<b>WB: Bangladesh origin voters face Rao's axe</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Election Commission Observer K J Rao on Thursday struck off voters of Bangladeshi origin from the electoral rolls during his visit to Karimpur and Tehatta areas in West Bengal's Nadia district, bordering Bangladesh.
Rao, who is on a six-day visit to the district since Monday last to supervise the revision of electoral rolls and the election machinery, went from door to door in these areas and talked to the voters. The Bihar election hero met leaders of political parties in Krishnagar and scanned the list for voters of Bangladeshi origin and struck off their names. Also deleted were the names of married women who no longer resided in the area.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Rao chides BDOs; may ask for new voters' list </b>
Saugar Sengupta/ Krishnagore/Kolkata
KJ RAO, the Election Commission Observer who played a crucial role in humbling the 75 lakh fake voters in Bihar, is raining fire in Nadia, a district that is reported to have fostered one of the most elaborate armies of bogus voters.
After meeting more than 500 people in the last couple of days and speaking to the "limbs and eyes" of the EC - read local bureaucrats and politicians of rival political parties - a seemingly "dismayed" <b>Rao has said he would scrap the existing voters' list and order the Government to draw up a fresh one if the poll officials continued to remain slack in discharging their duties</b>.
<b>"You people are simply disgusting,"</b> Mr Rao reportedly told a 'thoroughly groomed' Block Development Officer after the officer failed to clarify<b> "how so many fake names crowded the list despite repeated revisions of the rolls</b>". The BDO, who later developed some "nausea" felt "I have never seen such a proactive officer in my life". Though there are 18 other Observers doing duty all over the State, all focus is on the "hero of Bihar elections."
The "proactive" Observer has travelled several hundred kilometers in the last three days. At Krishnagore, he is known as "a saab put on dieting" by Election Commission.
Unlike previous Observers, Mr Rao, said a senior district bureaucrat, finishes his lunch in minutes and doesn't tend to take a small mid-noon siesta that the district administration has so meticulously planned for him. "No other Observer took so little time for lunch", a seeming "disgruntled" official said, adding, "it is becoming tough for the frail local officers to keep pace with him." According to insiders, the administration had tried their best to enter Mr Rao's heart through his belly but none of the scrumptious dishes could impress him.Â
When at Bogula village in Hanshkhali region,<b> Mr Rao asked a school teacher as to why he was in possession of voters' ID cards of two students, both below 18 years of age, the teacher said a group of politicians had asked him to do so. "Now this is the situation and you people have been sitting idle inside your offices," </b>the Observer reportedly told the local officials.
Interestingly, Nadia is a stronghold of Congress strongman Shankar Singh, who like neighbouring Congress MP Adhir Chowdhury, has a large number of followers in and around Hanshkhali. "Most number of contract killings in Nadia, Murshidabad and North 24 Parganas are carried out by people from Hanshkhali," a police officer said.
From Nabadwip, to Shantipur, to Ranaghat - Mr Rao has gone on chiding the BDOs and other officials in charge asking "DM saab" Rajesh Pandey "kuch kijeye warna situation kaise improve hoga... ab aap phirse electoral roll dekhiye aur ghalat naam nikalye...You should be seizing the old cards ... I find many people still have two cards ... This is dangerous because they can use it in the future..."
Such has been the impact of Mr Rao that the administration has begun arresting holders of false photo identity cards.
Said Ranaghat SDO M Islam, "The police have arrested two Bangladeshis, Nripen Biswas and Sunil Thakur for keeping false voters' ID cards and ration cards. Mr Rao is scheduled to stay back."
Meanwhile, Nationalist Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee said in Kolkata her party would lodge a complaint against the CPI(M) leadership for threatening to use arms against their opponents in the Maoist-infested belts. "We shall send a complaint to the EC as their senior leaders are threatening that they would use force against in the Maoist belt ... This means they will use the same tactic to eliminate our workers from those areas."
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Commie raj ka kamal, finally they have to move some limbs
What NDA needs to realize is that it is not just the job of EC to clean up WB electoral list and have a clean election process. But if NDA wants to overthrow commies it needs to create a unified opposition and project the alternate government to commies.
NDA should immediately start working on to create a realistic opposition and create the hype. It is okay to promote Mamata-di as the new CM while BJP taking its pound of flesh. Current target should be to replace CPM from its citadel.
bad news are that the commies seem here to stay in wb.
good news is that calcutta in particular and wb in general is going only one way as long as BB is in the hotseat - biotech park near iit kgp, medical tourism centre off calcutta, general face lift of city - all in full swing.
27th JAN 11:24 hrs IST
<b>Red bastion of Bengal under threat</b>
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The two allies in New Delhi, the Congress and the Communist parties, are facing a piquant situation in the Left Front-ruled West Bengal, which will go to the polls in May.
<b>
For the first time since the Left secured a seemingly unshakeable grip on power in the state in 1977, there are signs that the comrades may face a stiff challenge, putting a question mark over their formidable red bastion.</b>
The leftist electoral success in the state was based on the continuing disarray in the opposition camp, comprising the Congress and the breakaway group of former Congressmen in the Trinamool Congress.
The dividing line between these two parties was strengthened by the Trinamool's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress's main adversary in New Delhi. But there are signs that the Trinamool may now distance itself from the BJP in order to form an anti-Left Front alliance with the Congress.
What is more, the Trinamool's temperamental leader, Mamata Banerjee, may be willing to accept Congress veteran and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee as her leader in West Bengal, ending a long-standing political enmity.
An alliance of this nature can pose a major challenge to Left hegemony if only because the combined percentage of votes of the two parties has always been fairly high at about 40 percent. Moreover, Mukherjee's stature as a top-ranking political figure at the national level will be an asset to the anti-Left combine.
But assessments of this nature may go wrong because of a peculiar complicating factor. Although the Congress and the communists are allies in New Delhi, there are sharp differences between them on the country's economic policy.
The Left, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), is opposed to what it regards as the Manmohan Singh government's preference for 'neo-liberal' policies, supposedly dictated by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
But curiously, since West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya belonging the CPI-M follows virtually the same line in his state as the government in New Delhi, he is a favourite of Manmohan Singh, who has described him as a model chief minister.
What this public declaration of support has done is to queer the pitch for the Congress in West Bengal, for the party cannot oppose the communists in the state when its Prime Minister is an admirer of the chief minister.
However, the complexities do not end here.<b> Bhattacharya's 'neo-liberalism' has aroused the ire of the other parties in the Left Front like the Communist Party of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc. </b>They endorse the traditional anti-capitalist position taken by the CPI-M in New Delhi, which also has a few supporters among the party hardliners in West Bengal.
