Delhi Confidential: Missed Chance

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

2 min readNew DelhiJun 30, 2026 05:00 AM IST

First published on: Jun 30, 2026 at 05:00 AM IST

AT THE oath-taking ceremony of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, who was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House J P Nadda and ministers Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal and L Murugan were engaged in a discussion over the LoP’s political career. Rijiju asked how many years Kharge had completed in Parliament, to which Meghwal recalled that it was his fourth term — two stints in the Lok Sabha and the second term in the Rajya Sabha. Nadda added that before Parliament, Kharge had completed nine terms in the Karnataka Assembly. Rijiju said he too would have been in his fifth term in the Lok Sabha had the Congress not defeated him in 2009. Rijiju, who made his Lok Sabha debut in 2004, lost to Congress candidate Takam Sanjoy by 1,314 votes in 2009 from the Arunachal West constituency.

Appraisal Rush

IT’S APPRAISAL time in the government, and for the first time, everyone from drivers to senior IAS officers have to pass three training courses before they can submit their Annual Performance Appraisal Reports (APAR). Ahead of the June 30 deadline for Central government employees and All-India Services officers to complete their form submission, officials have been in a rush to complete the mandatory courses on the government’s iGOT portal over the past week, it is learnt.

1 bloc, 2 camps

AS THE Ram Temple donations row escalates, a UP Congress delegation, led by PCC president Ajay Rai and comprising senior party leaders, is planning to visit the temple on Tuesday morning. Interestingly, while the SP has named its campaign against the alleged embezzlement “chanda chori (donation theft)”, the Congress is calling it “chadhawa chori (theft of offerings)”. Although the two parties are allies for the upcoming UP elections, their leaders are adamant about continuing with the different names for their campaign against the BJP government.