A useful man to know

Rarely does the writ of a chief minister run outside the state he leads. Leaders like Yogi Adityanath have been used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for election campaigns, but there’s no evidence Mr Adityanath has been involved in negotiations to stitch up coalitions for the BJP outside Uttar Pradesh. That honour belongs to Himanta Biswa Sarma alone.

The Chief Minister of Assam might be in the BJP today. But he has skills he learnt at the feet of top Congress leaders like Tarun Gogoi, with whom he worked for many years. This is not to decry Sarma’s own talents