It may not be difficult, therefore, for the Congress-Trinamool alliance to exploit these cracks in the Left Front. But such tactics may not yield more than marginal dividends because of the popularity of the chief minister.
The honesty shown by the latter in admitting that the mistakes made by the communists in the past led to the flight of capital from West Bengal appears to have considerably bolstered his personal position. His attempts to woo domestic and foreign investors have also been widely appreciated in a state that once held a foremost position in the industrial and commercial field and regrets the regression that has taken place in recent years.
But even if Bhattacharya's popularity gives an edge to the leftists, they may still face major hurdles on the road to power if the Election Commission demonstrates in West Bengal the same firmness it showed in Bihar to prevent rigging.
Already there are signs that the commission will crack down on any evidence of suspicious partisan behaviour by poll officials in the state. In a letter to the state government, it has pointed out the 'glaring irregularities' in the issue of identity cards and called upon the officials to fix the responsibility for the lapses.
<b>
There have been allegations in the past that the communists indulged in what has been called 'scientific rigging' to turn the verdict in their favour. The alleged rigging comprised manipulation of the voters' list and intimidation of the voters, mainly with the help of the large number of government employees, most of whom are communist sympathizers. </b>
But after the success of the commission in ensuring a fair poll in Bihar, it is believed that such tactics will not work in West Bengal this time. The very fact that there will be a genuinely impartial supervision of the polls is bound to encourage the political opponents of the Left to become more assertive in their campaigning than before.
<b>They may also be able to stop the practice of booth jamming by the leftists that made many voters turn away.</b>
<b>Although the Left Front is widely expected to win</b>, any closing of the gap between it and its opponents will have interesting consequences. Since much of the credit for the Left's success will go to Bhattacharya, he will be in a better position to pursue his pro-capitalist economic line despite what his Marxist comrades in New Delhi may say. This, in turn, will bring him closer to Manmohan Singh.
With Nitish Kumar in neighbouring Bihar also looking for investments, the eastern region under the two relatively young chief ministers may pave the way for an economic upturn.
There is not much Islamic terrorism going on in West Bengal. I suppose it would be superfluous for Islamic terrorists to target West Bengal. The commies do such a good job destroying the state that there is not much point in wasting explosives. Take for instance this news item on Sify.com about Ford being snubbed by WB.
Alfred Ford, the greatgrandson of Henry Ford, wants to build a 'vedic planetarium' (whatever that is) in India for about Rs 600 crores (or Rs 6 billion or approximately $130 million). He was exploring WB's Mayapur as the location. But he got snubbed by the WB government. Here is what Balbir Punj says in his March 12th editorial The Closure of Bengal in The Pioneer:
Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharya, an uprooted Hindu from former East Pakistan, is so apologetic of his Hindu connection in Alfred Ford's Vedic project that he declined him an appointment. Marxists generally keep away from a project with religious overtones unless they are madarsas, where they could be generous to the extent of giving Rs 120 crore in grants. Alfred Ford took it too seriously to be pacified by a substitute meeting with State's Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta. In the vicinity of West Bengal, he found Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik with no such hang-ups whatsoever, evincing a deep interest in the project.
The benefits that WB loses go to Orissa. Here is what Sify.com says:
The planetarium is to come up in the holy town of Puri. Completion of the project would lead to several things, including spin-off benefits for the local economy, improvement in healthcare and education facilities, availability of micro credit to the people, etc.
The planetarium would have five-star hotel facilities apart from a health spa and meditation and cultural centres. There would be a host of shops for the pious.
Like the Tirupati Temple, the proposed Vedic Planetarium is expected to yield high returns for Orissa: The annual earnings projected are Rs 300 crore.
The entire project would be located in 400 acres of land and 90 percent of the income would go to the state government for the welfare of the people.
Well, there you have it. I feel for WB, my ancestral state. But I am an Indian and as long as anyone does anything to improve India's image anywhere in India is just fine with me.
For the record, here is Punj's editorial.
The closure of West Bengal
Balbir K Punj
Editorial
The Pioneer
Friday, March 12, 2004
Whenever any religion succeeds, it must have economic value. Thousands of similar sects will be struggling for power, but only those who meet the real economic problem will have it.
- Swami Vivekanand
(Lecture on Gita-I, San Francisco, May 26, 1900)
It took a "Hindu" Alfred Ford just one "disappointment" from West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya to act a Semitic. He decided to give West Bengal with its lack lustre response a miss and promptly decided to put his Rs 600 crore where it was received with the enthusiasm it deserved. His Vedic planetarium proposed for West Bengal will now come up in Orissa, bringing together the best of both worlds.
Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharya, an uprooted Hindu from former East Pakistan, is so apologetic of his Hindu connection in Alfred Ford's Vedic project that he declined him an appointment. Marxists generally keep away from a project with religious overtones unless they are madarsas, where they could be generous to the extent of giving Rs 120 crore in grants. Alfred Ford took it too seriously to be pacified by a substitute meeting with State's Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta. In the vicinity of West Bengal, he found Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik with no such hang-ups whatsoever, evincing a deep interest in the project.
Mr Patnaik, educated in France, speaks better French than Oriya, but neither he nor his State are apologetic for their Hindu identity. Ford then decided to shift his project from Mayapur to Puri. On completion, the project would lead to enormous spin off benefits for the local economy such as improvement in healthcare and education facilities. The planetarium would come with five-star hotel facilities in addition to health spa and meditation and cultural centre. The annual earnings from the project, once functional, are pegged at Rs 300 crore. The State Government is to get 90 per cent of this for welfare projects. West Bengal's loss in Orissa's gain!
Alfred Ford, the great grandson of automobile legend Henry Ford, and senior trustee of Ford Motor Company is an Iskcon-affiliate and Vedic aficionado. Ford joined Iskcon in 1975 and travelled to India with founder of the order, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Ford was instrumental in the establishment of the first Hindu temple in Hawaii. He also helped establish the Bhaktivedanta Cultural Centre, a highly rated tourist destination in Detroit, Michigan. In 1978, Alfred founded Ramayan Arts, Inc., an east Indian arts gallery, and has been named one of the top collectors in America by Arts and Antiques magazine. Ford has actively contributed to a number of charitable enterprises both in US and India. He visits India frequently. His wife Sharmila Ford hails from Jaipur.
He ruffled the feathers of Russian orthodox church last October by announcing a $10 million plan to build a huge Hare Krishna temple and vedic cultural centre in Moscow, which could accommodate up to 8,000 people at a time. It was seen as fulfiling the aspiration of 90,000 Russian Hindus.
