Gobsmacked at the Gabba

Brotherly brawl: The Jarkiholi brothers of Belagavi in Karnataka are known for their sibling rivalry. Recently, Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP in 2019, said his family had originally been supporters of the Jan Sangh and that he used to wear the RSS cap. His younger brother and state Congress working president Satish Jarkiholi, however, soon contested the claim, saying he had never seen his brother wear an RSS chaddi (shorts) or topi (cap). “I have seen Ramesh wear a Muslim cap, as my family served dalits, Muslims and the poor,” he said, showing journalists a photograph of a young Ramesh wearing a skullcap. “He is free to enjoy power in the BJP, but I hope he does not forget his roots and secular credentials.” | Illustrations by Jairaj T.G.

Waiting for windfall: Vishnu Dutt Sharma, president of the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh unit, recently rejigged the party’s state executive committee. There is only one supporter of Jyotiraditya Scindia in the new 35-member committee—a little known former legislator who is now reportedly closer to Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar than Scindia. As expected, this has led to murmurs that Scindia and his group of former Congress leaders have been kept away from the BJP’s core leadership. Sharma, however, says the committee’s composition reflects a unified party. Interestingly, sources say Scindia loyalists who have not been able to become ministers would rather be appointed as chiefs of various government-run boards and corporations than be assigned organisational roles.

Gift of the jab: The government has limited the first phase of Covid-19 vaccination to frontline health care workers, but that did not stop a Trinamool Congress MLA in West Bengal from receiving a welcome jab. Katwa MLA Rabindranath Chatterjee was administered the vaccine apparently because he is the chairperson of the patient welfare association of the subdivisional hospital in his constituency. The allegedly out-of-turn vaccination, however, sparked a war of words, with Kailash Vijayvargiya of the BJP calling the Trinamool a party of vaccine thieves. Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim soon hit back saying the vaccine was not anyone’s family property.

A homely touch: Now that they are expecting their second child, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan are moving from their home at Fortune Heights to a bigger one in Mumbai’s Satguru Sharan. According to their interior designer Darshini Shah, the house has beautiful terraces, a swimming pool, outdoor areas and open, landscaped spaces. Inside, there is a library, many artworks and a collection of hand-picked antiques, each “with a memory attached to it”. The décor is colonial style. Apparently, even with her pregnancy, Kareena has busied herself with setting up the house | PTI

Daddy cool: Justin Timberlake and wife Jessica Biel have welcomed their second child, Phineas. “He’s awesome and so cute,” Timberlake said during a virtual appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Nobody’s sleeping. But we’re thrilled…. We couldn’t be happier. Very grateful.” Timberlake married Biel in 2012 and welcomed their first son five years ago. On the work front, he had recently revealed the first look of his next film, Palmer. “This story is really important to me and I’m proud to be part of it,” he had tweeted. The film, about the relationship of a former prisoner and an outcast boy, releases on January 29 | Getty Images

Crime king: French actor Tahar Rahim will play the criminal mastermind, Charles Sobhraj, in the latest BBC iteration of his life. In the eight-episode TV series called The Serpent, the actor—previously seen in A Prophet, The Past and The Kindness of Strangers—will portray the serial killer’s exploits in Thailand, which came to be dubbed the ‘Bikini Murders’. The half-Sindhi and half-Vietnamese criminal, known for his mysterious charm and his notorious jailbreaks, including from Tihar, was last played by Randeep Hooda in the 2015 film, Main aur Charles | Getty Images