<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>EC's next battle </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
That democracy has prevailed in Bihar at the end of a bitter year of discord is more important than who won or lost after two rounds of elections and an interregnum marked by anarchy. The Election Commission deserves to be commended for preserving the Constitution's fundamental commitment to people's power.
The role played by the special election observer, Mr KJ Rao, must go down as one of the most glorious chapters in any democracy's struggle to assert the power of the ballot over forces of autocracy. But, in the long war against anti-democratic elements, Bihar was just a minor battle.
<b>A far bigger one lies six months later, when West Bengal goes to poll. Reports indicate that the morale of democratic forces in that State has been considerably bolstered by Mr Rao's success in ensuring free and fair election in Bihar. </b>
As this paper has asserted on various occasions over the past year, democracy is in serious trouble in the Marxist-ruled State. The "secret" behind the Left Front's unbroken stint in power since 1977 is out: Massive vote fraud marked by terrorisation of the electorate and manipulation of the voters' list.
To its credit, the Election Commission has already set the ball rolling by rejecting the panel of bureaucrats to fill the slot for the State's Chief Electoral Officer and choosing, instead, an official with an exemplary track record. <b>Meanwhile, a revision of the voters' list is underway in West Bengal and the last date for the conclusion of the exercise has already been extended twice</b>.
However, the distortions that are only to be expected in a State where the entire administration and police is politicised, are beginning to manifest themselves again. The Election Commission must take stock of these developments because "rigging at source" is a classic Marxist gameplan which decides the outcome of an election well before the D-Day.
It should make it abundantly clear to the Kolkata regime that no stone would be left unturned in ensuring the preservation of people's power - even if it means taking unprecedented steps like bringing in external officials, holding elections under President's rule and countermanding elections for entire constituencies if even one case of vote fraud is detected.
The Election Commission is one of the last Indian institutions left with a semblance of credibility. The people would like it to develop further. Indeed, it should immediately take steps to prevent freebooters from romping home. For instance, there is nothing to ensure that the agents of contending parties are not ejected from booths by musclemen of dominant parties. Then, the issue of reaching voter identity cards to all stakeholders in Indian democracy, too, is yet to be addressed.
The Election Commission must focus on these lacunae immediately instead of proposing "reforms" like banning history-sheeters from the electoral fray or forcing parties to maintain fiscal discipline. It should leave this to other institutions of the state. For, there are far too many mice to catch, and there is not enough time.
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Pioneer.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>In Bengal, CEC Tandon sets off lal alarm </b>
Saugar Sengupta/ KolkataÂ
Chief Election Commissioner BB Tandon on Tuesday set alarm bells ringing in the CPI(M) headquarters at Alimuddin Street here when he declared that Election Commission will walk many extra miles to ensure free and fair polls in West Bengal.
Speaking to newspersons in Siliguri, Mr Tandon warned those in power that the "Bihar experiment" was not the only method of conducting polls in West Bengal and putting an end to the Left's "scientific rigging."
Assembly elections are due in West Bengal in early-2006. <b>There is nothing called "Bihar line" in the Election Commission's phrase book, Chief Election Commissioner BB Tandon told the mediapersons refusing to bare his strategies in West Bengal</b>. However, the CEC said he was sitting with the officials and receiving views of various parties and would evolve an <b>"appropriate strategy for conducting free and fair elections in the State."</b>
<b>The Commissioner added that the polls for West Bengal Assembly would end before the expiry of the current term in June next year. </b>
Mr Tandon is touring North Bengal officials at Japlapiguri after conducting similar meetings with the officials of Presidency and Bardhaman range last week.
Though the CEC refused to play his cards, State EC sources said the officer does not think highly of the way polls are conducted in Bengal. The EC has taken serious note of the way polls were conducted in Asansol by-elections a few months ago as well as the municipal elections early this year.
