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Round
The States
AP, Presidential Polls
CONGRESS UNDER SEIGE
By Insaf
The Congress is under
siege both in Andhra Pradesh and at the Centre. Notwithstanding who eventually
will be the next occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Grand Old Party is getting
battered by both friends and foes. First, the latter. As was predicted, the YSR
Congress in Andhra has swept the 15 of the 18 Assembly and one Lok Sabha
byelections, forcing the Kiran Kumar Reddy government to go into a huddle on
Friday last. The big question before it is how to keep its flock of Congress
MLAs from crossing the fence to the Jagan camp and save the Government from
falling. Clearly, the political dynamics in the State are changing and
governance, which these past two years has been poor, is bound to get worse.
The results have forced the Congress, having 152 MLAs in a House of 284 to
reach out to Opposition TDP to ensure its survival, if Jagan sympathizers, even
some 12-odd, take the plunge. In fact, Chandrababu Naidu, who has 86 MLAs, too
will need to weigh the options—to go with Jagan or Reddy. Political analysts would
put their bets on him opting for the Congress as Jagan is a bigger threat.
However, it goes without saying that both the TDP and its own MLAs will seek
their pound of flesh. How far it is willing to go, is worth a watch.
* * * *
Likewise, at the national
level, the Congress is being pushed to the wall by State satraps in the
intriguing presidential race. West Bengal
continues to be a headache with ally Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee
unwilling to go with its choice of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. In fact,
the Congress seems to have had enough of Didi’s blackmail tactics and may even
be willing to say goodbye. However, that pushes the Congress to woo Uttar
Pradesh and Samjwadi party’s supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. Yadav who first went
with Didi appears to be willing to play ball, but not without extracting his
pound of flesh. Of course, he will need to keep in mind that the Congress did
reach out just a few days ago by not putting up a candidate for the Kannuaj
byelection, helping his daughter-in-law, Dimple, to have a cakewalk. What else
will it be, only time will tell. Interestingly, in all this, the NDA is keeping
quiet, though Bihar’s Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar is a factor,
the BJP can ill-afford to ignore, given the problems he has with Gujarat’s Narendra Modi.
Will Nitish like his counterparts in Orissa, Naveen Patnaik and Tamil
Nadu Jayalalitha bat for former President APJ Kalam? It goes without saying
that in the numbers game, the States and regional players will play a key
role.
* * * *
Haryana’s Shame
Haryana must hang its head
in shame. More shocking allegations of sexual exploitation of children in ‘Apna Ghar’ shelter home run by an NGO
at Rohtak are coming to light, following the submission of a report on
Wednesday last by the fact-finding panel set up by the Punjab & Haryana
High Court. The charges against Jaswanti Devi, who ran the home and six other
accused, include, forcing children, between 5-10 years to have oral sex,
perform yoga in the nude, selling young girls or sending them to hotels to be
sexually abused by “policemen’ etc. Agonising tales of the terrified kids have
made the committee urge the Court to transfer the case from the Haryana Police to
an independent agency such as the CBI to ensure a meticulous investigation, prosecution
and trial, the case deserves. While the 100-odd inmates have been sent to
various homes in the State, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has vowed strict
action against those involved and that none will be spared. Hope he keeps his
promise.
* * * *
Rajasthan’s Housing Plan
Rajasthan has set its eyes
set on improving infrastructure and amenities for its urban poor. Congress
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot proposes to launch a Rs 400-crore pilot project
under the Rajiv Awas Yojana to provide housing facility to about 12,000 people
living in Sanjay Nagar colonies in Jaipur. Accordingly, slum dwellers shall be
given land title and be brought under the Act, to take forward the Centre’s
ambitious housing scheme of a ‘slum-free’ India. This follows the realisation
that the demand for inclusive and poor-driven urban development has failed to
make the mark. Apparently, the urban poor population in the State has been
increasing rapidly in recent decades. Estimates are that 47.51 lakh persons
comprising 32.9 per cent of the urban population live below the poverty line
and that urban poverty is almost double than that in rural areas. Given the
statistics will this project suffice?
* * * *
TN Anti-Toon Chorus
Tamil Nadu is the latest
entrant to the political anti-cartoon club. On Wednesday last, AIADMK supremo
and Chief Minister Jayalalitha demanded the Centre scrap a controversial
cartoon published in a NCERT book depicting the 1967 anti-Hindi agitation in
the State. According to her, the Dravidian movement would have been best explained
to students using photographs of that era rather than a cartoon. To suggest
that Tamil students were ignorant of English, took to violence against
imposition of Hindi has not only hurt the sentiments of the Tamil people, but
the cartoon insults stalwarts C N Annadurai and (EV Ramasamy) Periar, who led
the anti-Hindi protests, is her contention. With Jayalalitha joining the DMK on
the issue, the Human Resource Development Ministry is set to yield, like it has
done and removed books carrying an Ambedkar cartoon of 1949, following an uproar by MPs. How
many more such protests will be accommodated is anybody’s guess.
* * * *
Kashmir Hits Jackpot
Kashmir is bursting at the seams with
tourists. Infrastructure in picturesque Srinagar,
Gulmarg, Sonmarg and Pahalgam is simply not enough to accommodate the influx of
holiday-makers this season. With houseboats and hotels fully booked till
August, two months longer than the usual June, the locals have shown entrepreneurship.
Homes have been turned into guest houses and tents have mushroomed around.
Interestingly, Himachal Pradesh has unwittingly got a bonus-- the spill-over
tourists are being forced to head towards its hills for their summer jaunt.
And, along with this, the long serpentine lines seen around Gulmarg’s gondola
ride or Srinagar’s Dal Lake
for a Shikara ride have given the
State administration reason to cheer – in all probability the State shall touch
the 1.5 million tourist mark this year. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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