Having a say on who'll get the job

What is common to just-announced incoming governor of West Bengal Ravindra Narayana Ravi, and Mojtaba Khamenei, reported frontrunner for the position of Iran's ayatollah made recently vacant after his father Ali Khamenei was made to depart? Ravi's scheduled arrival to Raj Bhavan in Kolkata as 'GoI's guy' is being objected to by Mamata Banerjee as vociferously as Khamenei's possible arrival as Iran's supreme ruler by Donald Trump. True, in the case of DC's Dada, his desire to have a say in who rules from Tehran is both literally far-fetched and premature, while in Didi's case, GoI not keeping her in the loop has, more understandably, shocked her. But the 'wish to have a say' has always been a contentious thing between rulers, especially when relations have been 'strained'.

But like in many other things, Trump is following the Communist Party of China model - having a say is having a 'haq', a currency of power. Why else would Beijing still get its noodles in a strap over not recognising the Dalai Lama? Or the successor that the 90-yr-old Tibetan emigre in Dharamshala will be announcing soon enough. In CPC style, the Mar-a-Lago Lama has also said that he won't recognise whoever Tehran's mullahs choose as their grand A. Banerjee, on the other hand, being more democratic, will do the smart thing: politicise her sulk before state elections.