Sources said the <b>Commission has marveled at how the Left could increase its tally from 22,000 to 86,000 in five years at Jadavpur constituency. Incidentally, the seat is retained by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.</b>
Crossed by the evident politicisation of bureaucracy, <b>the EC has ordered a mass transfer of officials - from the Collector/SP rank to the officers-in-charge of police stations - who have served over three years in one place. </b>
<b>Nudged by the Commission, the administration is reportedly preparing a list of at least 80 senior and middle-level officials from DMs and SPs to the officials of the State administrative cadre who could get transfer order sooner than later</b>, insiders said. <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Though Mr Tandon said all the districts would be under strong vigil insiders maintained, <b>the two 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore, Murshidabad, Nadia, Hooghly, Malda and Horwah could be identified as sensitive districts and would get much tougher treatment</b>. The CEC is also not happy about the way Asansol by-election was conducted a few months ago despite massive mobilisation of Central forces.
The CEC is reported to have said that he is thinking of bringing in more officials like KJ Rao of Bihar fame. In fact, the Opposition, including the NTC, has asked for Mr Rao and Mr Afzal Amanullah's service.
The latter had conducted the last year's parliamentary elections in Bengal whence he had commented that the polls in the State were peaceful though by no means fair.
In what could be<b> a tough challenge for the ruling Left Front in Bengal the Election Commission is preparing to appoint 588 observers, that is two observers for each constituency, sources said adding, while one observer will see the expenditure side the other will look at the general side</b>.
An additional army of 98 special observers will man three constituencies each. "If we find any thing wrong strict action will be taken," Mr Tandon is known to have told an assemblage of district magistrates and SPs in Jalpaiguri. Among others present in the Tuesday's meeting were DMs and SPs of the six North Bengal districts the North Bengal IG and Chief Electoral Officer Debashis Sen.
Elsewhere, Nationalist Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee demanded phased election in Bengal in addition to full deployment of Central police forces. <b>"This will reverse the trend and create a new history in Bengal electoral history,"</b> Ms Banerjee thundered at a meeting in Kolkata.
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Can we have a separate Bengal election watch thread till the next Bengal election is over. Let's see how commies try to manipulate the election under this proactive EC.
Upcoming assembly election in Kerala is a gone case. It is very likely that LDF will come to power, unless some thing unexpected happens. Root cause is internal dissent within UDF, Karunakaran will take away the margin of votes required for many of the "winnable" UDF candidates. There is a serious dissidence going on within the state BJP, which was very evident in the recent Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha byelection. These are infighting between pro-RSS and anti-RSS factions within BJP.
Hindus in Kerala are between devil and deep sea. If UDF comes to power it is good for missionaries and muslims. If LDF comes to power it is certainly going to be more anti-Hindu than against other religions. The party which could have done something, the BJP, is having trouble of its own.
Recently a lot of communists have switched side to BJP from CPI(M) in Kerala and this has caused a number of political murders. Probably few commie infiltration also must have taken place into BJP which is causing the current trouble for it.
congress cant come in wb. all cpim has to do is allude to the mahatmatic ditching of netaji. plus BB has been doing a few things.
i dunno which is better. if MB comes, then may she be the cm for a long time and bury cpim for good. she will win in calcutta easily. not in wb.
if she cant come to power, hope she at least gives the cpim a very strong run for their money so that the cpim has to tighten their belts and continue with reforms.
its the economic reform and industrialisation i am bothered about, not who comes to power.
<!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+Dec 8 2005, 02:23 AM-->QUOTE(ben_ami @ Dec 8 2005, 02:23 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->congress cant come in wb. all cpim has to do is allude to the mahatmatic ditching of netaji. plus BB has been doing a few things.
i dunno which is better. if MB comes, then may she be the cm for a long time and bury cpim for good. she will win in calcutta easily. not in wb.
if she cant come to power, hope she at least gives the cpim a very strong run for their money so that the cpim has to tighten their belts and continue with reforms.
its the economic reform and industrialisation i am bothered about, not who comes to power.
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MB becoming CM of WB is quite difficult.
WB may not be ready to take such a risk of unpredictable change.
People may ask what MB could bring which BB can't do. Further, there could be unleashing of post poll violence in case MB comes !!!! Polarized politics of WB.
Unless there is a God sent help for MB.
