Friday, November 6, 1998

• Discontent among Delhi
  BJP MLAs
• INLD allotted 3 Delhi seats

Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi holding the 2500-year-old holy ashes kalash of Lord Buddha which was taken from Patna museum on Thursday enroute Bodh Gaya for the international Bauddha Mahotsav— A PTI photo

Buddha’s ashes on display PATNA, Nov 5 — The rare soapstone relic casket containing Lord Buddha’s bones and ashes was kept for public viewing for the first time since its discovery in 1956 in Vaishali, marking the inauguration of the four-day Bauddha Mahotsav in Bihar today. The casket was handed over to CM Rabri Devi who put it on a tastefully decorated van for its onward journey to Bodh Gaya this morning.

Poet-novelist Nagarjun dead
DARBHANGA (Bihar), Nov 5 — Renowned Hindi litterateur Vaidyanath Mishra, better known as Nagarjun, died early today. He was 87. He was suffering from asthma and was in coma since Monday. He is survived by four sons and two daughters.

Army developing IT war games
BELGAUM, Nov 5 — Keeping pace with the Information Technology revolution, the Indian Army is developing high-tech PC-based war games to train its officers to tackle battle situations.

Riot accused in Cong panel; Sikhs upset
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 5 — The presence of three former MPs, charged in the 1984 riot cases, in the selection committee of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee has evoked strong reaction from the Sikh community here.

Former Union Ministers H K L Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler have been accused of engineering the riots following the assassination of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.

"How can we believe in a party which after seeking pardon too does not punish those who engineered the riots?" asked Mr Baljeet Singh, a bank employee.

Ms Jaswinder Kaur, a housewife said, "The Congress first destroyed our homes and now wants us to vote for those candidates who have been picked and chosen by the same persons who instigated the riots."

Mr Atma Singh, whose is the lone surviving member following riots in his family, said "how does it matter if Sajjan or Bhagat are not fighting? They are selecting the candidates," adding, "Justice which has eluded us for 14-years, now appears would never be delivered."

A Congressman said the presence of these former MPs in the selection committee would mar their chances as it would be difficult to explain their stance to the Sikh electorate.

Of the 70 assembly seats in Delhi, the Sikhs have a strong presence in about 20 segments and they constitute about 10 per cent of the 83 lakh voters in the Capital.

The draft manifesto of the Congress for the Delhi Assembly has committed itself to taking "appropriate action" against all those found guilty in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

"The Congress commits itself to taking appropriate action against all those held guilty," the draft manifesto says with reference to the 1984 riots.

Defending the presence of these politicians in the selection committee of the party, the DPCC President, Ms Sheila Dikshit, said, "They have been Congressmen for decades and we want to use their expertise within the party. We do not want to bring them in the poll arena."

A former Rajya Sabha MP, Mr S S Ahluwalia, had written a letter to the party president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, expressing his opposition to giving positions to those allegedly involved in the 1984 riots. The All-India Congress Committee had issued a show-cause notice to Mr Ahluwalia for making his communication with the party President public.

Relatives of top BJP leaders get ticket

BHOPAL, Nov 5 (PTI) — Relatives of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, BJP veteran Vijayaraje Scindia and Union Minister of State for Steel and Mines Ramesh Bais are among a number of kith and kin of senior BJP leaders who have been given the party ticket for the November 25 assembly poll in Madhya Pradesh.

Mr Vajpayee’s relative, sitting MLA Karuna Shukla, has been renominated from the Baloda Bazar seat in Raipur district while Ms Vijayaraje’s youngest daughter, Yashodhara Scindia, would contest from Shivpuri in Guna district.

The brothers of Vijayaraje and Bais — Dhyanendra Singh and Shyam Bais — have been made the party nominees from Murar and Mandirhasod respectively.

Yashodhara, who has been given the ticket by dropping sitting MLA D.K. Jain, enters the fray for the first time besides Suhas Pradhan, wife of sitting MLA Shailendra Pradhan. She would contest the Bhopal South seat represented by her husband in the last two assembly elections.

Rajya Sabha member and former Madhya Pradesh BJP President Lakhiram Agarwal’s son Amar Agarwal has been fielded from Bilaspur while former Chief Minister Sunderlal Patwa’s cousin Mangal Patwa is the party nominee from Manasa in the Mandsaur district.

Mangal had been suspended from the BJP for alleged anti-party activity during the February Lok Sabha poll.

Nirmala Bhuria, daughter of veteran tribal leader Dilip Singh Bhuria, who defected from the Congress to the BJP before the last Lok Sabha poll will be the party candidate from Petlawad.

She had held the seat till some time before the general election but quit after Bhuria joined the BJP.

Other relatives of senior state leaders who are among BJP nominees include Rekha Bisen, wife of MP Gaurishankar Bisen, from Balaghat and former Speaker Brij Mohan Mishra’s daughter Archana Chitnis from Nepanagar in Khandwa district.

At least 95 of the 111 BJP MLAs have been renominated. There are 26 women among the 295 BJP candidates declared so far.

Discontent among Delhi BJP MLAs
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 5 — Rumblings of discontent are being felt within the Delhi unit of the BJP with those MLAs whose names do not figure in the list of candidates feeling to have been victimised in the internecine party war.

Atleast five of the eight BJP MLAs who were dropped in the first list of 50 candidates selected yesterday are said to be angry with the decision.

The MLA from the reserved constituency of Madipur, Mr Swaroop Chand Rajan, who was also dropped, blamed a Rashtriya Swayam Sewak representative in the election committee.