He was in Kolkata last February in connection to his pilgrimage to Mayapur in Nadia district. He had also been contemplating on an exceptional project in Mayapur, which could lead to the development of religious tourism in the region. West Bengal stood to benefit immensely from its realisation, a la Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. His ambitious project sought to develop Bhagirathi's transport infrastructure to link Mayapur as the northern head with Gangasagar in Sunderbans delta as the southern head. It would have an interface with Sunderbans tourism project currently being developed by the Sahara group.
Despite Mr Bhattacharya's assurances to resuscitate industry in West Bengal and running from Mumbai to Milan in hot pursuit of investment, strikes and lock outs are a common phenomenon in the State. A few days ago, the famed Gondalpara jute mills in Chandernagore shut down and joined the league of other such mills which have been closed since 1970s, in the prized Hooghly river basin. After losing out to its smaller neighbour Orissa in the field of software exports, the Marxist Government assigned top priority to its information technology sector. Orissa's IT industry paradoxically has an enormous presence of Bengali professionals migrating out of West Bengal. At least in theory, the West Bengal Government has kept IT industry strictly outside the periphery of bandhs that paralyse the life and economy of Kolkata virtually every other day.
According to a survey by Hewitt Association, the city ranks second only to Delhi in quality of IT talent. Kolkata's IT industry stood to vastly benefit from Ford's association. Ford is the co-founder of RapportNET, LLC (Dearbone, Michigan), an internet-based technology company which provides communication solutions to high net worth families, corporate boards, and affinity groups. Though, Ford's "spiritual Disneyland" is gone for a toss in West Bengal, Finance Minister Ashim Dasgupta has found his association "worth IT" in software. Ford admitted that "the government has said it would provide me all the facilities, including land, if I wanted to set up such a venture." He has in fact been looking for joint ventures with several industrial houses.
Marxism, a child of 19th century Europe, has been paranoid of religion as it represented the institutionalised force of Catholic church in Europe. In India, on comparison, Hinduism has never been an institutionalised religion. It has never impeded the secular functioning of State. The functioning of State and religion have been on two different levels. It is a pity that the Marxist Government of West Bengal follows double standards. While it pampers mushrooming madarsas on Indo-Bangla border, at the same time, it finds Saraswati Vandana in cultural functions obnoxious and shoots down Ford's plan on religious grounds. The world comes to India to savour its spiritual heritage. Spiritual tourism, properly tapped, can be a significant source of resources.
Could it be a mere coincidence that (West) Bengal lost its position and prestige in proportion to the extent it negated its Hindu identity? A resurgent Bengal commanded its paramount image in 19th century when Gopal Krishna Gokhale observed: "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow!" That was the Bengal of Raja Rammohun Roy, Bankim Chandra, Vivekananda, Surendra Nath Banerjea, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo among others. This Bengal was the cradle of Hindu nationalism. The rising tide of communism slowly eroded this image since the 1930s. Marxists who feel shy of associating with Ford did not feel shy of supporting Jinnah's "Pakistan Resolution" or "Direct Action". It is an irony that bulk of top-brass communists in the State are refugees fleeing (East) Pakistan either as Hindus or communists. In any case, the Pakistani authorities equated the two when they said that communism was basically a Hindu movement aimed at breaking up Pakistan.
Even under long spell of Congress rule after independence, Bengal continued to be the industrial hub of India. After the communist took over in 1977, factories began to close one by one, education was politicised, healthcare suffered, film industry became emaciated, surface transport came to a ramshackle state, while only bandhs and agitations flourished. Gujarat, in contrast, is deeply imbued in Hindutva sentiments and a commercial powerhouse. Many Gujarati entrepreneurs are Calcutta-based for last 100 years. And many workers left jobless in are absorbed in Gujarat, where labour unrest is little heard about. Arabs claim a divine relation between "Oil and Islam". Could there be a feel good relation between Hindutva and prosperity both at the State and national levels?
âA better, improved Left Frontâ was a key slogan of the CPI(M) during the May 2001 Assembly elections. The retirement of Jyoti Basu and the rise of a new post-Basu leadership had already marked a major change. In fact, it is believed that for good sections of the West Bengal electorate, especially for the managers of public opinion and for the corporate bosses, it was this âchangeâ which proved more exciting than any deliverance that the maverick Mamata Banerjee could promise.
But six months down the line, as the âchangeâ unveils itself in the form of enhanced electricity rates and relentless privatisation of essential services including healthcare, eviction of slumdwellers and rail and street hawkers and arrival of Bengalâs own POTO in the shape of POCA (Prevention of Organised Crime Act), disillusionment has started following suit. As the ânew regimeâ of Buddhadev Bhattacharya continues to conform to the hopes and dreams of the media managers and corporate bosses, activists and sympathisers of the Left in Bengal are feeling increasingly let down and disturbed. People are wondering if Buddhadev would turn out to be the Bengal version of Gorbachev for the stateâs ruling Left establishment!
Meanwhile, Bhattacharya has not given up on his poll-time slogan of âimproved Left Frontâ. Recently he has produced a 24-page booklet entitled Unnatatara Bamfronter Sandhane (In Search of a Better Left Front). More accurately, his own contribution to the booklet is a 9-page essay with the remaining pages being filled up with the Left Frontâs manifesto for the latest Assembly elections and excerpts from the finance ministerâs budget speech on the floor of the Assembly and information regarding certain official schemes of decentralised development.
Of course, nowhere in this booklet does one get to read anything about Buddhadevâs repressive brainchild which came to be known as POCO. Ordinary readers can however hardly complain, for the Left Front government had withheld this âclassified informationâ from even a seasoned international campaigner for civil liberties like Noam Chomsky when he visited the state the other day as the Left Front governmentâs esteemed state guest! When contacted later by democratic rights activists in Kolkata, Chomsky admitted that he had not been told about POCA during his stay in Bengal even as he held forth against the proliferation of repressive legislation in the wake of September 11 from the USA PATRIOT Act to POTO. In fact, when Advani began to design POTO, Buddhadev was quick to oppose it, but on the curious ground of dubious federalism. He said he didnât need POTO for he already had up his sleeves a similar ordinance for his state called POCO! And wasnât âlaw and orderâ after all a state subject! The cabinet, the LF partners and even his own party, it seems, were taken by surprise by this sudden announcement. Embarrassed, the party polit bureau intervened and got the project shelved for the time being, but it quickly turned out that what had been shelved was just the ordinance, and the idea would soon come back as a bill to be legislated by the Assembly into a proper Act.