If she comes, she could become another Amma of TN.
yeah !
though i hate cpim and all it stands for, somehow i think a pro-development cpm govt under BB is better than a sonia style cong govt in the state under MB. Besides, even if MB becomes cm, where will she get other people to fill up her ministry?? the commies have vapourised all opposition and MB is about the only cong leader of some repute.
Mamta Banerjee is not a congress party member, her party is Trinamul Congress. She is more likely to run the elections with BJP and NDA than with congress.
Although in Bengal, CPI(M) can be put in trouble if Trinamul, BJP and Congress gang up together. But that is very unlikely to happen.
NDA victory in Bihar has revived the spirits of old NDA partners like Mamta Banerjee and CB Naidu and Akalis. Even Asom Gana Parisad sounds like it will become an NDA parter.
Mamata hands it to lotus<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Once bitten - read backstabbed - in 2001 twice cautious, Nationalist Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee prefers BJP to a "less reliable" Congress if given a choice to choose between the two.
The firebrand leader is known to have made her feeling clear to the State BJP chief Tathagato Roy in a one-on-one meeting, both BJP and the NTC sources conceded.
The Trinamool chief who has recently made some advances at the Congress apparently to keep the Opposition votes from splitting has said that she would not risk a repetition of 2001 drama when the Congress allegedly struck an alliance with the NTC before stabbing it in the back.
According to insiders Ms Banerjee who met a "concerned Mr Roy" following her recent statements - that the Trinamool was prepared to go with the Congress irrespective of its adjustment with the Left at the Centre - assured the State BJP chief that she would not dump the lotus for hand. "The BJP is an old ally and there is no question of jettisoning them whether or not we are able to strike a deal with the Congress," Ms Banerjee is known to have told Mr Roy who is keen on bringing down the number of contestants to around 22-25 as "we are interested in winning the seats and not merely fighting them."
By making her position on the BJP clear well in advance, Ms Banerjee has made the going difficult for the Congress, experts believe. "This will lead to more division in the Congress rank on the question of adopting an ally which is an enemy's friend," senior Trinamool leaders maintained hoping however, the Congress will show political acumen and shun its antipathy for the BJP because "if we can tolerate their alliance with the CPI(M) in Delhi why can't they bear with our friendship with the BJP."
Meanwhile, some suave pledges apart, the Congress seems serious but not sincere about striking a deal with the Trinamool Congress. The turmoil in the State unit on whether or not to bite the Trinamool bait is a case in point experts maintain. Already the house is divided vertically with some confirmed Mamata baiters like former aide Sudip Bandopadhyay, ex Kolkata Mayor Subroto Mukherjee and former PCC president Somen Mitra showing considerable reservation on forming a Mahajot with the Trinamool Congress.
"In coalition politics no one has the privilege of writing on a clean slate," a senior and largely impartial PCC leader said adding though coming with the Trinamool is the need of the hour it is a distant possibility. Senior leaders, like PR Dasmunshi and Pranab Mukherjee, are known to have rallied the ball to the high-command's court saying "decision would be taken at the highest level."
Mr Dasmunshi who is however the key architect in bringing the two parties together is yet to find enough support from Mr Mitra whose group commands a majority in the PCC and Mr Mukherjee. This is one reason that Mr Dasmunshi wants Congress president Sonia Gandhi to impose her will on the anti-Mamata lobby.
While Mr Mukherjee who is also the PCC president has restricted his commitment to having a discussion with Ms Banerjee, his deputy and acting president Pradip Bhattacharya has made it clear that it would be difficult for the Congress to drop the 'secular' baggage. It will not be very easy to convince the party men on an alliance with the Trinamool Congress till it has a truck with the BJP, Mr Bhattacharya has said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can somebody please write a little essay on Mamata ? I dont know much about her. Her background, why she is always called "firebrand", her policy records etc..
