Round The States
New Delhi, 21 February 2008
Orissa And
Chhattisgarh
ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST
NAXALITES
By Insaf
Orissa and
Chhattisgarh, two heavily Naxalite-infested States have sounded the bugle against
the Maoists. Orissa’s Chief Minister,
Naveen Patnaik, and his counterpart in Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh, have decided
to take the war against terrorism into the enemy’s camp and purge their
respective States of terrorism. This follows two of the biggest Maoist attacks
in both the States. In Orissa, hundreds
of armed guerrillas stormed Nayagarh town, barely 90 km from the State capital,
Bhubaneswar,
over-ran three police stations and two outposts killing 13 police personnel and
two civilians on Friday last. Exposing as never before, the complete lack of
preparedness of the local police, which
left the top brass red-faced. Clearly to redeem its honour and teach the Naxals
a stern lesson, the State pulled out
all the stops and killed 20 Maoists. Signalling, enough is enough!
In Chhattisgarh too, the State Government gave the Naxalites
a taste of their own medicine when 13 Naxalites were killed in two different
encounters in the intensely Naxal-infested Bijapur district of Bastar region.
That the Chief Minister Raman Singh’s Government meant business and had decided not to give any quarter to the
Naxals was clear when 13 CRPF battalions were deployed in as many as 11 Naxal-affected
areas out of the State’s 18 districts with an additional five more battalions to
be added soon. This action was indeed timely, against the backdrop of the villagers
of a tribal hamlet in the Rajnandgaon district fleeing their homes in panic after
Naxalites called upon them to send a child from each family to join the
movement or face death. All fingers are crossed
that the two NDA-ruled States continue the counter-insurgency operations sternly
in the future as well. The NDA’s High Command is keeping a close watch.
* * * *
Providing Prime
Ministers
Uttar Pradesh, the State once synonymous with providing India with its Prime
Ministers, is all set to regain its primacy with two of its leaders throwing
their hats into the Prime Ministerial ring. Namely, BSP supremo and Chief
Minister Mayawati and her bete noire and predecessor
Samajwadi’s Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Dalit Queen has minced no words to
announce that her next target is India’s Raj Gaddi. Towards that end, she has started criss-crossing
the Hindu heartland to garner support for herself and the Party. No matter, that
she has already burnt her fingers in the recently-held Gujarat
poll where none of her candidates was successful.
Now, she is busy making inroads into Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and New Delhi where the State
Assembly elections are due later
this year. In Rajasthan, Mayawati brazenly donned the robes of the new Quota Queen
by promising the Gujjars that she would fulfil their demands for inclusion in
the Scheduled Tribes if they got her anointed as the Prime Minister.
Importantly, the shrewd BSP supremo has, meanwhile, decided
to smoke the peace pipe, (for the time being), with the Congress through a courtesy call on Sonia Gandhi. At the ‘power’
pow-wow between India’s
ruling Divas, Mayawati explained there was nothing personal in her anti-Congress campaign. For Sonia too, this has come as a face
saver and given her breathing space before the Budget session
of Parliament. However, even as the two women serenade each other, Mulayam
Singh is all set to play the spoil sport now that the United National Progressive Alliance has formally endorsed the Samajwadi
supremo as its Prime Ministerial candidate. The UNPA is “confident” of winning
over 100 seats in the next Lok Sabha. Towards that end, all the Front leaders
are accompanying Mulayam to address maha rallies across
the country to champion the cause of the farmers and cock a snook at those who dismissed them as ‘used-up cartridges.’
* * * *
Congress-Left Gloves Off In Tripura
Tripura may earn the ignominious distinction of sounding the
bugle of the beginning of the end of the Congress-Left
bonhomie. That the gloves were off was made plain by the Congress President Sonia Gandhi when she called for the
ouster of the Left Government while campaigning for her Party in the State. Not
only that. She vowed to carry the battle to the strongest Left bastion, West Bengal next, when the Lok Sabha polls are held next
year. Mincing no words, Sonia denounced as false all talk of the Congress having a soft spot for the Left. “It is a
misnomer,” she thundered. It is a moot point if the electorate buys her sob
story. As matters stand, regaining Tripura would indeed, be prestigious for the
Congress as it has been bereft of
power in the State for 15 years. But the
challenge is not easy to surmount. All in all, Tripura has received little
attention from top Congress leaders!
* * * *
Jharkhand
Synonymous With Corruption
After politicians, it is the turn of the bureaucrats to take
a “corruption” bow in Jharkhand. In a first of sorts, the Crime Investigation
Department of the Jharkhand Police has sought the Additional Director’s
General’s permission to prosecute
the Chief Secretary, PP Sharma, who has been charged under the Prevention of
Corruption Act for fraud, misuse of official authority and criminal conspiracy.
Shockingly, cases have been pending against him since 1988 and till recently lay
buried under the debries of amnesia. But what is sauce for the goose in
Jharkhand is not so for the gander in UP. Shockingly, in Ulta Pulta UP, the State’s ‘most corrupt officer’ Neera Yadav has
been given a clean chit. Recall, Yadav had the dubious distinction of being the
first IAS officer to be removed as the Chief Secretary of the State by the
Supreme Court on grave corruption charges. Clearly each State with varied
political hues has its own yardstick for what constitutes corruption!
* * * *
Congress Steals BJP’s Poll Plank
BSP is synonymous with Mayawati. Come election time, BSP is
now all set to become the acronym for Bijli
Sadak, Paani in Madhya Pradesh all over again. The Congress has stolen arch enemy BJP’s election plank, made
it its USP and plans to use it against the Saffron Sangh during the forthcoming
State Assembly elections. Hoping to
ride back to power on the anti-incumbency wave, the Congress has gone into aggressive
mode. Its MP from Guna, Jyotiraditya Scindia, has lambasted the State
Government for arresting farmers on charges of power theft. Recall, the BJP won the polls five years ago
by riding the crest of popular dissent
against the lack of bijli, poor sadaks and no paani. Now it is the Congress’
turn to play tit-for-tat!
* * * *
Unbelievable In Darjeeling
Darjeeling confirms the good old saying that anything
can happen in politics. Time was when the word of Subhas Ghisingh, the Gorkha
Supremo and presently caretaker administrator of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill
Council (DGHC), was law. But, incredibly enough, he was not allowed to enter Darjeeling on his return from New Delhi. Activists of the manifestly
popular Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) banned his entry into the Hills by setting
up barricades and road blocks on all routes leading to Darjeeling
from north Bengal. The Morcha wants separate
statehood for Darjeeling,
whereas Ghisingh is happy with the grant of a Sixth Schedule status to the hills.
Recall, that it was none other than Ghisingh who had set the hills ablaze in
the mid-eighties with his demand for a separate state comprising hills of Darjeeling. Eventually,
the Gorkha National Liberation Front settled for an autonomous Council. The GJM
now insists on a separate State of Gorkhaland
and has launched an indefinite bandh
in Darjeeling.
Will Ghisingh yield and join hands with his erstwhile followers of the GJM to
revive his original demand for Gorkhaland?
---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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