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BJP Wins Karnataka:CONGRESS WORRIES ADD UP, by Insaf,29 May 2008 Print E-mail

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.      

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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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