Round The States
New
Delhi, 10 January 2014
Hurriyat ‘Split’
J&K NC IN A
CONUNDRUM?
By Insaf
The idiom running with the hare and
hunting with the hound couldn’t be more apt for Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling National
Conference. Like New Delhi,
the party should be rejoicing the latest ‘split’ in the Hurriyat Conference,
led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq after three of its leaders accused the chairman of
turning the amalgam in to a “personal fiefdom”. The break follows Farooq
writing to its PoK chapter not to entertain the three--chief of Democratic
Freedom Party Shabir Shah, Nayeem Khan of National Front and Azam Inquilabi of
Mahaz-e-Azadi. Sadly, the NC appears to be concerned over the spilt,
notwithstanding the fact that its government is beleaguered every other day
with the Hurriyat groups calling strikes and leading protests. Much to the
chagrin of the Centre, NC’s additional general secretary Mustafa Kamal, who is
also the uncle of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, is reported to have described
the split as “the creation of Indian agencies and their attempts to weaken the
on-going movement in Kashmir". Worse, he
has urged the groups to unite for the sake of the people. Whose side is the NC
on, is a question doing the rounds. The Hurriyat Conference was formed in the
90s to fight for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. Since then the
State has come a long way. Normalcy is bouncing back. Why is then the NC
unhappy?
* * * *
Big
Break For Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh has reason to be
hopeful in its fight against Left-wing extremism. On Wednesday last, top CPI
(Maoist) leader and spokesperson of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee,
Gumudavelli Venkatakrishna Prasad alias ‘Gudsa Usendi’, surrendered along with
his wife before the Anti Maoist Special Intelligence Branch, in Andhra Pradesh.
Usendi is said to be the mastermind behind May last’s horrific Darbha Ghati
massacre in which top Congress leaders were killed and many others in
Chhattisgarh. While he has cited “health reasons” for putting down arms, the
Centre sees it as the realisation of the futility of armed struggle and is
keeping fingers crossed that more leaders follow and join the mainstream, given
that along with the States, it assures treating them well as per the surrender
and rehabilitation policy. However, the policy is not same everywhere, as
Usendi’s case shows. He chose to surrender in AP rather than Chhattisgarh. The
reason being the former offers better incentives and allows those who surrender
to walk away with the cash reward announced on their heads. Perhaps, other than
heaving a sigh of relief, Chhattisgarh may do well to take a re-look at its
surrender policy, so that it too can take credit.
* * * *
TN Poll
Scene
Tamil Nadu is witnessing the turf
war in the DMK family hotting up, in the midst of the party working out new
poll alliances. Patriarch M Karunanidhi keen on a partnership with the DMDK,
has adopted a no-nonsense approach to clinch the deal. Under fire is elder son
M K Alagiri who tried to muddy the waters by saying the DMDK was ‘irrelevant’.
Karunanidhi promptly warned him that anyone found violating party discipline
would be expelled from primary membership. However, there’s more to it than
meets the eye. While forming an alliance is important, it looks that
Karunanidhi wants to sideline Alagiri completely and firm up his decision of
passing on the baton to younger son M K Stalin. Apparently, the latest
reprimand was the second in less than a week. The party recently disbanded the Madurai unit having
Alagiri’s supporters and replaced it with Stalin’s. In the meantime, the
Congress is closely watching the developments. Senior party leader and Union
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad called on the DMK chief in Chennai as a
‘courtesy call’. But it may not be so simple. With the DMK looking for new
alliances, the Congress is keeping hope of weaning back its old ally. Will the
turf war help?
* * * *
Maharashtra NCP-Cong Hiccups
Maharashtra politics continues to be
mired in intrigues. Will the NCP pull out of the alliance with the Congress as
threatened, or is it just crying wolf? With an eye on 2014 Elections, the two
partners lately look uneasy. On Wednesday last, Deputy CM and NCP leader Ajit
Pawar is learnt to have gone hammer and tongs against Chief Minister
Prithiviraj Chavan, for complacency in decision-making. With approvals hanging
fire on various projects including irrigation, water, housing and electricity,
Pawar threatened that his party would pull out, give outside support and that
the Congress can ‘govern the State on its own’! This did the trick. For
starters both leaders sat and approved cost escalation in 147 irrigation
projects worth Rs 623 crore and decided to review the others. This latest
hammering, interestingly comes a day after another NC leader and Union Minister
Praful Patel was quoted as saying that Chief, Sharad Pawar is the most capable
PM candidate and the UPA and not Congress will decide on it. Guess, there will
be public posturing for sometime till the two make their own poll calculations.
However, with AAP announcing it would contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in the
State, negotiations between the two partners look clearly tough.
* * * *
Rajasthan
For Innovation
Rajasthan is in the race for new
ideas. The BJP Government of Vasundhra Raje is contemplating bringing in a new
legislation, “Good Governance Act”. This will not replace the previous Congress
regime’s Right to Hearing Act and the Guaranteed Delivery of Public Services
Act completely, but shall incorporate some of their provisions for prompt
redressal of people’s grievances. Raje has thus asked her administration to be
‘innovative’ and has decided to set up a task force to study various laws,
administrative orders of other States before putting down its initiative on
paper. Trashing the previous Government’s grievances redressal system as
‘poor’, Raje has stressed on transparency, accountability and effectiveness.
Words used by most governments? Yes, and Raje knows that too. So her government
has embarked on setting up State-level redressal committees in addition to
those at the district and sub-division level. The catch being that the
performance of district committees will be judged on the basis of the number of
grievances heard at the State level. For starters, it is good thinking.
* * * *
MP
U-Turn On Liquor Policy!
Madhya Pradesh Government’s U-turn
on its liquor policy has raised many an eyebrow. While Chief Minister Shivraj
Singh Chouhan’s reasoning is that he “couldn’t sleep at night” as his ‘earlier
decision wasn’t right’, the Congress accuses him of “repaying the liquor mafia”
for helping his party’s campaign. What is the truth? No guesses, as facts shall
speak. On Wednesday last, the Cabinet decided to roll back its earlier decision
(taken on Monday) of allowing Indian-Made Foreign Liquor to be sold at local thekas, country liquor shops. Licenses
would have been given in settlements having over 5,000 people, and which didn’t
have IMFL vends in a 10-km radius. The hope was thus to check spurious and
illegal sale of IMFL as well as earn big revenue from fresh licenses. But it
had a rethink. The Government realised it was ‘committed to eradicate
alcoholism’ and not allow new outlets. The dilemma, however, persists— spurious
liquor causes death and legalised sale of IMFL in the countryside may reduce
the cases. Which decision was right, will be known soon. Hic! ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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