Round The States

New Delhi, 8 October 2009

SC Slams Mayawati

LISTEN OR ELSE RISK DISMISSAL

By Insaf

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is acting recklessly and inviting big trouble. Her ill-advised confrontation with the Supreme Court over non-compliance of its orders is unprecedented and can land her in the ugliest mess any Chief Minister has faced. The apex court even warned on Tuesday last: “If the State Government still continues with construction work (memorials of Dalit icons), then the law is there and the ball will be in the Centre's court.'' Meaning business, it initiated contempt proceedings against the State Chief Secretary for “flagrant violation” of its orders of not stopping work on the memorials and wondered whether he could be sent to jail.

More importantly, the apex court warned that the State Government could risk dismissal if it kept up its defiance. Indeed, the message was loud and clear: New Delhi could invoke Article 356, which empowers the Centre to dismiss a State Government not functioning in accordance with the Constitution. Clearly, Mayawati should think twice about her next move. Her oft-repeated charge of the New Delhi trying to topple her Government will hold no good in this case at least. Behenji’s mood will be known on November 4, the next date of hearing. When the Chief Secretary has been summoned to be present.

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Cong Bonding With Dalits! 

Meanwhile, the BSP supremo has received some unexpected relief on the political front. Rahul Gandhi’s pragmatic plan to get Congressmen to bond with the Dalits in the State has largely misfired, greatly upsetting Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The party MPs were asked to spend October 2 night at the house of a Dalit villager in their constituency as part of Gandhi Jayanti celebrations. Many did, but how? Kanpur MP and a Minister of State, Sriprakash Jaiswal, for instance, slept on a hired mattress and got generators to run the fans; Kamal Kishor of Bahraich helped himself to chicken; Moradabad MP Mohd Azharruddin ate in a disposable plate and his colleague from Faizabad, Nirmal Khatri had hired cooks to prepare his meal!

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Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has reason to rejoice --- and celebrate. Last week Sonia Gandhi showered on him hitherto unheard praise. She gave him “100 per cent marks” for his leadership. In the past five years, the Hooda regime has “unleashed unprecedented development”, she told crowds at an election rally at Sirsa and Karnal and urged them to “repeat the mandate.” Obviously, the Sonia has made a special note of the overall improvement in the State’s infrastructure, the opening of new industries and universities and special schemes such as free 100 sq yards plots to Dalits and BPL families and Ladli Vivah Shagun Yojana, which encouraged women’s empowerment. Other Congress Chief Ministers need to pay heed.

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Mamata Sees Red In Siliguri

Mamata Banerjee is seeing red. The Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress Chief is very angry with the Congress. She has reason to be. The TMC candidate lost in the Mayor’s election in Siliguri on Thursday last to the Congress’, thanks to the CPM. The winning candidate polled 32 votes (15 of Congress and 17 of CPM) as against TMC’s tally of 15 with one independent.  Apparently, with this victory the Congress seems to have sent a clear message to the TMC -- that it is indispensable and an aggressive Mamata should stop taking it for granted.

On the other hand, the CPM has its own agenda. The Left has sought to crack the Congress-TMC alliance, which not only had trounced it in the Lok Sabha elections but even in the Siliguri corporations polls held last month. Keeping the TMC-Congress alliance under strain, it feels will help prop up its dwindling prospects in the 2011 Assembly polls. As for Mamata, she is seething with anger and lost no time in issuing a warning: “We are supporting Manmohan Singh Government at the Centre… Our politics is Bengal-oriented and here we will have the final word.”  

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Bangladeshis In More States

Illegal Bangladeshi migrants continue to smuggle across the border. Conservative estimates supplied by the States to the Centre place their numbers at a staggering two crores, which is two per cent of India’s population! Worse, the migrants now live in every part of the country. They are no longer confined to the known States of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and the North-East. The migrants are now in Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Western UP and Karnataka, thanks to rapid urbanization and development, providing job opportunities. The big question is: what use will the Centre put this data to? Deportations total a dismal 600, thanks to vote-bank politics!

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Flood Fury In Andhra, Karnataka

If the severe drought in the North was not bad enough, floods in two Southern States have added to the Inida’s woes. Torrential rains in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka this past week triggered the worst floods in the States’ history, submerging hundreds of villages, rendering over five lakh people homeless, destroying lakhs of acres of crops, damaging property worth over Rs 12,225 crore and leaving 280 people dead, including 34 in adjoining Maharashtra. Fortunately, while waters have started receding since Wednesday last, the States face yet another tough challenge -- of tackling the outbreak of post-flood epidemics. Moreover, they await Central assistance to tide over the crisis. So far New Delhi has released merely Rs 209.1 crore from the Calamity Relief Fund as against a demand of Rs 6,000 crore from Andhra and Rs 10,000 crore from Karnataka.

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Kashmiri Martyr’s Day

The monstrous tragedy that hit the Kashmiri Pundits continues to be long forgotten. Forced to flee their homes in the Kashmir Valley some two decades ago, the Pundits in exile still see little or no hope of going back. Promises of an honourable return made by successive Governments in the State have turned out to be hollow words. All that they are left with is to observe September 14 as Martyrs day, when veteran Kashmir Pundit leader and Vice-President of the BJP Tikka Lal Taploo was killed in broad daylight in Srinagar,  20 years ago. Four months later the exodus of the Pundits began. Last month the Pundits, now living in Delhi observed the 20^th Martyrs Day. It was an unusual protest-- 20 Pundits tonsured their heads each symbolically represented a year of their life in exile! How many will join them? ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)