Round The States

New Delhi, 17 November 2018

Sabiramala Entry

ALL EYES ON KERALA TODAY

By Insaf

Nagging suspense on women’s entry into the Sabiramala continues to haunt Kerala. In fact, all eyes will be on the temple today, as it opens again for the next three months. With the Supreme Court refusing to stay its earlier verdict lifting the age restriction on women’s entry to the temple, women activists are gearing up to enter the temple, defying Opposition parties, Hindu organisations and believers, who continue to demand that the entry of young women not be allowed during the pilgrim season. In a conundrum, the Pinarayi Vijayan government has said with SC verdict remaining as it is, it would “look into the legal aspects.” While that is hardly saying anything, it’s a big test for the administration to ensure law and order and not have a repeat of the recent two separate occasions, when violent protests stopped women in the age of 10 and 50 years from entering the Lord Ayappa shrine.

Undeniably, it is a tough call as the shrine attracts lakhs of devotees mainly from neighbouring States of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. In particular it is worth watching whether the government would provide security as requested to Maharashtra-based ‘right to pray’ campaigner Trupti Desai and her team of six women to ‘exercise their right to pray guaranteed by the Constitution.’ Recall two years ago Desai successfully led women to enter the 400-year-Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra, where entry of menstruating women too was barred for centuries. She has resolved not to leave Kerala till they are allowed to offer worship. Other NGOs will too make their bid. Will God’s own country be marred yet again?

*                                               *                                               *                                               *

Chhattisgarh Hopeful Start

Chhattisgarh gives democracy reason to celebrate. Polling in 18 constituencies of the 90, in the first phase on Monday last had an encouraging turnout—70 per cent. It went beyond expectations as these constituencies in over eight districts have been marked with the worst Maoist violence in the country. This time too there have been Naxal attacks, wherein in the past two weeks at least 14 people were killed! But despite this there is hope. The voter said a big no to the Maoists call for a poll boycott and the threat issued of physical violence against those who went out to vote. In the badlands of Bastar and Dandewada the voter turnout was fairly good-- between 48-58 per cent. Obviously, winds of change seem to be blowing and what is now more important is that the political dispensation reward them for their courage and give them a better tomorrow of real time development. The Congress, BJP and the alliance of CPI-BSP-Janata Congress Chhattisgarh have been campaigning aggressively for the throne. Whoever emerges the winner must ensure the voters’ that their stand up against the Naxals was worth it.

*                                               *                                               *                                               *

Telangana Gamble

A big question mark hangs over Telangana polls: whether TRS Chief and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s gamble will pay off? Remember, he dissolved the Assembly nearly six months ahead of the election schedule to what capitalise believing his party would capitalize on ‘tremendous goodwill’ and would give the Opposition less time to form a formidable force. Reports emanating from election trails, however, suggest the TRS is in a shaky position. More so, as not only is the anti-incumbency factor playing up, but with the Congress having an understanding with Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, the going will be tough. On top of that Telangana Jana Samithi and the CPI too have joined in the seat-sharing formula. For starters, the tickets have been given to candidates to balance out key sections of the society and the caste card kept in sharp focus. Further, there is a good section of the minority community which is having second thoughts on KCR, given his proximity to the BJP, which is no hidden secret. Then there is a known factor of ‘inaccessibility of KCR’, even to his ministers and cadres, which at this moment does not seem to change. And while the TRS is confident of a comeback, political pundits are doubtful. Will his stars oblige?        

*                                               *                                               *                                               *

Karnataka Goof-Up

Karnataka is in a soup. Its high tech city and capital, Bengaluru, has had a major glitch, wherein election authorities are reported to have rejected ‘voter IDs’ to thousands of people after listing them as ‘not Indian citizens’. Could this southern State have so many foreigners applying for voter ID was a baffling question, which prompted an analyst to dig into the improbability. This forced the State election authority to re-open the cases of rejected applications. Alas, there was a major goof-up. Apparently, during summary revision of the electoral rolls in October 2017, a total of 2.14 lakh applications for voter IDs were received. Of these 22,737 were rejected and 3,240 of these in Bengaluru alone were rejected on grounds they were ‘not Indian citizens’. This raised eyebrows where even an American think tank suggested in an article that an ‘unusually large number of Muslim adults were missing from the voters list in Karnataka as of March.’ But in a fresh batch of February, 48,692 applications were rejected of which 6,204 were again listed as ‘not Indian citizens’, suggesting there was no clear pattern to target Muslims. More digging took place and it now emerges that during data entry officers concerned chose ‘not Indian citizen’ instead of ‘non-resident’ option. The authorities are now rectifying the blunder. Sooner the better!      

*                                               *                                               *                                               *

MPs Versus MLAs

MPs needn’t feel guilty when it comes to attendance for they are doing one better than the MLAs. It’s not their claim but an analysis following a study carried out by PRS Legislative Research at two different levels. It revealed low performance of Legislative Assemblies across States, with their MLAs working much lesser number of days in a year than the Parliamentarians. An analysis undertaken of 26 States\UT in six year period (2011 to 2016) showed that the Assemblies on an average sat for just 28 days in a year, whereas both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members sat on an average of 70 days. A big divide, but one aspect was common -- majority of the sittings were during the Budget session. Of the States analysed, 13 including Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Haryana and West Bengal sat on an average for 28 days, whereas some others like Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha and Maharashtra sat between 42-46 days. Delhi, Sikkim and Nagaland were at the bottom of the rung. While the legislatures can debate their performance, the statistics no doubt should make people seethe. In 365 days, their issues and that too of public importance appear to be of little value among their elected representatives!---INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)