Buddhadev was able to sell POCA to his Party colleagues on the plea that unlike POTO, it would focus on organised crime and that it was essential to prevent Bengal from being turned into a hotbed of inter-state and international crime. The sensational incident of abduction and subsequent release of the owner of the well-known footwear chain âKhadimâ was played up to the hilt to justify POCA. But as it turned out, the abductors could be tracked down without any special Act like POCA, and yet one of the accused was soon to be shot down mysteriously by the Gujarat police in a Gujarat jail. If the abduction was organised by an international crime syndicate, it was clearly done in connivance with sections of the police themselves. And Buddhadev would like to check such âorganised crimeâ by arming the police with still more sweeping powers!
Crimes like abduction and extortion of huge ransom money are however not the only or even the main threat POCA is intended to address. The Kamtapuri movement in the northern districts of Bengal, outfits like the PWG and the Jharkhand groups operating in the south-western region of the state, and the so-called ISI-instigated immigrants from Bangladesh and Maoist insurgents crossing into the state from across the Nepal border are all cited as reasons for enacting a repressive law like POCA. In the face of determined opposition from various quarters including pressure from Front partners, the introduction of the POCA bill has been deferred till the next session, but Buddhadev keeps âreassuringâ his friends and admirers that POCA would soon be in place regardless of whatever happens to POTO at the Centre. One shudders to think about the possible outcome of Buddhadevâs improved Left Front when it is soaked in such utter contempt for democratic rights.
Beleaguered Castle of Improved Left: Shaky Grounds, Blinkered Vision
Leaving aside the âsilencesâ like POCA, let us now look at what Bhattacharya has got to say in the course of his 9-page essay. With him, the Left Front becomes an exclusively Bengal-specific or Bengali experiment. He even makes the astounding claim that running a Left-led government in a state is an uncharted territory as nobody has walked along this way before. One does not even find a reference to the first communist-led government in Kerala, not to mention the discussion and experiences of communist-led provincial governments or local self-governments. Even within the context of Bengal, he provides us with a very selective and distorted recapitulation of the history of the Left movement in the state.
He does emphasise the transition from the United Front of the â60s to the Left Front in the â70s as a transition from a predominantly urban working and middle-class-based phenomenon to a powerful peasant awakening in the countryside challenging the reactionary Congress citadel of landlordism. He locates this peasant movement in the late 1960s without ever mentioning the tremendous impetus generated by the great Naxalbari peasant rebellion. Naxalbari surfaces in his account after 1971 and that too as a source of sheer âdeviation and disorderâ. It is well known that post-1971, it was a period of setback, confusion, disintegration and reorganisation for Naxalbari, but it is equally widely recognised that during the golden years between 1967 and 1971, Naxalbari brought about a sea change in the Bengal countryside. One may or may not agree with all that the CPI(ML) set out to do during those turbulent years, but to attempt to edit out Naxalbari from the history of peasant movement is to approach history with a blinkered vision. In fact, it was Naxalbari which delivered the biggest blows to the Congress bases in rural Bengal and with the CPI(ML) in disarray, it was the CPI(M) which emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the great inheritance of Naxalbari. Despite decades of distorted propaganda and cultivation of hostility towards Naxalbari, it has still not been possible for the bigoted and sectarian CPI(M) leadership to stamp out the influence of Naxalbari and the spectre starts haunting them during every major inner-party political debate. It is of course pointless to expect a fair sense of history from Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya who has now taken it upon himself to steer the Left Front further rightward in West Bengal.
On the economic front, Bhattacharyaâs gospel of development revolves around what he calls the transition from agriculture to agro-based industry apart from the much-trumpeted IT revolution. In between, there is the usual talk on improving the state of infrastructure and delivery services in the so-called social sector ranging from literacy to healthcare. There is little to differentiate this discourse from the neo-liberal slogans of âretreat of the state from production, safety net for the vulnerable and liberalisation with a human faceâ. In fact, Buddhaspeak is no different from Naiduspeak; like Chandrababu Naidu, Buddhadev Bhattacharya has turned out to be a great votary of the IMF-World Bank school of fiscal discipline propped on World Bank-funded projects and loans with stringent strings. But as with POCA, he has not embellished his essay on âimproved Leftâ with many gems from his new-found economic theory, possibly reserving his otherwise celebrated candour regarding the World Bank and his enthusiasm for a free market for other situations and other audiences.
Bhattacharya lays great stress on instilling greater cohesion and unity within the Left Front. This is the first time the CPI(M) failed to secure independent absolute majority in the Assembly. But far from having a sobering influence on the CPI(M) this seems to have made the âbig brotherâ more desperate in its attempts to impose its hegemony on the Left Front. Left Front partners like the RSP, Forward Bloc and even the CPI are being increasingly forced to openly voice their dissatisfaction with the quality and pattern of the Frontâs internal functioning. Buddhadevâs plea for greater cohesion is being translated into new codes of conduct which are nothing but camouflaged attempts to silence all possible dissent within the Front.
More on Bengal and Kerala Polls: From the Horseâs Mouth
It will be interesting to read the new Bengal discourse of âimproved Leftâ in conjunction with the review made by the CPI(M) Central Committee of the May 2001 Assembly elections. The review has some revealing remarks regarding both West Bengal and Kerala. With regard to West Bengal, the review qualifies the euphoria of the sixth successive victory of the Left Front with the admission that âA section of the working people have turned away from us and become hostile.â Of course, the review blames it on the âunprincipled behaviourâ of some panchayat functionaries and âwrong functioning on the part of cadresâ rather than looking for any possible source of alienation in the governmentâs policies or in the role of the higher leadership of the Party and MLAs and ministers.
In the very next point, the review calls for overcoming the reluctance to organise the agricultural workers and paying attention to developing their political consciousness. As far as we know it has been the CPI(M)âs official policy not to have a separate organisation of agricultural workers in West Bengal even though the party runs an all-India organisation of agricultural workers with millions of members. The CPI(M) propaganda has all along maintained that the impressive implementation of land reforms, the near-completion of Operation Barga and the institutionalisation of the panchayati raj in West Bengal have dismantled the earlier stranglehold of landlords, kulaks and rich peasants and minimised contradictions between agricultural workers and the rural rich so much so that it is possible and desirable to organise all sections of the entire rural population under the Kisan Sabhaâs banner of broad peasant unity. The talk of any âreluctanceâ is therefore misplaced, to say the least.
