Round The States
New Delhi, 29 May 2008
BJP Wins Karnataka
CONGRESS WORRIES
ADD UP
By Insaf
Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and her colleagues have reason
to worry. They have not only lost Karnataka, and allowed the BJP to go across
the Vindhayas, but they have fared miserably in the by-elections to the Lok
Sabha and the State Assembly held elsewhere. The Congress lost the Tura Lok
Sabha seat in Meghalaya, where the Nationalist Congress Party candidate Agatha
Sangma defeated her Congress rival by nearly a lakh votes, the Thane seat in Maharashtra to the Shiv Sena and the Hamirpur seat, in
Himachal to the BJP Chief Minister’s son Anurag Thakur. It also lost the
Assembly by-elections in South Amritsar, Punjab
to the Shiromani Akali Dal. In fact, since the Congress-led UPA Government came
to power at the Centre in 2004, it has lost 8 major States: Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Himachal and Gujarat. The only saving grace for the Congress is that
it won two (Indri and Gohana) of the three Assembly seats in Haryana.
More. Notwithstanding the tall
claims made by the BSP and the Samajwadi Party in Karnataka, both Parties failed
to make any impact and failed to win even
a single seat. Recall, the BSP had boasted of winning 15-20 seats and playing
the role of a king maker, whereas the SP, led by former Chief Minister S
Bangarappa, was hoping for a post-poll alliance with ‘like-minded parties’ to
form the Government. Far from it, the SP had to bite the dust. Perhaps now it
can consider a rapprochement with the Congress in the run-up to the General
elections next year. Small parties too, such as Lok Parivartan, formed by
IITians, which had put up a number of candidates in Bangalore and the Sarvodaya Karantaka Party,
formed by farmers and Dalits were unable to open their account for the Vidhan
Soudha.
Meanwhile, the BJP is in an upbeat mood. It sees the Karnataka
poll as a “turning point,” and as its campaign manager Arun Jaitley asserted “the
victory has given a pan-India presence to the Party.” In fact, Karnataka has
helped it create history. The BJP has its Government in South
India, for the first time, without any crutches or a coalition
partner, like it had the JD(S) in the previous election. Of the 224 seats, the BJP
won 110, Congress 80 (up from 65), the JD(S) 28 and Independents 6. The Saffron
Party has crossed the magic figure of 113 seats, a simple majority, by garnering
the support of five of the six Independents, much to the chagrin of Deve Gowda,
who tried hard to get the Congress to form a coalition Government. Now, it is
for the 65-year-old former RSS worker, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, to ensure
that the BJP delivers, specially on issues like inflation and internal
security. More importantly, he needs to ensure that his Government lasts its
full term.
* * * *
Gujjars Lay Siege
In & Around Rajasthan
Yet to come to terms with the terrorists’ attacks a
fortnight ago, Rajasthan is now literally under siege. This time it’s the
Gujjar community which is playing havoc with the law and order situation in the
BJP-led State. In the sixth day of their
agitation for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category, hundreds of
Gujjars, under the banner of Rajasthan Gurjjar Arakshan Sangharsg Samiti, have
descended on the streets, railway tracks in the State and even parts of Delhi and UP. Both the
Vasundhara Raje Government and the Centre have been put on high alert, with the
latter rushing additional para-military personnel. So far, 41 Gujjars have been
killed in police firing and hundreds arrested, but no solution appears in
sight. The Gujjar leader Colonel Kirori Singh Bainsala has rejected the State Government’s
offer of a Rs 282 crore special relief package. It seems to be now a tug-of-war
between Raje and Bainsala. Will the Centre come to the rescue?
* * * *
Junoon In Kashmir
It was junoon
alright, but of a different kind in the Kashmir Valley.
A crowd of about 10,000 people, mostly youth, gathered at the Dal Lake, in
Srinagar last
Sunday. No, it was not to protest, but for the biggest musical concert held in two
decades. The youth “rocked” to the rhythmic beats of Pakistan’s sufi band Junoon, which too had braved the terrorists’ threat. “Join
us in a musical jehad for peace and
ring the bells of harmony,” urged the band leader Salman Ahmad to the ecstatic
crowds. The concert was organised by the South Asia Foundation (SAF) to mark
the opening of the Institute of Kashmir Studies at the Kashmir
University and attended by the
Pakistani Human Rights Commission Chairman, SAF’s Pakistan chapter’s chairperson, the
Union Minister for Water Resources Saifuddin Soz among others. Hope the event,
will help defuse the hatred between Pakistan
and India.
* * * *
Cong Strategy To Counter Mayawati
The Dalits in UP are soon to receive a bag full of goodies
from the Centre. The UPA is all set to initiate a number of measures for
Dalits, including a Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana on the lines Ambedkar
villages in UP. All to stall the State Chief Minister Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj
Party from eating into the Congress Dalit vote bank in several States. A
16-member committee of Ministers on Dalit Affairs, headed by Foreign Minister
Pranab Mukherjee has recommended a revamp of the Bharat Nirman guidelines for
the development of villages with over 40 per cent Dalit population. The new
guidelines include: providing free uniforms, footwear and stationary to all SC
children before pre-matric, additional Navodaya Vidyalays in districts with
more than 20 per cent Dalit population, no fees for Dalit students enrolled in
higher classes etc. The ball is now in Mayawati’s court. Let’s see what she has
to offer now.
* * * *
Gun Licences for Women
Dacoit-infested Rewa district in Madhya Pradesh has come up
with a novel idea of empowering its women. It has awarded gun licences for the
first time to 19 of them, who were part of the village defence committee. At
the same time, nine of these women got awards for keeping their villages clean.
Guns, feels the District Collector would not only boost the confidence of women
but also send a strong message to the dacoits that they will not be able to
browbeat the women into submission. Additionally, with certain parts of Rewa
and some areas bordering UP suffering from the dacoit menace, the police at
times asks the village defence committees, which function under respective
police stations, to accompany the raiding party as they know the local terrain.
Clearly, Rewa women have shown the way! ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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