ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 1 February 2006

Union Cabinet Expansion

CORRECTING REGIONAL IMBALANCE

By Insaf

The new Union Council of Minister is States-centric, as it should be. Punjab, Kerala, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh which were unrepresented until now have been given their due place. Priority has been given to the States where Assembly elections are due in the next three or four months.  This is reflected in the inclusion of veteran Vyalar Ravi from Kerala, G.K. Vasan from Tamil Nadu and overdue upgradation to the Cabinet rank of Santosh Mohan Dev from Assam.  What is more, as many as seven Ministers have been picked up from the Council of States (Rajya Sabha).  It is another matter that the Rajya Sabha members invariably fail in their duty to raise in the House issues of their States.

The Ministry’s expansion and reshuffle has, however, not fully corrected the regional imbalance.  Smaller States like Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Goa are still  unrepresented.  The Congressmen in the new and hilly State of Uttaranchal are especially unhappy about the treatment meted out to their senior leaders.  First, the party’s tallest leader and Chief Minister Narain Datt Tiwari was not included in the Congress Working Committee (CWC).  Remember, he stayed  away from the party’s Hyderabad Plenary.  Second, another senior party leader, Harish Rawat has been ignored once again.  His name was doing the rounds for a Cabinet berth. Tiwari is now tipped for a gubernatorial assignment. Rawat may succeed him as the Chief Minister.

*                          *                                               *                                               *

Maharashtra Congress Mauls Tiger

Maharashtra Congress has been justly rewarded with seven berths in the Union Cabinet for its superb performance in the recent byelections to three Assembly and one Lok Sabha seats.  It swept all the bypolls, emerging as the largest party in the State Assembly with 72 MLAs.  More significantly, the Congress partner in the ruling Government, the NCP of Sharad Pawar, has been relegated to the second position with 71 MLAs, while Shiv Sena has been reduced to 57 MLAs, only three more than the BJP’s.  The Assembly polls were necessitated by the resignation of three Shiv Sena MLAs, who joined the Congress alongwith Narayan Rane. The Congress victory has not only caused a serious setback to the Sena Chief Bal Thackarey, but also provided the State Congress a psychological advantage over the NCP.

*                           *                                               *                                               *

Congress Loses Power In Karnataka

The Congress Party’s bypoll triumph in Maharashtra is the antithesis of its failure in Karnataka where its coalition Government with Janata Dal (S) has suffered a nasty fall,    thanks to the JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy.  He broke away with a majority of his party MLAs and joined hands with the BJP to stake a claim to Chief Ministership.  Eldest son of former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and a first-timer in the Assembly, Kumaraswamy had no difficulty in getting an invite from Governor T.N. Chatturvedi to form the JD(S)-BJP coalition Government. He is now required to prove his majority on the floor of the House within eight days of being sworn-in as the Chief Minister on February 3, along with the BJP’s Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa. He will lead the Government for 20 months and the BJP for the remaining 20 months thereafter.

*                           *                                               *                                               *

Poll Scene Hots Up In Chennai

Tamil Nadu is increasingly in the grip of the forthcoming Assembly poll in April-May. The main contestants for power, the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition, comprising the DMK, Congress and the PMK, are now busy firming up alliances and poll strategies. Chief Minister Jayalalitha is going to outline her poll strategy at the party’s General Council meeting in Chennai today, February 4.  She has already drawn up a list of her achievements during the last one year. She has doled out a series of concessions, freebies and sops to wide sections of the people. The DMK-led Opposition has kick-started its campaign by highlighting the Supreme Court’s indictment of the Government in the recent MGR Nagar stampede that took 42 lives.

*                           *                                               *                                               *

NSCN (I-M) Gets Tough

The rebel Naga group, National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) is increasingly assuming the role of a tough bargainer.  It took the Indian negotiators, led by Union Minister Oscar Fernandes, four days to get the Naga outfit to agree to extend the eight-year-old ceasefire by another six months.  Had this not been extended it would have expired on Tuesday night, and the NSCNn (IM) cadres would have again gone back into the jungles.  The Naga leaders kept the Central team waiting till the eleventh hour before agreeing to sign the ceasefire extension only for six months, and not one year which the Centre had desired. This too was done only after the Government team conceded “insufficient progress” in the settlement of the Naga issue over the last eight years.

The agreement signed between the Centre’s interlocutor Padmanabhaiah and NSCN (IM) General Secretary T. Muviah has stipulated that the political negotiations would be carried forward “expeditiously”, taking “new initiatives”.  The Naga leaders are repeatedly sticking to their demand for integration of Naga-inhabited areas of adjacent Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, a proposal which is vehemently opposed by the concerned States and may even lead to a bloodshed in the region.  The rebels also want New Delhi to control the armed forces which, they allege, were helping the rival NSCN (Khaplang) faction.  The army has also been charged of “targeting” the outfit’s cadres in areas outside Nagaland.  They have reportedly asked the Centre to respond positively to their demands before the six-month truce ends.  It would not be extended anymore, they have communicated. 

*                          *                                               *                                               *

Rajnath’s Plan for U.P.

The new BJP President, Rajnath Singh has drawn up a strategy to revive the party’s popularity in U.P., where the Assembly elections are due early next year: First he has projected Kalyan Singh as the next Chief Minister. He has described him as an efficient leader whose tenure as the CM at Lucknow was the best period.  Rajnath Singh believes that the BJP has need to re-work its image on the basis of performances of its previous governments in U.P.  While projecting Kalyan Singh as the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate, Rajnath Singh is not averse to the continuation of Kesri Nath Tripathi as the State Party Chief.  He completes his term in July.  The combination of Thakur Rajnath, Lodh Kalyan and Brahmin Kesri is expected to cut into the vote banks of the Samajwadi Party, BSP and the Congress.

*                           *                                               *                                               *

PM Talks With Kashmiri Groups

The dialogue process between the Prime Minister and the Kashmiri groups is being speeded up in an effort to complete it ahead of President Bush’s visit to India in March. The process was started with the Hurriyat Conference in September last and the PM had the next round of talks with the leader of the People’s Conference, Sajjad Lone on January 14.  The next group to be invited by the PM soon is the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), headed by Mohammad Yasin Malik.  These talks will be followed by invitations to Shabir Ahmad Shah of the J&K Democratic Freedom Party and Hashim Qureshi of the Democratic Liberation Party.  These rounds of talks are expected to provide the Centre a fair idea of the viewpoints of all the Kashmiri groups. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)