Independent studies and even commissions set up by the West Bengal government itself have however long been disputing this official description of the rural scene in West Bengal. Under conditions of reverse tenancy, operation barga has contributed more to the economic consolidation of the kulaks and rich peasantry, while panchayats too have been witness to a reformed domination of the rural rich and the middle sections with the rural poorâs representation remaining confined to a marginal level. The massacre of six agricultural workers in May 1993 at Karanda in Bardhaman pointed to a growing unease among agricultural workers and a new desperation among the CPI(M) leadership and the rural rich to silence the growing voice of protest and opposition. Significantly, it was happening in a district like Bardhaman which the CPI(M) leadership would like to showcase as their biggest success story in agrarian reforms. During the run-up to the last Assembly elections when the Bengal countryside was reeling under terror, many academic and political observers traced the agrarian roots of this terror and violence to the increasingly aggressive character of the CPI(M)-backed domination of the rural rich.
The CPI(M) of course saw nothing but a conspiracy to dislodge its government and characterised it as a backlash of rural reaction against the Left Front governmentâs spate of reforms. Even if we accept it for the sake of argument that this reaction is a backlash against the reforms, it raises more questions than it answers and the questions are no less disturbing. How come reaction suddenly acquired such a strong base in the countryside? What then happened to the presumed dismantling of the hegemony of the rural rich? What happened to the framework of broad peasant unity and the so-called containment of class contradictions in the countryside within a non-antagonistic framework of âfriendlyâ class struggle? Evidently, there are strong reasons to argue and believe that while the earlier pattern of hegemony underwent some changes, the reforms could not bring about any basic change in the balance of class forces in the countryside. The framework of broad peasant unity may have put a check on the organisation and consolidation of agricultural workers as a class, but it has not been possible to contain the kulaks and capitalist landlords and reactionary rich peasants. At the end of the CPI(M)âs much-trumpeted rural reforms, these class forces have been replenished and their hegemony reinforced. They represent not just a reaction against the reforms; they are also products and beneficiaries of the reforms who are now demanding a greater share of rural resources and power. Whatever be the CPI(M)âs explanations regarding the Left Frontâs sixth successive victory in West Bengal, the defeat in Kerala can certainly not be attributed to any âreluctanceâ to organise the agricultural workers. After all, Kerala is the state where the organisation of agricultural workers has the longest history spanning several decades and even today it contributes the biggest contingent of members to the CPI(M)-led All India Agricultural Workersâ Union. Also, the defeat in Kerala in the May 2001 elections was much more emphatic than any previous victory or defeat. Here, the review mentions something much more damning than sheer âreluctanceâ: âThere are many reasons for the erosion of our mass base in Kerala. It was a serious lapse that the interests of the poorer sections such as the agricultural workers, workers in the traditional industries such as coir, handloom, cashew, toddy tapping, fishing and handicapped and widows were forgotten.â
How could such a thing happen? After all, Kerala has been the CPI(M)âs biggest fable after West Bengal. In terms of social indicators like literacy, infant mortality, womenâs education, access to healthcare etc., Kerala compares quite favourably with many developed countries and is even marginally ahead of China in certain respects. The concept of Peopleâs Plan evolved and implemented by the Nayanar government in Kerala was even projected by CPI(M) theoreticians and academics as a creative contribution to the enrichment of Marxism. When an eminent economist like Amartya Sen questioned the CPI(M)âs claims regarding the Kerala model of development, preferring to call it an experiment rather than a model, the CPI(M) establishment promptly rejected him. But now will the CPI(M) leadership tell us how the celebrated Kerala model bred such criminal insensitivity and distorted priorities leading to the forgetting of the interests of the poorer sections such as the agricultural workers and workers in the traditional industries?
Kerala has exploded the myth of the CPI(M)âs programme of reaching modest relief to the masses. Against the backdrop of deepening economic crisis aggravated by globalisation, far from mitigating the devastating impact of the crisis for the weaker and poorer sections of the society, the CPI(M)-led LDF government served as an agency that only managed to circulate and amplify the magnitude of the crisis. And now Bengal is exposing the meaning of the CPI(M)âs pet slogan of âmore powers to the statesâ. More powers not to increase the quantum of relief, not to expand the public sector and strengthen welfare legislation, but to implement the whole gamut of neo-liberal policies and add repressive laws like POCA to the stateâs arsenal.
How long can the empty and pretentious slogan of âan improved Left Frontâ camouflage this rightward journey of the opportunist Left? Watch out for more details from Buddhadevâs Royal Bengal Perestroika.
EXPECTATIONS are running high in West Bengal. The public mood has changed dramatically with the communist party changing tack from ideology to economy after winning the Assembly elections and coming back for its sixth term. People believe that the Left Front will now get down to real business and revive the State's past glory -- a belief strengthened by the induction of new people in the leadership of the communist party, whose industry-friendly image is beginning to resuscitate investor confidence in the State.
The new Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharya, has quickly responded to the people's new mood. Instead of wasting time bickering with the Opposition, he has made a beginning by drawing up a road map for State's future. It is natural that the new government will take its own time to settle down and decide on the priorities in charting out the course for industry. But early parleys with business leaders have indicated Mr Bhattacharya's commitment to reforms in the State economy.
Several new areas are emerging as crucial to economic development. Once an important base for manufacturing activities, West Bengal was affected by the structural changes in the economy, where development through manufacturing activities was marginalised. The current development trend shows a perceptible shift from manufacturing to services to sustain economic growth.
While the manufacturing sector missed its own Plan target, service sector pitched for higher growth and emerged as a strong driver of sustainable growth. The service sector accounts for over 45 per cent of the country's GDP. Similarly, the West Bengal economy banks on service sector. It accounts for the bulk share in the State's GDP -- about 42 per cent. There is great scope for the growth of the State's service sector, which remained almost untapped for nearly three decades under the former chief minister, Mr Jyoti Basu, despite West Bengal's huge potential and edge over other States.
Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharya's first move was to revolutionise the IT sector, on the lines of his counterpart in Andhra Pradesh, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, and mobilised the State's large pool of skilled manpower which, hitherto, had been migrating to other States looking for jobs.
The Chief Minister has had discussions with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), hardly ever before approached by any leader of the previous Communist government. PriceWaterhouseCooper's advice was that the State has huge potential in the IT sector. The consultant suggested that West Bengal could well be a leader, particularly in the IT-enabled service industry, provided the State Government immediately took the right initiatives, supported by a clear-cut policy.
The consultant's suggestions stemmed from the State's extant institutional support, which provides a large pool of skilled manpower. The country's best engineering college (as rated by India Today) IIT, Kharagpur; the premier business management school, IIM Calcutta; and the fourth best science college, Presidency College, are instances.
