ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 29 March 2006

Offices-Of-Profit Scam

CONTROVERSY MOVES TO STATES

By Insaf

The controversy over the office of profit, which caused an abrupt end of the Budget session of Parliament, has now moved to the States.  The Opposition parties in various States have stepped up their offensive against the ruling party MLAs holding offices of profit. It is more so in States like Jharkhand where the ruling BJP-led NDA has a wafer-thin majority with 43 MLAs in the 81-member Assembly.  Under pressure from the Opposition parties, Governor Syed Sibtey Razi has sent to the Election Commission the names of as many as 19 MLAs whose cases for disqualification may be considered. Of these, 14 belong to the BJP, four to the UPA and one to the JD(U).  Even though the Election Commission has found the list lacking in information, the Arjun Munda Government has run into difficulty.

The controversy has surfaced equally prominently in West Bengal, Tripura, Uttaranchal and Arunachal Pradesh. The Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee has referred the cases of 11 CPM MPs to the President. The Uttaranchal BJP has decided to move the High Court to recur the disqualification of 18 ruling party Congress MLAs. In Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP has petitioned the Governor to disqualify 20 MLAs, including 16 of the ruling Congress.  Tripura Governor D.S. Sahay has referred 14 CPM MLAs to the Election Commission. Meanwhile, these States, as also U.P., Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana and Punjab have already taken protective steps to raise the number of offices in the exempted list through legislation.  

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Kudos For Modi

Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi has earned kudos for governance once more.  He remains unconcerned about the office-of-profit controversy.  Since he assumed power in December 2002, he has steered clear of appointing party MPs or MLAs to the Government-owned enterprises, Boards or Corporations.  Modi believes that political nominations only breed corruption and encourage interference by elected members in the functioning of Government bodies.  His stand, despite protests from several BJP MLAs and MPs from the State, has produced results. Senior IAS officers have turned around some of the corporations, including the Gujarat State Fertiliser Corporation, Gujarat Electricity Board and the Gujarat Alkaline and Chemicals Ltd.

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Poll Issues In Assam

Despite the storm over the offices-of-profit issue, major political parties have deployed their top leaders to campaign for the crucial Assembly poll in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.  In Assam where no party has retained power since 1977, the Congress is hoping to break the trend.  Top leaders, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party Chief Sonia Gandhi have been campaigning in the State for the two-phase poll on April 3 and 10. For the first time the party leaders, including Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi have conceded, like their main rivals AGP and the BJP, that illegal migrants and militancy are major poll issues.  Also for the first time the parties in the fray have been talking about unemployment, roads, bridges, power and social security.

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CPM Setback In W. Bengal

The CPM has suffered a setback in West Bengal with the passing away of its State Secretary, Anil Biswas, prior to the five-phase Assembly poll for 294 seats on April 17, 22, 27, May 3 and 5.  Biswas knew the party organization down to the grassroots and did the tweaking on the ground all these 29 years the Left Front has been continuously in office. This responsibility has now fallen on Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee who has a challenging task to convince the cadres of his policies in governance.  He is the mascot for the CPM’s changing face in West Bengal and follows pro-reforms and pro-industry ideology. Despite this, Buddhadev is unlikely to face problem in leading the Left Front to power for the seventh time in succession, given the fact that Mamata Banerjee has failed to form a “grand alliance” with the Congress and stayed with the BJP.

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Advantage LDF In Kerala

Now that infighting in the State CPM is over, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) is bracing up for regaining power in Kerala.  The Left campaign for the three-phase Assembly poll on April 22, 29 and May 3 will now be led by the CPM veteran V.S. Achuthanandan, who rode back to the helm on a popular outcry against a plot by his inner party rivals to write his political obituary. The intra-party revolt in the CPM had prompted the ruling Congress-led UDF to patch up with the breakaway outfit of Karunakaran, the Democratic Indira Congress (DIC), on the latter’s terms.  But the ruling Front has now run into difficulty with the AIADMK fielding candidates in as many 52 of the 140 Assembly constituencies of the State.  This would mean advantage to the LDF.

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DMK Well-Placed In Tamil Nadu

In Tamil Nadu, it seems to be a neck-and-neck race between the two major Dravidian prties, the ruling Anna DMK and the DMK, to win the Assembly poll on May 8.  The DMK Chief Karunanidhi is desperately trying to regain power. He has given an ultimatum to his supporters that “if the DMK does not win this election it will never be able to raise its head for another 100 years.”  Despite the MDMK Chief Vaiko deciding to join hands with Jayalalitha’s AIADMK, Karunanidhi seems to be better placed.  He is leading a formidable alliance, comprising the Congress, the two Left parties, PMK and a few minor parties.  The only factor that may go against the DMK is that it had to concede 110 of the 234 seats to its allies – Congress 48, PMK 31, CPM 13 and CPI 10 and others 8.

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BJP Backs Telangana

The new BJP President Rajnath Singh’s support for a separate Telangana State has upset several party leaders, especially from Andhra Pradesh. He told a meeting of party workers at Hyderabad the other day that the Central Committee of the party was “fully positive” towards the demand and wanted Telangana from the “inner core” of its heart. This categorical assertion raises the lid on the Kakinada Resolution which has been kept in cold storage since 1998 by the BJP High Command, only because of the party’s association with Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which supported the BJD-led NDA Government from outside and was strongly opposed to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.  The BJP support has now given a new impetus to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS.).

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Virbhadra’s Plea To PM

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has personally taken up with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the State’s protest against the Centre’s decision to curtail certain incentives to the special category States.  Describing the decision as “unjustified and highly discriminatory”, the CM told the PM that incentive packages were granted to special category States for a period of ten years in 2003.  But in the case of Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Sikkim, the excise duty exemption, the main incentive to promote industrial development, had been curtailed from 2013 to 2007. Thanks to representations by adjoining Punjab and Haryana, apprehending shifting of industries from their States. Virbhandra Singh has pointed out that no industrial unit has moved to Himachal from these States.

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Regional Rift In Maharashtra

The widening regional rift in Maharashtra and its political repercussions are threatening the State Government’s rosy fiscal plans, as spelled out by Finance Minister Jayant Patil.  In order to be fair in distributing the State’s resources across the agro-rich and politically strong Western Maharashtra and the impoverished Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, Governor S.M. Krishna had directed the Government under Article 371 of the Constitution to allocate around Rs.1,000 crore for various irrigation projects in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions.  This has not been done by Patil so far.  The Opposition parties are therefore up in arms against the Government for ignoring the Governor’s directive.  More heat is expected to be generated on the issue in the days to come.---INFA

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