India News and Features Alliance (INFA) - Upcoming Assembly Poll:BATTLE OF CROREPATIS IN PUNJAB, by Insaf, 31 January 2007

The upcoming Assembly poll in Punjab on February 13 showcases a scandalous aspect of India’s public life sixty years after independence. The State and its hard-working farmers are well known for their prosperity. But the mind-boggling affluence its political leaders enjoy today, as reflected in the assets almost all candidates in the fray, have declared at the time of filing nominations, is bizarre. Most leaders, as a wag puts it, are deeply involved in “cash and aish”. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh may justify as the Maharaja of Patiala his immediate clan’s worth of Rs.100 crore. But the declarations of most other leaders are stunning. Surprisingly, the Akali Dal (Badal) supremo and former Chief Minister and his wife have joint assets worth only Rs.9 crore. However, Akali heavy-weight and former SGPC Chief Bibi Jagir Kaur is worth more than a whopping 80 crores. Punjab’s Dalit PCC Chief Dullo is also a crorepati.

Whether or not the declarations by the State’s top leaders and most others who are widely known to be men of crores, are correct is anybody’s guess. Their veracity can be determined only through the long process of election petitions in courts under the Evidence Act. Unfortunately, there is no punishment for wrong declarations under the moral code of conduct for the elections, as a result of which most candidates get away with murder. At any rate, with resources available in plenty to the candidates of the two main contestants for power, the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)-BJP combine, are involved in high-voltage campaigning with no holds barred. Nothing seems to be defamatory or objectionable any more, going by the advertisements carried by responsible leading newspapers. A pre-poll survey suggests a five-point lead for the Congress over its traditional rivals, the Akali-BJP combine.

The ruling Congress is playing safe in the Uttarakhand Assembly poll. It has fielded all its 40 sitting MLAs to ensure unity in the State unit, which has been eluding the party for long. It has also taken one other caution for a united poll battle, mainly against the BJP. All the aspirants for Chief Ministership---N.D. Tiwari, State Party Chief Harish Rawat, and former Union Minister Satpal Maharaj---have been kept out of the poll fray. The overall strategy advocated by Tiwari, despite Rawat’s proposal to axe about 15 MLAs to counter the anti-incumbency factor, is however, likely to upset the Brahmins who constitute about 30-35 per cent of the population. Consequently, the BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate, former Union Minister B.C. Khanduri, who is himself a Brahmin, may get many Brahmin votes. Importantly, the Rajputs have not been neglected. They have been given more seats as they constitute about 55-60 per cent of the population.

The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) is upbeat, now that Chief Minister Mulayam Singh has convincingly demonstrated his majority in the Assembly, the second time within a month. He got the support of 223 MLAs against the required 201 in the trust vote. At the same time, he lived up to his billing as a super poacher. He weaned away as many as 18 MLAs---eight from the BJP, three from the BSP, two from the RJD and three more independents. The resounding victory has improved the Samajwadi Party’s rating once more in the run-up to the Assembly poll in March-April. This is despite the Government’s visible failure on the law and order front in recent weeks, one after the other---violence during the recent civic polls, serial killings of children in Noida and failure to curb communal violence in Gorakhpur and Varanasi.

Farmers in the debt-wracked Vidarbha region of Maharashtra continue to take the extreme step of committing suicide, notwithstanding the increasing balm of compensation and promises of aid both by the Centre and the State Government. In 48 hours earlier in the week, eleven more farmers killed themselves, taking the toll in the first month of the year to a mammoth 62. The number of suicides during 2006, as officially recorded was 1050. The Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti and some other farm activists have claimed that Rs.5,000 crore distributed as relief by the Union and the State Governments has brought little respite in the cotton belt and the distress levels are still mounting. Cotton cultivation is clearly unremunerative.

Goa’s Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane has bowed to popular pressure against the State’s Regional Plan 2011, notified in 2005, and denotified it. The Opposition parties as also several organizations and NGOs had demanded its scrapping. The popular opposition to the plan, a ten-year policy document, was against demographic changes, restrictions on settlement zones, land conservation, changes in fish landing structures and forest production pattern. Also strongly opposed by the people was the massive size of the surface utilization for promoting industrial development. The Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry opposed the scrapping. Nevertheless, the Chief Minister decided to undertake a fresh exercise to redraft the Regional plan in view of the popular demand for retaining Goa’s character as a global tourist attraction.

Assam and its Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, are boldly going ahead with the National Games in Guwahati on schedule, from February 9 to 19. Notwithstanding, the ULFA’s repeated opposition and the spate of violence it has unleashed. The situation had become volatile following a series of bomb blasts triggered by the insurgent group. This raised serious doubts about the security of the participants. Gogoi promptly assured the Indian Olympic Association to full security to the sports teams on and off the ground. Gogoi has also claimed that the Games would be the biggest ever, with as many as 32 sports events lined up; four more than what the last Games in Hyderabad. Meanwhile, Gogoi has appealed to the ULFA once more to lift its boycott call and cooperate in making the prestigious event in Assam a glorious success.

Tatas’ massive Rs.15,400-crore steel project near Gopalpur port on sea in Ganjam district, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s constituency, is finally on. The controversial project has been cleared by the Supreme Court, which rejected last week a petition filed by the Kalinga Power Corporation Ltd. (KPCL) against the Orissa Government’s decision to allot the land to the steel major. The State Government has allotted 1,000 acres of land to the KPCL in 1994 for a 500 MW power project. This allotment was cancelled in 2004 by the Patnaik Government on the ground that the KPCL failed to pay for the land. The Government thereupon allotted the land to the Tatas, who have already paid the entire cost.

The Congress Government in Haryana, led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has drawn up a massive citizen service scheme through the use of information technology. As many as 101 “e-disha” centres in urban areas and 1159 centres in the rural areas across the State are proposed to be set up in the next few months to make the multiple services of the Government more easily accessible and also to open up new avenues for unemployed youth in information technology. Initially, 39 services like those related to driving licences, vehicle registration, land record copy, arms licences, house tax, birth and death certificates would be provided through these centres. The people will also get reliable and timely information about Government policies and programmes, as well as about the redressal of the citizens’ grievances. ---INFA