But IT is not a miracle drug to resuscitate the State's employment scene. While it could provide a considerable spurt in overall employment growth, harping on IT alone will not address all the problems arising from the State's sagging economy.
While gauging the scope for other areas in contributing to the its prosperity, the State has the distinct advantage of geographical location. Its potential is strengthened due to its proximity to the huge foreign markets beyond its Eastern and North-Eastern borders. It is flanked by India's two major neighbours, Bangladesh and Nepal, and is near Myanmar.
In this arena, border trade can play an important role and bolster the State's active participation in India's trade with these countries. The total annualised official trade with Nepal and Bangladesh is around $1 billion, and a larger part of the trade with Bangladesh is through Bengal's border. Besides, a huge volume of unofficial trade flows through the State's border to Bangladesh and Nepal.
With the SAPTA (South Asia Preferential Tariff Area) becoming a reality, and SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Area) on the anvil in 2003, West Bengal can emerge a prospective gateway for India to expand trade with Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and also Myanmar through back-up support to Assam and Mizoram. Kolkata could serve as the main trading hub, and Siliguri as the satellite for India's trade with these neighbours. If China can utilise West Bengal as one of its major entry points for dumping goods in India, why cannot the West Bengal Government promote the State as a major trade channel in its own right?
After the removal of QRs (quantitative restrictions), the significance of manufacturing activities is diminishing because of fierce competition from cheap imports. Small and medium enterprises are going through tough times, and only a few big houses are striving while investing in new projects. The attraction of ``greenfield'' investments is waning and mergers and acquisitions are emerging as an attractive investment route.
The drawback for West Bengal is that it is saddled with very old manufacturing companies which hardly provide any scope for mergers and acquisitions. Besides, the State is hampered by poor infrastructure facilities. It has surplus power, but that is not the only infrastructure required for the development of manufacturing. It is not easy to develop infrastructure within a short period to lure investors from other States.
It is unfortunate that the IT revolution in the State is beginning at a time of global recession in IT due to the slowdown in the US economy. But analysts believe that this is a temporary phase. India will see better prospects for its IT skills. Inversely, the slowdown in the US economy will force Americans to buy cheaper software, which India alone can provide.
The resurrection of the State's economy depends upon two important factors -- the development of IT; and the energising of trading activity. While bolstering trading activity, the State government should learn valuable lessons from such nations as Japan and Korea, whose global marketing expertise was strengthened by a few giant trading houses, including Sogo in Japan.
The validity of the argument rests on the fact that IT-buoyant Bangalore alone was able to project Karnataka as the ideal investment destination for entrepreneurs, despite the State being shackled by inadequate infrastructure facilities for manufacturing activities. Soon, it became the country's Silicon Valley. And Hong Kong is an important trade engine that powers China's galloping export growth. Why cannot Kolkata, then, serve as the springboard for IT development and trading activity in the State, to revive its past glory and reinforce its significance to the country's economic development?
go to link to see the table, which cant be C/P-ed here
1 lakh bogus voters in Nadia and still counting
- As election wagon chugs on, surfeit of false citizens and ordeal of a couple surface
Feb. 1: Nearly a lakh âbogusâ voters have been detected in Nadia alone.
Members of the 19-strong team of observers, now on the second leg of their mission to weed out such voters, arrived in their assigned destinations today. And that they have a mammoth task on hand became evident from one district.
After a meeting with Nadia observer Amitabh Rajan, district magistrate Rajesh Pandey said by February 15, when the final electoral roll would be published, the number of dead, shifted or Bangladeshi voters is expected to go past the one-lakh mark.
âWe have deleted 90,000 names from the voter lists already â the highest in the state so far,â Pandey said. Nadia has about 27 lakh voters.
About 3.5 lakh dead/shifted voters have been identified across the state so far.
The 90,000 bogus voters in Nadia were identified following an inquiry initiated by Election Commission adviser K.J. Rao last month.
Rajan reached Krishnagar this morning and met district officials to review the progress of the electoral roll revision.
âI will begin from where Mr Rao left off,â he said. Like Rao, Rajan said he will go door to door to ascertain the validity of complaints filed by political parties.
But, unlike Rao, who never disclosed his destination to the media, Rajan bared his plans. He handed to journalists his schedule for the next seven days.
The CPM reacted sharply. âThis is not done. EC (Election Commission) officials are not supposed to inform others about their movement. But some observers are doing just that. We never made public the complaints filed by our party,ââ said Rabin Deb, the governmentâs chief whip.
Rao, who is overseeing the roll revision in West Midnapore this time, held a series of meetings with officials and parties. Accompanied by district magistrate D. Nariyala and Midnapore Sadar block development officer (BDO) Mohammad Kamruddin, Rao visited various pockets of Midnapore town with a list of complaints submitted to him by the Opposition parties.
Around 4.30 pm, he went to the police lines looking for voters who had been transferred.
CPM councillor Sipra Bhusan was heard requesting Rao repeatedly not to immediately delete the names of persons not found. âThere may be family members who may not have shifted,â she told Rao, who underlined about six names.
Rao also went to the Midnapore municipality to look into the death registers and the office of the food and supplies department to check out ration card records.
In Burdwan, observer Rabindranath Das met the district officials.
In Calcutta, chief electoral officer Debasish Sen said the observers for Malda, East Midnapore, Bankura and Nadia were replaced at the last moment as those earlier scheduled could not turn up because of personal reasons.
All 19 observers will submit their reports to the Election Commission on their return to Delhi. The EC will meet them on February 10 to discuss their findings.
The government has transferred the subdivisional officers of Diamond Harbour and Balurghat and suspended two Nadia schoolteachers following EC recommendations.
Serampore, Feb. 1: Krishnaram Biswas was 257 years old in 2001 and 261 in 2005. He is 109 years old now.
The man from Serampore can make it to the Guinness Book if its makers trust Indian voter identity cards for proof of age.
Krishnaram, 67 years old now, received his first I-card about a decade ago. It identified him as Krishnadhan.
Until 2001 â when the last Assembly elections were held â he did not feel inclined to get his name corrected. He did not have to produce the I-card while voting in the meantime either.
âI applied for the rectification of my name in the run-up to the 2001 polls,â the retired officer of a private firm said.
He got a new card. But this time, Krishnaramâs age had jumped a couple of centuries.
âThe new card spelt my name right but put my age at 257. When I went back to the subdivisional office, I was told it was a minor error and there would be no problem in casting my vote.â
<b>In the polling booth, Krishnaram was stunned again. His wife Banani, 45 then, was also 257 years old according to the voter list.</b>
Although the cause of much amusement among officials in the booth, the couple from BP Dey Street, 50 km from Calcutta, had no problem voting.
