on Martyrs’ Day, which is observed to honour 22 unarmed Kashmiri protesters who were shot dead by the Dogra army in 1931.

Meanwhile, apart from issuing prohibitory orders, L-G Manoj Sinha also took “full responsibility” for the Pahalgam terrorist attack.

The invitation imbroglio

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the country’s second longest cable-stayed bridge constructed across the Sharavathi backwaters between Ambaragodlu and Kalasavalli in Karnataka, in the absence of the CM and local MLAs of the Congress.

The event led to a political slugfest between Siddaramaiah dispensation and the Union government with both blaming each other for failing to follow protocol.

While Gadkari said that an official invitation had been extended to Siddaramaiah on July 11 and a subsequent letter sent on July 12 requesting that he participate in the event virtually, the CM wrote on X that neither he nor his office was consulted before finalising the programme.

“The invitation was sent to me only three days prior to the event. We had requested that the event be rescheduled since I had commitments in Indi in Vijayapura. This cannot be construed as proper consultation,” he said.

Odisha on the boil over student death

The 20-year-old Odisha college student who set herself ablaze over alleged sexual harassment by a professor died on Monday, triggering nationwide outrage.

Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi expressed grief over the student’s death by self-immolation and vowed the strictest punishment for all those responsible — action, many believe, that could have come before the woman was driven to take such an extreme step.

Majhi had recently hailed Odisha as a rising model of women’s empowerment at the state-level Nari Shakti Samabesh.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and BJD president Naveen Patnaik have termed the incident an "organised murder by the system". The Congress has also demanded the chief minister’s resignation over the incident.

‘Happy Birthday Epstein’

An off-colour letter allegedly written by US President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, financier and convicted sex offender, on his 50th birthday, emerged in the media on Thursday, much to the embarrassment of the Republican. The President however has termed the letter fake and sued the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for publishing the “fake” letter.

The Journal said the birthday letter, bearing Trump's name, contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appeared to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. The newspaper said the letter concludes “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret," and featured the signature "Donald."

Denying writing the letter, Trump said that he has “never written a picture in his life”-- which can be true because normally people draw a picture instead of writing it.

"This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story...I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women...It's not my language. It's not my words," he said.

Allegations that Epstein had been sexually abusing girls became public in 2006 - after the birthday book was compiled - and he was arrested that year before accepting a plea deal. Epstein died in 2019 in jail after he was arrested a second time and charged with sex-trafficking conspiracy.

That is all about the political drama that unfolded this week. DH Political Theatre will come back again next week with more political advancements from around the globe.

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DH Newsletters Team