Round The States

New Delhi, 6 June 2007

Reservations The Bane

GURJJARS’ DEMAND TAKES UGLY TURN

By Insaf

The violent week-long agitation by the Gurjjars of Rajasthan, vigorously supported by the community in parts of the adjoining States and the Union Capital has been withdrawn. Thanks to the tactical handling of the explosive situation by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, belatedly though.  But the protests which cost more than 40 lives,  injuries to 400 persons and destruction of properties worth hundreds of crores, have left unresolved a unique issue of great national concern: demand for downgradation of caste and community to gain backward status. The Gurjjars of Rajasthan have been pleading for the last few years for the status of Scheduled Tribes in preference to the present OBC status, obviously for the sake of securing greater benefits like reservations in Government services, public sector enterprises and educational institutions available to the STs. At present only the Meenas enjoy these benefits in Rajasthan.

The incredible demand for securing a lower listing in the caste hierarchy started some two decades ago in the South. Tamil Nadu’s Venniyar community then violently agitated for recognition as the Most Backward Class (MBC). It also demanded 20 per cent reservations, which was conceded to them by Chief Minister Karuuanidhi in 1989. Vote -bank politics gave a fresh thrust to this trend when Karunanidhi included his own caste, Isai Vellaler in the list of OBC alongwith the Venniyars. Karnataka’s Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities followed suit. Both agitated violently to get their backward status reinstated when a Government-constituted Commission removed them from the State OBC list. Caste and community divide is clearly beginning to snowball and even turn violent as reflected in the last week’s agitation of Gurjjars.

The Gurjjars agitation may not have taken an ugly turn. But matters went out of hand when their demand for inclusion in the ST list was opposed by the Meena community, which alone enjoys the benefits of Scheduled Tribes reservations in Rajasthan. They are estimated to be about 12 per cent of the State’s population, as against the Gurjjars six per cent. Moreover, they have a political clout too in Jaipur and New Delhi. In fact, CM Raje had quietly asked her two Meena Ministers at least two months before the agitation to survey all the 33 districts and seek their opinion about the Gurjjars’ demand. Only two districts, Dausa and Sawai Mansingh, reportedly favoured this. This put the Gurjjar leaders on the defensive and constrained them to agree to the constitution of a three-member Committee, headed by a retired High Court judge to look into their demand, which Raje too had promised three years ago.

*                             *                                            *                                               *

Congress Wins Goa

Goa has given the Congress Party a much-needed shot in the arm after the mauling it received in the recent UP poll and earlier in Punjab and Uttarakhand. In fact, the party and its outgoing Chief Minister, Pratapsinh Rane, have reasons to rejoice. It was not only able to beat the anti-incumbency factor, but also an election-eve revolt by two powerful regional satraps, Churchill Alemao and A. Monserrate, together with six leaders contesting as independents. The party has won 16 seats (same as its tally in 2002) in addition to three, bagged by its alliance partner Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party. The Congress-NCP coalition with 19 seats in the 40-member Assembly is comfortably placed to form a stable Government with the help of two independents, one of whom is Vishwajit Rane, son of Pratapsinh Rane. The main opposition BJP performed below expectations, winning only 14 seats, against 17 it won in the 2002 Assembly poll.

*                             *                                            *                                               *

Byelection Blues

The Congress has also done fairly well in the byelections to seven Assembly and one Lok Sabha seats across six States. It has won four Assembly constituencies and, what is more, also wrested the Shivpuri Assembly seat from the ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh. This victory is seen as a warning to the BJP ahead of the Assembly poll in the State next year. The victory against the ruling party candidate is a personal triumph for Jyotiraditya Scindia, M.P., who managed the poll almost single handed. The Congress has, however, suffered a setback in Himachal Pradesh, which faces the Assembly poll later this year. The BJP’s former Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal not only managed to stave off the ruling Congress challenge for the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat, but won the poll handsomely by trouncing Cabinet Minister Ram Lal Thakur by a massive margin of 80,000 votes.

The BJP did well in Chhattisgarh too where it wrested the Khairagarh Assembly seat from the Congress and Malkharode seat from the BSP. These results have reversed the fortune for the BJP which had lost the Lok Sabha bypoll earlier this year. However, the .BJP suffered a setback in Jharkhand where former Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari retained the Daltonganj Assembly seat as an Independent.  For the Congress, there is also good news from the north-eastern State of Manipur. There it has wrested the Khamdrakpan Assembly seat from the NCP and retained Khangalok. This has given the Congress a simple majority of its own, with a tally of 31 seats in the 60-member Assembly. The Congress is presently leading a Secular Progressive Front Government with 35 members in the House.

*                             *                                            *                                               *

BJP’s New Experiment In M.P.

The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh has started preparing in advance for the Assembly poll, about 18 months away. The State party is undertaking a unique plan to set up  “Kamal Clubs” in all the districts and Block. The basic idea is to draw its potential voters first to the playgrounds and eventually to the polling booths. The party has planned to acquire from the local authorities three to six acres of land in each district and two to four acres in each block for these sports clubs. The clubs will create facilities for both indoor and outdoor games. Additionally, regular cultural and social programmes would be organized to project the party’s ideology and achievements. The clubs also proposed to be financed by donations by the party leaders. All the party MPs will be asked to donate a minimum of Rs. 8 lakh and the MLAs Rs. 3 lakh, presumably out of the funds at their disposal under the local area development schemes.

*                                      *                                            *                                       *

Narendra Modi In Difficulty

The BJP’s most controversial yet most successful Chief Minister, Narendra Modi  is facing increasing dissidence in the run-up to the Assembly poll later in the year. During the last fortnight and more, several dissidents have publicly targeted the Chief Minister and his style of functioning. In fact, dissidence is so strong (and growing) that the State party is apprehensive of taking disciplinary action against those who have publicly criticized Modi’s governance. Clearly, it does not want to displease some of the State’s senior party leaders when the Assembly elections are round the corner. The latest to take on Modi is the influential Koli community. Surendranagar MP and veteran Koli leader Somabhai Patel created a stir the other day when he went to the media and openly attacked the CM.

*                             *                                            *                                               *

DMK’s Rift Complete

The rift in the feuding family of the DMK supremo Karunanidhi is complete. Even as the Marans (inlaws of Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s sister) quietly observed a much-hyped family function in Chennai last month, none from the DMK’s first family attended the function, which many hoped would end the ongoing feud in the party. The signal was clear. There was no room for conciliation. There was further confirmation a week later, when the Marans gave Karunanidhi’s birthday party a miss, despite the fact that the former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran had publicly stated that he had nothing against his grandfather-in-law. In fact, he had told a television channel on the day he was directed by the party to put in his papers that he would not speak a word against him. The rift between the first two top Dravidian families is bound to weaken the DMK in future electoral battles. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)