In January 2006, election observer for Hooghly N. Shibasailam was also amused. âYou two must be the oldest living voters in the world,â he quipped.
Krishnaram was determined to have the errors rectified. When the roll revision started, he filled the necessary forms and applied for the corrections. âOfficials I spoke to at the SDOâs office promised to rectify the errors on the voter list,â Krishnaram said.
âThe voter list was rectified and both our ages were printed as 261.â The system was definitely working â Krishnaram became four years older between 2001 and 2005.
âI did not receive any response regarding my I-card,â he said.
At a loss, Krishnaram went back to the SDOâs office. âThey assured me again that everything will be all right. But in the draft roll, we were 109 years old.â
Additional district magistrate (general) Onkar Singh Meena said Krishnaramâs is an âisolatedâ case. âWe have initiated a probe. All necessary corrections will be made on the final electoral roll.â
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>EC deletes 48,000 names from electoral rolls</b>
Press Trust of India
Kolkata, February 2, 2006
The names of around 48,000 false and dead voters were detected and deleted from the voters' lists in Purulia and South Dinajpur districts of West Bengal by Election Commission observers on Thursday.
Monoranjan Mishra, the EC observer for Purulia, ordered the deletion of the names of 24,140 false voters.
South Dinajpur district magistrate Sayed Sarfaraz Ahmed said that the names of nearly 24,000 dead voters had been deleted from the rolls in areas under his jurisdiction.
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48,000 less votes for CPI. <!--emo&:eager--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/lmaosmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lmaosmiley.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rao effect sees lakhs of fake voters losing their vote
Saugar Sengupta/ Kolkata
West Bengal's Maoist-infested West Midnapore may see over 1.5 lakh fake voters being struck off the electoral rolls, thanks to the presence of Election Commission observer KJ Rao.
Even the Maoists are supportive of the manner in which the EC is discharging its duties, concede district officials. So much so the Maoists have given Mr Rao "free passage" in their territory, sources said.
The Rao effect seems to have begun to work wonders in the district because even before the hero of the Bihar Assembly election resumed his "second innings" - his first visit was to Nadia - the officials had thrown out more than 74,000 "ghost voters" from the district.
Though EC officials refused to go on record a senior official felt: "More than 1.5 lakh fake names could be dropped" acknowledging "even this figure could be the tip of the iceberg."
According to State Election Office, more than seven lakh names have been struck off the electoral rolls in the past few months from Nadia, Burdwan, North and South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Hooghly, Howrah, Coochbehar, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts.
"Most number of ghost voters were spotted in Burdwan which accounted for more than 1.1 lakh names," said an EC official. Burdwan is a major CPI(M) stronghold from where the party MP won his seat in the 2004 elections by a huge margin of over four lakh votes.
The border district of Nadia accounted for 94,000 fake voters. "While all the names have been deleted, we expect more names to appear," a district official said.
According to the opposition Congress, the district could still be having as many as one lakh false voters.
South 24 Parganas, another border district stands third in the ranking, though West Midanpore could bypass it soon, EC officials felt.
Sources said more than 90,000 fake names were caught in the district.
A large part of Kolkata, including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's constituency Jadavpur, falls in the district.
Sources said, more than 4,700 names were struck off the roll here. According to EC sources, while Darjeeling and Coochbehar accounted for around 32,000 false names, neighbouring Jalpaiguri had 30,000 false voters till the beginning of the second round of survey.
Two bordering district of Malda and Murshidabad, which have earned notoriety in infiltration, trans-border smuggling worth more than 5,000 crore, accounted for 39,000 and 47,000 ghost voters respectively, EC reports suggested. Hooghly, yet another district at a stone's throw from Kolkata, has registered more than 45,000 fake voters, officials said.
According to poll officials, the tally could have been more but for the amount of non-cooperation from the staff mostly from Coochbehar, Nadia and Burdwan districts.
Interestingly, sources from Midnapore on Thursday said, Mr Rao has been getting "overwhelming response" from the populace in West Midnapore.
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<b>CPI-M, IUML men clash near Kannur</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Two policemen, including a sub-inspector, were injured in the violence which followed last night's attack by alleged IUML activists on six shops owned by CPI-M sympathisers at Chapparapadavu, about 40 km from Kannur, after the Left party took out a <b>protest march against the attack on CPI-M flags and properties on Friday</b>. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Taliparamba DYSP Abdul Karim said a group of CPI-M men led by local leaders who came this evening to inspect the damaged shops were pelted stones by IUML workers in the relatively Muslim-dominated area.
Later both sides started attacking each other during which a private kerosene godown was set afire and some shops owned by IUML supporters attacked, he said
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Kerala election will be very peacefull. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Pioneer.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Who will win Tamil Nadu?</b>
SirâThis refers to the article, âArithmetic scores over chemistryâ (March 9), by Kalyani Shankar. Since the electorate knows all politicians are corrupt, corruption itself will not be an issue in the coming Assembly election in Tamil Nadu.
The vote-share of the DMK-led coalition in the last Lok Sabha election was 58.7 per cent; it thus made a sweep in the State. Even now, with Mr Vaikoâs five per cent votes added to ADMK, the DMK-led DPA remains a force to reckon with.
The ADMK won majority of seats with fewer percentage of votes in the 2001 Assembly elections since the opposition was divided and each party contested separately. Mr M Karunanidhi, though an octogenarian, still rules the roost and majority of the DMKâs old-guard have already reconciled to Stalinâs ascendancy. Therefore, it is hardly likely that there would be bickering among the party leaders about who will lead the party.
The splinter groups aligning with the ruling party will not tilt the balance in its favour except giving it a psychological edge. Once the initial euphoria dies down one will see the real strength of the rival camp.
The Opposition will confidently capitalise on the ADMKâs unpopular decisions on various issues.
The BJP and DMDK led by Mr Vijayakanth, if they do not join any camp, will cut into the ADMKâs votes and play spoil sport.
The Kanchi Shankaracharyaâs arrest will be another issue on which the Hindu outfits will counter the ruling ADMK.
Sixteen lakh State Government employees, who have undergone tremendous hardship at the hands of ruling ADMK will play a vital role in influencing the electorate to not cast their vote against ADMK.
Mr Vaiko has even risked his reputation by crossing over to ADMK. He should know that the chances of his partyâs success are slim.