TIA.
i dunno know much.
she is very much a common-man's politician and much more so than the chechescu style jyoti basu.
she dont have much of formal education either.. unlike the scoundrel brigade (jb = lawyer from inner temple. somnath chatterjee = lawyer from one of the 4 law houses in england - inner temple, middle temple, gary's inn and linclon's inn etc)
she is called a firebrand cos she had the guts to challenge the pseudo socialist stranglehold.
and yes ashok kumar i know she isnt cong proper she is tmc. and that nda victory in bihar is good news for tmc. problem is that commies under BB did rather well for the last 5 years. also cong and cpim are partners in the centre and if they see the tmc-bjp combine to be much of a threat, then they may team up in wb.
on the other hand, if say tmc-bjo somehow come to wb and later the ulta-pulta alliance goes for a toss in 2006 and bjp comes back in power at the centre, then tmc could pave the way for a jansangh wb. that will be goiod news for nitish led bihar as well, if bjp comes back in power - cos then bjp could go out of their way to prop up nitish.
12-09-2005, 08:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-10-2005, 12:32 AM by acharya.)
WOE CALCUTTA !!!
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i am cut=pasting an article i chanced upon, written by Vir Sangvi about the political plight of Bengal.
Calcutta chromosome / Vir Sanghvi
There is no city in India where the level of cultural sophistication is as high as it is in Calcutta. And there is no community in India that is as warm, as affectionate, as straightforward and as genuinely decent as the Bengalis. In all the years I lived in Calcutta, I was constantly struck by the contrasts with other cities: with Bombay, where it only matters how much you earn, and with Delhi, where they only care how powerful you are. In Calcutta, none of these matter. Instead, people care about things that should really matter: culture, intellectual refinement and human decency.Which, of course, leads to the obvious question: why has Calcutta lost its rightful position as India's greatest city? Amartya Sen has famously pointed out that in 1947, there were two great cities in the East: Calcutta and Singapore. And of the two, Calcutta was thought to be far, far ahead. Over half a century later, that comparison seems so absurd as to be scarcely comprehensible.
Wiser men than myself have offered well thought-out and complex explanations for Calcutta's decline. They have grappled uneasily also with what I call the Bengali paradox: take a Bengali out of Bengal and he is disciplined, hardworking and the perfect worker. Put him back in Bengal and everything falls apart.My own, admittedly half-baked, theory about the decline of Calcutta-and indeed, of Bengal in general-is that the Bengalis have been ill-served by their politicians. Of course, all states get the politicians they deserve-after all they elect them, themselves. But in Bengal, the politicians have flourished by appealing to only one side of the Bengali character. And that, alas, is not the hardworking, disciplined, intellectually sophisticated side. It is, instead, the traditional Bengali propensity to complain, to moan, to groan and to find a hundred reasons for not doing something that could be done so easily in a second or so.When I moved to Calcutta in 1986, I was briefed by long-term non-Bengali residents of the city.
One Bengali, they said, was a chronic complainer. Two Bengalis were a trade union. And three Bengalis were two trade unions. This was less funny than it was accurate. At the publishing house where I worked (though this was a long time ago and I'm told that things have now changed), the slogan was "Hobey na". Ask for anything to be done and you would be told why it was impossible. And even when you did point out that it was not just possible but also easy enough to accomplish, a new slogan took over: never do tomorrow what you can do day after.For most of us who've ever lived in Calcutta, all of this is a given. We've despaired of things ever getting better. But suddenly the whole subject of the Bengali mindset and the political culture that has so blighted the future of this once-great state is the biggest issue in Calcutta. The immediate provocation is a court judgment on the rallies that make living in Calcutta a nightmare for its residents. There was a time when what Bengal thought today, the rest of India thought tomorrow. Sadly, over the last two decades, Bengal has made only one contribution to Indian political life. And that is the single file demonstration.No matter where in India we live, we are used to political marches, morchas, dharnas, rallies or whatever we want to call them. Generally, a large group of people march through the centre of town, carrying banners and shouting slogans. They are escorted by the police, hustled across roads and prevented from causing too much disruption.Not in Calcutta, though.In Calcutta, the point of a demonstration is to cause disruption. Thus, even if the organisers can rustle up only 40 people for the cause of the day (which could range from 'Why they are giving us DA at lower rate than last year' to 'Why food is not being sent to poor people of Comrade Castro's Cuba'), these 40 will be told to march in single file. Worse still, they will ensure that there is a space of at least six feet between each of them. Thus, a demonstration that would disrupt traffic for say, three minutes in Delhi, will stop all movement on the roads for a minimum of half an hour in Calcutta. If the demonstration is larger - say a hundred people - then the disruption lasts for two hours. And if there are 200 people, then the city shuts down.
