ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 7 June 2006

Mayawati Back  In Ring

CHANGING POLITICAL SCENE IN U.P.

By Insaf

In a fast changing political scenario in U.P. prior to the Assembly elections early next year, the BSP and its supremo Mayawati have started smiling. The former Chief Minister feels that her battle is already half-won in view of the difficulties Chief Minister Mulayam Singh is facing what with both the Congress and the BJP continuing to be too frail to bounce back before the Assembly poll.  Prominent leaders like V.P. Singh, Lalu Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Raj Babbar have joined hands to engineer Mulayam Singh’s downfall.  They hope to cut into Samajwadi Party’s winning Yadav-Muslim-Rajput vote- bank. Already, the Muslim clerics have formed a party in a determined bid to play a bigger role in the State’s politics.

The Mulayam Singh Government is also facing public apathy for its failure to control the deteriorating law and order situation, notwithstanding its claim of great achievements on the development front.  Mayawati, once written off in political circles, has emerged a forerunner.  While her main rivals are still mapping their overall strategies, Mayawati has gone ahead and not only selected her nominees but even planned her campaign.  Significantly, the upper castes are beginning to tilt in her favour. The BSP’s Brahmin face, S.C. Mishra, who played a major role in bringing the Brahmins to her party, has planned a whirlwind tour of the State with a brief to strengthen the upper-caste support. .

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Congress-NCP Confrontation

The Congress-NCP honeymoon in Maharashtra may well be over, if two recent events are any indication:  State Legislative Council poll and the NCP support for industrialist Rahul Bajaj, an independent candidate, for the Rajya Sabha against the Congress nominee.  The NCP supremo, Sharad Pawar, who continues to be in the UPA Government at the Centre, has been unhappy with the Congress leadership for long. But a confrontation took place in the Council elections when the Congress outmanoeuvered the NCP by fielding and getting four of its candidates elected as against three that its strength in the Assembly permitted. This cost the NCP a possible fourth seat which the party could have won by managing extra votes from smaller parties.  An upset Pawar then decided to support Bajaj – thereby encouraging a recent trend of more and more industrialists barging into the Rajya Sabha through their money power.

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Nitish’s War Against Crime

Bihar’s Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar appears determined to wage a war against crime, with no holds barred. Pursuing his battle diligently, the Chief Minister has not spared even those in his own party, the JD(U), who have criminal cases pending against them.  Kumar insists that nobody is above the law. His party’s Lok Sabha member and Parliamentary Board leader Prabhunath Singh has been firmly told that the law enforcement authority would not be asked to play down a criminal case against him.  The CM conveyed this before the fast-track court in Bhagalpur framed charges against Singh for a murder  involvement during the 1995 Assembly poll in Bihar.  Several other State-level leaders facing criminal charges have also sought the CM’s intervention.  But they too have been told loud and clear: Law must take its own course. 

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Amarinder On Safe Wicket

The Congress and its Chief Minister in Punjab, Amarinder Singh, are on a safe wicket in the run-up to the Assembly elections early next year.  Politically, the ruling party’s main challenger, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)-BJP combine is on a breaking point, following a confrontation between the Sikh high priests and the RSS.  Both sides have asked the leaders of the SAD (B) and the BJP to break their ten-year-old electoral alliance.  On the economic front too, the Amarinder Singh Government is increasingly getting popular, thanks to its several programmes for the welfare of farmers and industrialists.  The latest is a revolutionary  project, proposed to be implemented by the Reliance Industries. It would set up agro-making and processing hubs, health centre, schools, entertainment facilities across the State.

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Rane’s Commitment to Goans

The Congress Government in Goa, headed by Pratapsinh Rane completed one year in office on Wednesday with great satisfaction. Appropriately, the Chief Minister took advantage of the occasion to take a thorough stock of his Government’s performance, which he believes is “an integral part of good governance”.  He took the opportunity to also assure the people of the State that he was personally monitoring the implementation of his party’s election promises and would do so every year because, he asserted, “the completion of every year in Government triggers new hopes alongwith commitments and challenges.”  Rane’s slogan?  Top priority to improving the quality of life of the Goans by speedily implementing various welfare schemes and projects

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Congress-PDP Rift In J&K

The relationship between the coalition partners in J&K, the Congress and the PDP, is deteriorating day by day, ever since Ghulam Nabi Azad took over the Chief Ministership for the second half of the six-year tenure.  Things have come to such a pass that the PDP appears to be executing a plan to fail the Azad Government, in an apparent bid to show that its governance during the first three years was better.  Party Ministers are absenting themselves from crucial Cabinet and district developmental meetings. Most of them are out on party work and rarely attend office. Since all of them hold important portfolios – Finance, Planning, Agriculture, Public Health Engineering, Irrigation, Forest & Urban Development and Tourism – the Government work is suffering. The increasing indifference of the PDP Ministers has prompted the State Congress to voice its resentment openly.

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The NDA Government in Jharkhand, led by Arjun Munda, is comfortably in the saddle, contrary to speculation.  There is no threat to it at present from the former CM, Babulal Marandi, who resigned from the BJP and the Lok Sabha recently. He has publicly announced that he is not interested in getting Munda removed right away.  Nor has his revolt against the BJP been a gain for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the UPA alliance.  His partner Stephen Marandi, with whom he has floated a new party, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, has also quit as the UPA Convener in the State.  The duo’s main purpose at present is to mobilize tribal support for their new party over the next six months or so.  While they consolidate the new party’s strength, they will also ensure that the UPA under Shibu Soren does not dislodge Munda’s NDA Ministry. They claim they only want to give a corruption-free Government to the State through by their new party.

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Red Alert On Nepal Border

Having confirmed that the three militants who planned the attack on the RSS headquarters at Nagpur last week sneaked into India through Nepal, the entire 750-km porous border has been put on a red alert. The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) has stepped up surveillance for which the Centre has sanctioned expansion of the force for setting up of more check-posts along the border covering four States of U.P., Uttaranchal, Bihar and West Bengal.  It is proposed to have check-posts every four kilometers. Five new battalions are to be added to the present strength of nine battalions to patrol the entire border.  Modernisation of the force is also planned. This would include induction of sophisticated weapons and strengthening of intelligence network.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)