In the last election, too, when the MDMK contested separately, it drew a blank. Moreover, the cadres of both MDMK and ADMK not work wholeheartedly considering the animosity between the two parties before they came together.
In Tamil Nadu, the voters are even more unpredictable than leaders.
It will hardly be a surprise for people if the ADMK, which has earned notoriety for its vindictive and dictatorial rule, fails at the hustings.
A Seshagiri Rao
Chennai <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Muslim party marginalised </b>
Pioneer News Service / Guwahati
A newly floated Muslim-based political party in Assam has got marginalised even before it was able to test its strength in next month's Assembly elections with no parties willing to ally with them.
The Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF) was shunned by almost all major political formations despite desperate efforts at having an alliance to contest the elections.
It was a major surprise for the AUDF that was formed in 2005 with as many as 12 religious and linguistic minority groups, led by th<b>e Assam chapter of the Jamiat-Ulama-e-Hind, supporting the party.</b>
The AUDF was formed soon after the Supreme Court on July 2005 repealed the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act. The 22-year-old Act was replaced with the Foreigners Act of 1946.
<b>Assam Jamiat Ulema president Badruddin Azmal </b>had gone on record saying the <b>religious and linguistic minorities in Assam would not vote for the Congress as the party failed to defend the IMDT Act from being repealed.</b>
The AUDF was hoping that it would be able to enlist the support of Assam's main Opposition Asom Gana Parishad. "We had about eight rounds of talks with the AUDF for an electoral understanding. Finally we decided against an alliance as the AUDF was found to be espousing the cause of a religious community and did not have acceptability among the masses," a senior AGP leader requesting anonymity said.
<b>Muslims in Assam, who account for about 30 per cent of the State's 26 million people,</b> have for decades been at the centrestage of electoral politics with the community holding the key in at least 40 of the 126 Assembly constituencies.
The Muslims and the Bengali-speaking linguistic minority voters in Assam were traditionally Congress supporters.
It was widely believed that the AUDF would be able to cut into the traditional Muslim vote bank of the Congress. But the party's lack of matured leadership had led to the AUDF's downfall even before the elections were fought.
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<!--emo&:bhappy--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/b_woot.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='b_woot.gif' /><!--endemo--> Jaya nominated for Nobel Prize
[ Tuesday, March 14, 2006 09:53:59 pmPTI ]
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CHENNAI: World Federation of Tamil Youth (WFTY) on Tuesday said it has nominated Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for the Nobel Peace Prize, 2006.
The federation has nominated Jayalalithaa's name from India, Sharjah and the US, for her "dedicated efforts in ushering Peace, Performance, Progressiveness, Productivity, Partnership and Prosperity for the people of the state during the last five years," its president Dr Vijay G Prabhakar said.
"We would also be celebrating April 14, the Tamil New Year as 'Selvi J Jayalalithaa day' in 15 countries, highlighting the progress of Tamil Nadu under her leadership," he said.
The federation's India chapter president Dr R Mylvaganan presented a DVD titled "J Governance" produced by the organisation
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>NDA petitions Prez for Chawla's removal </b>
Pioneer.com
Agencies/ New Delhi
Stepping up their offensive, NDA leaders on Thursday submitted to President A P J Abdul Kalam a memorandum signed by over 200 MPs demanding immediate removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla for his alleged links with the ruling Congress party.
"The Election Commission must be absolutely impartial. It must also appear to be impartial," the memorandum signed by 205 Members from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha said demanding Chawla's removal under various constitutional provisions.
"We expect that the President will discuss the issue with the Chief Election Commissioner and make a decision on the basis of the discussions", Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani told reporters after the 30-minute long meeting.
NDA Convener George Fernandes, SAD leader S S Dhindsa besides BJP President Rajnath Singh and senior leaders Sushma Swaraj and V K Malhotra were among those who met Kalam
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Deccan Chronicle, 16 March 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mamata plan on tieup misfires
Â
New Delhi/Kolkata, March 15: <b>Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjeeâs calculation of keeping 70 seats free for the Congress in West Bengal for the upcoming Assembly polls and only conceding 23 seats to her ally, the BJP, has misfired. </b>
The BJP is upset with Ms Banerjeeâs clear preference for an alliance, whether formal or informal, with the Congress. <b>Ms Banerjee has not named any candidates from 70 seats and has given 23 seats to the BJP and 8 to smaller allies like JD-U(2), SSP(1), PBGP(1), SJP(1), (Jharkhand Party-Naren(1), SGP(1), and Independent (1). The BJP that had been demanding 74 seats had agreed to Ms Banerjeeâs offer of 40 seats.</b>
<b>The Trinamul chief has now pared down her offer to 23 seats. </b>The BJP could have swallowed its pride and accepted even less than 23 seats if it had been given seats of its choice. <b>Out of the 23 seats allotted to the BJP, only two were on the wish-list which the party had submitted to Ms Banerjee.</b> The West Bengal Assembly has 294 seats and the Trinamul on Monday announced that it would contest 193 seats.
It left 23 seats for the BJP and eight for its recently floated Gana Front partners. As of now, it has not announced any names for 70 remaining seats. Ms Banerjee had indicated that she had informally allotted 53 seats to the Congress during her talks with AICC general secretary and incharge of West Bengal Margaret Alva.
However, sources indicated that Ms Banerjee could increase that offer to 70 seats. Ms Banerjee has fielded 31 Muslim candidates. âThis is aimed at washing off the stains of her alliance with the BJP,â a party functionary added.<b> The Congress, however, rejected Ms Banerjeeâs appeal to forge an anti-Left alliance.</b> The party on Wednesday stuck to its stand that it would not ally with the Trinamul unless it quit the NDA.
âIt is the Congress policy to have no truck with the BJP or any other NDA partner and the Trinamul continues to be in the NDA,â defence minister and West Bengal PCC chief Pranab Mukherjee said in Kolkata. Mr Mukherjee, who attended a meeting of the PCC election committee along with senior party leaders P.R. Das Munshi and A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, said the party along with its allies would contest all the 294 seats in the State and a list of candidates was being finalised.
Mr Mukherjee said that he would give the Trinamul time till the filing of nominations to quit the NDA.
âTrinamul will definitely be given time to leave the BJPâs company,â he said. In that eventuality, he added, the Congress would review its decision. âIf the Trinamul leaves the NDA, then we will not field candidates in all the seats. We will contest in a lesser number of seats.â
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Stature of VS Achuthanandan in CPI(M) is similar to that of K Karunakaran in Congress(I), though not known for corruption. The fight is going to be tough.
For BJP, loha garam hai. Make the right moves to make an opening in Kerala assembly.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->