This extraordinary - and peculiarly Bengali - state of affairs is sought to be justified on the grounds that people have a democratic right to protest. When communists start talking about democratic rights (enough provocation in the old days for Chairman Mao to have them taken out to be shot or for Comrade Stalin to have sent them to a Gulag) it's time to get sceptical.But it isn't just the CPI(M) that uses this argument. Even the principal opposition party in Bengal - Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress - bases its entire appeal on its ability to disrupt the lives of ordinary people. The point, of course, is that the Bengali argument for disruption is based on a complete misunderstanding of the principles of liberal democracy. The basic principle is this: I have total freedom to do what I want only as long as my freedom does not conflict with yours. Thus, my right to free speech ends where your reputation begins - that's why we have defamation laws. My right to have a drink ends when I get behind the wheel of my car because I'm then endangering your freedom to drive safely on the roads. And so on.Even a child should be able to grasp this basic liberal principle and to conclude from it that Mamatadi's right to protest ends where my right to get to work begins. But no, you'd be amazed by the number of otherwise intelligent Bengalis who will defend the chaos and disorder in their state as a manifestation of the people's essential democratic rights.This basic misunderstanding of the nature of democracy and the complete lack of respect for the greater good (who cares if the entire city shuts down as long as I can organise a demonstration complaining about the shifting of a railway siding to Bihar?) seems to me to sum up the sorry state of Bengal today.Politics in Bengal is no longer about substance or about improving the lot of the people. It is about noisy, disruptive and ultimately pointless gestures. The CPI(M) has been in power since 1977. During that period, Bengal has slid further and further down the tubes.
But still, all the party can do is organise disruptive demonstrations and find new things to protest about.My friend Mamata Banerjee was offered a historic opportunity to enter the mainstream of national politics when the NDA came to power. But she threw it away with a series of silly and pointless gestures: resignations, sulks, tantrums and fits of mad moodiness. Even her opposition to the CPI(M) - and at one stage we thought she could actually win power in Bengal - has become no more a state of permanent, noisy protest.As Bengal's politicians waste their time - and mortgage the future of their state - on these pointless protests, the disconnect between Bengal and the rest of India has grown. Few professionals from elsewhere in the country are willing to shift to Calcutta, despite the warmth and friendship of the Bengali people. Industry has been driven away by the Left trade unions. The Marwari businessmen who gather periodically at the Taj Bengal to felicitate the chief minister have all moved the bulk of their businesses out of the state.And Bengal's politicians can only cope with this flight of capital with more empty gestures. When I lived in Calcutta, I would notice with amazement that Jyoti Basu would depart each summer for a most agreeable vacation to such havens of capitalism as London. Each year, he would declare that he was attracting investment to Bengal.
Each year, no investment would come. But the following year, Jyoti Basu would rush off again on the same sort of trip. Jyoti Basu has retired, his reputation as the world's greatest living Bengali intact. (Though God alone knows what this is based on. It certainly can't be based on his destruction of this once-great state.) But his successors seem unable to change the Bengali political mindset.For all this talk about democratic rights, the traditional Communist contempt for democratic institutions is much in evidence. Justice Lala of the Calcutta High Court who passed the order against disruptive demonstrations has been described by the Left Front's chairman as "an unwanted person in Bengal" and on Wednesday, the CPI(M) demonstrated its contempt for the court by organising a massive demonstration to assert the God-given right of politicians and their followers to disrupt the lives of ordinary people.How sad that the brightest and nicest people in India, the Bengalis, should have the worst politicians.
Under the CPI(M) and Mamatadi and her cohorts, Bengal has gone from being India's leading state to becoming one of its most backward. It is now, alas, no more than a better educated version of Bihar, a sort of Jharkhand with the added benefit of Rabindrasangeet.
