Round The States

New Delhi, 20 August, 2016

Amnesty & Sedition

WILL KARNATAKA GO SOFT?

By Insaf

Bengaluru, the IT hub of the nation, is engulfed in the sedition conundrum. With the Karnataka police filing an FIR against Amnesty International, the ruling Congress government appears to be caught on the wrong foot, worse by its own leaders. While Chief Minister Siddaramaiah initially had warned that anyone involved in anti-national activities won't be spared, he seems to have softened saying “things are not clear.” Senior leaders have stressed that simply raising slogans was not a fit case to be charged with sedition. This after the party was red faced seen to be doing a U-turn on the fresh sedition issue. Recall it had attacked the Centre for crushing dissent in the Kanhiya Kumar JNU case. Will the administration go slow now and the police take its own time? Will the ABVP, the youth wing of the BJP, which filed the complaint against Amnesty for the anti-India slogans read Azadi at the programme to project human suffering of the Kashmir conflict, fast forward the street protests? While the case gets national attention, Amnesty International is not taking chances with the safety of its offices and staff and has reportedly temporarily closed its offices in the country. It has maintained that its members were not involved in the sloganeering. Who will blink first? 

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Gujarat’s Dalit Uprising

It’s double whammy for Gujarat. After Hardik Patel’s Patidar stir, the Government has now to face the wrath of emerging Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and his flock. The protest against the shocking beating of four Dalits for skinning dead animals by the cow vigilantes in Una is menacingly growing. With thousands of Dalits, largely villagers from across the State, reaching Una on Monday last following a protest march from Ahmedabad on August 5, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani must be unnerved. The uprising saw Dalits vowing not to dispose animal carcass, no more manual scavenging and other “traditional imposed dirty jobs”. Give land to each Dalit family as an alternative is their demand or else “we launch a rail roko agitation” is their ultimatum. The time given is a month! What strategy will the administration adopt is the big question. Rupani must keep in mind that the Patidar agitation had his predecessor Anandiben under siege. The Dalit juggernaut will only grow. Gujarat has other States such as Maharashtra and Rajasthan worried.

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TN Assembly Turmoil

The bitter AIADMK-DMK rivalry has got the better of Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.  On Wednesday last, Speaker P Dhanapal suspended 80 DMK MLAs for a week, charging them with ‘ridiculing’ the chair and insulting Chief Minister Jayalalitha. Trouble began early that day when an AIADMK member made fun of MK Stalin’s Namakku Naame road show during elections saying it failed to capture power. The DMK members wanted the remarks be expunged, but the Speaker refused and in the pandemonium got the MLAs physically evicted. An angry Stalin along with his flock has since led protests, burned the Speaker’s effigy at various places and held a mock Assembly at Fort St. George. He has charged the Speaker’s action as ‘planned’ only to prevent the Opposition from cornering Jayalalithaa when she presents her Department’s budgetary demands. How the Assembly session pans out is anybody’s guess but there is no doubt that a healthy debate takes another beating.

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States Get Governors

The BJP keeps the yes-man tradition flying. It has appointed old and new party loyalists as Governors in three States and Union territory. V P Singh Badnore, a four time Rajasthan MLA, two terms MP and a former minister in Bhiaron Singh Shekhawat’s government has been given gubernatorial post in Punjab; Jagdish Mukhi, a BJP veteran from Delhi, six time MLA from Janakpuri and former Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly is to go to Andamans and Nicobar Islands; former Union Minister for Minorities Affairs and Rajya Sabha member Najma Heptulla, who obliged Modi by relinquishing the post without any fuss, following reaching the age of 76, will take oath as Manipur Governor and Banwari Lal Purohit, three times MP and Managing Editor of The Hitavada is off to Assam. While he wouldn’t be seen as a staunch loyalist, his claim to fame as reported is that he arranged a meeting between former RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi regarding the  construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya. Be that as it may, the BJP’s claim of being a ‘party with a difference’ gets further eroded with such appointments. Congress did it all the time and so do we, may well be its response to eyebrows raised.    

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No Respite For Kashmir

Kashmir is a sadly becoming a classic case of missing the woods for the trees by the powers-that-be! With Prime Minister Modi shifting focus on Balochistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir, the healing touch and reaching out to the youth as vociferously voiced in the recent Parliament session appears to have got lost. With a lecturer killed and 18 others injured on Thursday last, the death toll has risen to 64, with thousands injured in clashes since July 9. Curfew remains in force in Srinagar district, Anantnag and Pampore among other towns for the 42st day. The diatribe between Delhi and Islamabad doesn’t help improve the situation in the Valley. Worse, it seems to have spilled over to the ruling alliance, with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti ruffling feathers by saying Kashmiris don’t wield guns and resort to violence and that the situation today is because of problems in the nation's leadership since Nehru. This doesn’t absolve the BJP nor cuts ice with the youth. Rather, it makes a bigger mess. For peace sake the PDP-BJP alliance will do well not to get mired in the blame game.

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UP In Fast Track Poll Mode

Election season in Uttar Pradesh is warming up. While Assembly polls are due in mid-2017, the political buzz is that these may well be advanced. The main opposition party, BSP, and a big contender for wresting power, is preparing a case for the Election Commission to prepone the polls say by January-February next year. Reasons cited are that the family feud within the SP would lead to utter chaos in governance with a breakdown in administrative machinery and impact free and fair polls! Apparently, SP supremo Mulayam Singh is perturbed over his brother Shivpal being sidelined by son and Chief Minister Akhilesh’s government. The collision course could lead to a split. Not only has Akhilesh paid heed but is busy completing the flagship programmes and schemes in the State as he too sees early polls. The BJP at the Centre, he feels would not want results of the Punjab and Uttrakhand elections to have a bearing on UP. Not to be left behind, the Congress is all set to embark on two more yatras across the State from August 21. The positive response that party President Sonia Gandhi got in Varanasi during her road show has given it hope of being very much in the game. Winter promises to be sizzling hot in UP. ---INFA

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