Courtesy: Hindustan Times, (9/10/03)
rajesh_g
You don't need an essay on MB. She's plum crazy. Ask any bong from Kolkata. I fear many anti CPM voters would vote for the CPM if they have reason to aprehend that MB might become CM. <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
thats the problem.
the cpim has flattened all opposition to such an extent, that the best cong challenger is no better than MB !!
It is really unfortunate that only visible opposition face, Mamta Banerjee, has lost her advantages due to her volatile nature. Uma Bharati suffers from the same disease...
yes. she is a political fool.
one day she is cong, next day tcm.
one day she is minister.. next day she becomes cabinet monister without portfolio !!
doesnt know how to make the right political moves.
also didint have the sense to build up a 2nd line of leaders in the state congress by now. so when she goes out of the equation, all will fall.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=84196
What they didnât want you to see: EC on how Left ârigsâ Bengal polls
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Congress must shed sham secularism and join </b>
Pioneer.com
Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister
I am 85 years old and not expected to live very long. Even though I have retired politically, an unquenched desire still coerces my mind. I wish I could see the end of this repressive Marxist regime.
In fact, that vigorous wish still keeps me awake as a political person. Recently<b>, many eyebrows were raised and quite a few people thought I was stupid in sharing the same platform as BJP president LK Advani, who was to address a Trinamool Congress Youth convention.</b>
Some have assumed that my advanced age has robbed me off my acumen and I was harming my status as a secular politician who had a long association with the Congress family. The truth is, I still have faith in the principles envisaged by the Indian National Congress. However, I have no political aspiration; and, as such, I rule myself out of any electoral rat race.
My weakness for the Congress party notwithstanding, I strongly oppose their refusal to join the "Mahajot" or a grand-alliance comprising all the Opposition parties, <b>including the Trinamool Congress, the BJP and all other smaller groups who are as eager to pull down this ruthless 28-year-old Marxist regime in West Bengal.</b>
The Congress leadership seeks to hide conveniently behind the veneer of secular politics. But, in Bengal, secularism, or for that matter communalism, is not the issue. <b>The"Mahajot", for sure, does not brook reconstruction of Ram temple or pushing through the Article 370. Rather, the core issue is whether or not we can shoo away the Marxists</b>.
Ostensibly, Congress leaders tend to project an anti-Marxist face with all those blank promises of building up a united struggle against the Red regime. But, in practice, it is hard to predict their real gameplan. I suppose the chemistry in Delhi would not allow them to go against the Left Front. Though they call it" Left Front", I wonder how many of them in the Front are still willing to cohabit with big brother CPI(M). They aren't really, if one goes by the recent scuffles and remarks issued by the Forward Bloc and the RSP leaderships.
None of these parties have an iota of faith left in the Marxist regime. Furthermore, the Forward Bloc can never be considered a subscriber to the Marxist ideology. I have never known them doing so in my long political career. With a little bit of hope and persuasion, I am sure, many smaller Front partners would join the "Mahajot". They won't do it on their own for lack of confidence and political will. And that confidence will only be produced if a big party like the Congress joins hand with the Trinamool-led Paschimbanga Ganatantrik Front.
The Congress is clearly guilty of shirking a benevolent duty. That is, to liberate Bengal. My hopes of bringing the two groups together were dashed to the ground when I saw reports of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mr Pranab Mukherjee sharing the same platform at Farakka. The twosome surprised me because, amid all that talk of a grand coalition and the Congress' possibilities of joining it, they congratulated each other for doing good work for the State. There is no better example of bizarre bed-fellowship. I am for secularism, but I hate dishonesty as much as the Marxists.
The Marxists are the manufacturers of the biggest lies. They claim that the economy is coming round, whereas the State has a debt of more than Rs 1.3 lakh crore.<b> The Marxists tend to have liberally peddled stories of development, but not even a tenth of the number of industries set up during my term (1972-77) is existing today. </b>Unemployment has increased. The impression one gathers is: All the initiatives in the current Government start and end at the Chief Minister only. And, despite those high-sounding slogans coined by him, no one seems to perform down the line.
As I am told, <b>there is only 0.5-1 per cent growth in the number of jobs. In my time, however, the rate was well beyond 5-6 per cent. The health scenario is bleak as well. They have opened no new primary health centres. To say the least, they have been forced to close down the ones opened during the Congress regime</b>.
Similarly <b>the government has ruined the primary education system of the state. One big lapse has been the discontinuation of English language at the primary level.</b> Knowing full well the importance of knowing English, they wilfully deprived our students from picking it up and created a generation of non-performers who ended up failing not only at the international level, but also nationally.
The upshot: Bengal that once sent plenty of civil servants to the all-India cadre, today does not even produce enough to fill its own vacant posts. Resultantly, most of the bureaucrats here come from outside the State. I don't profess any linguistic prejudice, as I was the only one who had protested the implementation of the Bengali Language Bill, 1961, that strove to implement Bengali as the only official language in Bengal. My point is to show how shabbily has the Left Front dealt with the education sector. <b>Thank God, Buddhadeb has brought English back in the schools. I remember telling him once about the daunting task he faces because his predecessor, Mr Jyoti Basu, had left him sunk neck-deep in the slush of bad governance.</b>
<b>I must ask those in the Government - as well as in the Congress - who wax eloquent about their secular credentials as to how many Muslims have found jobs in the past three decades. When I was the Chief Minister, I ensured each police station had at least one Muslim police officer. I also ensured jobs for Muslim women</b>. And, yet, the Left Front claims to be a secular regime. Muslims have remained the most neglected lot under this regime. They have been used as pawns in the hands of the Marxists. This regime has no right to blame others as communal.
The summit of hypocrisy was scaled when this government called the Salim Group to invest in the health sector. Though fearing backlash during the elections, they have shelved the project, it is public knowledge that they have decided to give away thousands of acres of agricultural land for the purpose. And, yet, this claims to be a government of the have-nots. The Salim Group, I am told, is here also to manufacture motorcycles. I suspect whether this group has the requisite skill to manufacture quality motorbikes. At least I have never heard of any such group manufacturing motorbikes. I wonder what will be the fate of the group when it starts competes against the players like Bajaj, Honda and others.
Time has come to uproot this column of falsity by a true representative government. The Congress must come forward to discharge its duty by forming a "Mahajot" with the Trinamool Congress and its associated parties.
(As told to Saugar Sengupta)
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These numbers are going increase boss ...
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/j...17408200619.asp
Deccan Herald » National » Detailed Story
Ration cards exceed population in Bengal
Kolkata, DHNS:
And if the estimates of the food department officials are to go by, the number could be as high as 25 lakh , reports said here on Monday. The fact that West Bengal has more ration cards than its official population of eight crore, is now official.
With the Election Commission cracking the whip on the West Bengal government after a fake ration cards racket was busted in state, the authorities have so far stumbled upon nearly six lakh counterfeit ration cards across the state.
And if the estimates of the food department officials are to go by, the number could be as high as 25 lakh, reports said here on Monday. The fact that West Bengal has more ration cards than its official population of eight crore, is now official.
The embarrassment of the state authorities can be gauged from the fact that the Election Commission which has set in motion âOperation Clean Rollâ in the state prior to the assembly polls, has directed the state government to submit a report on how it could afford to ignore this serious issue for so long. The chief secretary has convened an emergency meeting to discuss ways to curb the menace.
H<b>ow Bihar was won</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->An exercise was undertaken to compare the mid-term population figures of citizens 18 years and above with the total of voters on the electoral rolls and identify the districts, talukas and villages showing conspicuous deviation and therefore requiring intervention to closely scrutinise the rolls.
A software programme generated a list of households showing more than 10 to 15 voters and these were also verified to eliminate the names of dead and migrated voters. These were combined with the use of photo-matching software to elicit possible duplicate entries from the Electoral Photo Identity Card records, and their subsequent verification led to the deletion of 18.31 lakh (1.831 million) voters and the addition of 4.83 lakh (483,000) new voters. The net reduction amounted to three percent of the state's electorate.
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WB may show 20% reduction.
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