"At the core committee meeting at the residence of the in-charge of the Delhi poll, Mr V. Venkaiah Naidu there was a consensus on my name for the Sultanpuri seat, but the RSS representative played foul," Mr Rajan alleged.

"On November 1, I was called by the party president Mr Mange Ram Garg, and told that the RSS felt that I should contest from Sultanpuri as around 80 per cent of the voters are Balmikis. Despite that I have been dropped", Mr Rajan said.

Another MLA from East Delhi expressed his anger and said that the party had not given him the ticket because he refused to side with any of the two major factions. He warned that he would make sure that the BJP candidate from his constituency was defeated.

A senior city leader pointed out that they were expecting adverse reactions from the dropped MLAs. "However, we are prepared to go to the hustings as a team. The fact that some members of our team may not be happy with the current placement can be subsequently dealt with," he said.

The BJP has replaced eight sitting MLAs with new faces, as the party feels that their chances of winning are slim.

In Vishwas Nagar, Mr Ved Vyas Mahajan has got the ticket in place of sitting MLA Madan Lal Gaba and in Shahdara, Ms Jyotsna Aggarwal has got the ticket in place of Mr Ram Niwas Goel, Mr Chandra Pal Singh has got the ticket in place of Master Balbir Singh in Seemapuri and Mr Sudhir Chaudhary in place of the sitting MLA Mr Jagdish Lal Batra in Kasturba Nagar.

Sitting MLA from Madipur, Swaroop Chand Rajan has been replaced by Mr Lakshman Atal in Karawal Nagar Mr Ram Pal Karanha has been replaced by Mr Mohan Singh Vashisht, in Chandni Chowk Mr Vasudev Kaptan has been replaced by Mr Veeresh Pratap Chaudhary and in Timarpur Mr Rajendra Gupta has been replaced by Mr Raghuvansh Singhal.

INLD allotted 3 Delhi seats
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 5 — The Indian National Lok Dal has been allotted three Delhi Assembly seats by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in an electoral adjustment announced today.

The list for 16 seats announced today includes Hauz Khas, from where Chief Minister, Mrs Sushma Swaraj will be contesting. Mahipalpur, Bawana and Najafgarh have been allotted to the INLD.

With this the names for 66 seats have been announced. The candidate for the Shalimar Bagh seat, from where former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh had been elected, will be announced tomorrow. Mr Sahib Singh has already stated that he would not contest the elections.

The General Secretary of the BJP, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, said that the INLD candidates will contest the elections under their own symbol.

Mr Rajendra Gupta, the former Delhi Transport Minister who was dropped from Mrs Sushma Swaraj’s Cabinet, has been given ticket to contest from Malviya Nagar. The Delhi Welfare Minister, Mr S.P. Ratawal, will contest the election from the Karol Bagh reserved constituency.

Shekhawat files papers
From Milap Chand Dandia

JAIPUR, Nov 5 — With only one day left for filing nominations, the election process has started in full swing in Rajasthan.

The two chief ministerial candidates, CM Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Pt Nawal Kishore Sharma, filed their nomination papers today on behalf of the BJP and Congress, respectively. While Mr Shekhawat has been officially declared the next CM of the state by the BJP, Mr Sharma denied that he was the prospective CM. The CM will be elected by the legislature party after the results or nominated by the high command, he told media persons after filing his nomination papers from the Jaipur Gramin constituency. But congressmen believe he has been asked to contest the Vidhan Sabha elections as he will be the next CM.

Mr Sharma has never earlier contested the Vidhan Sabha election and has all through been in the Lok Sabha. His rival BJP candidate is Dr V. Ujla Arora who has a record of winning from the Jaipur Gramin constituency six times in a row. “I am not scared of Sharma’s candidature. Previously too I have defeated Congress heavy-weights several times and this time too Sharma will lose”, she said in an interview.

Both Mr Shekhawat and Mr Sharma, after filing their nomination papers, claimed that their party would emerge victorious and form the government.

Curiously, both parties claim that the main issue in the Vidhan Sabha election will be development of the state. While, Mr Shekhawat said that the state had now joined the club of developed states on account of the extensive developmental activities and that is why people will vote for BJP. Mr Sharma said that lack of development during the BJP regime will cost BJP heavily and people will provide his party a majority. To the question that if there had been a real development, why the BJP was mauled at the hustings early this year in the Lok Sabha poll, Mr Shekhawat answered that party workers did not work as hard as ought to have that time on the premise that the people will vote on their own for the party on account of the allround development in the state.

Both the leaders discounted the fear that infighting within their respective parties would harm the prospects of their official candidates. While Mr Shekhawat says that there had been no bickering in the BJP over distribution of ticket,Mr Sharma asserts the fight for ticket is not a new phenomenon. However, the fact is that the Congress and the BJP both had not been able to finalise the list of all the 200 candidates till this afternoon because of bickering.

Will he contest from the constituency or more? Replying to this question, the CM said it would depend on the party.

Assumption is that he may contest from the Hawa Mahal constituency of Jaipur and also from Bali, the constituency he at present represents.

Mumbai haven for extortionists

MUMBAI, Nov 5 (IANS) — For decades Mumbai had attracted most of India’s young and enterprising dreamers. Be they artistes, medical or engineering professionals or plain construction contractors, this was the promised EI Dorado to which all gravitated. And several, if not all, struck it rich too.

But now their world is coming unstuck. The dream is turning into a nightmare as the midnight ring of the telephone could bring diabolical tidings from the desperados who have laid siege to this city of 14 million.

The unabated killings mostly for unpaid ransom, of corporate executives, hotel owners and doctors by the underworld has threatened the very core of the city.

According to police records, the number of extortion-related murders in the metropolis had crossed 300 till October this year, against 235 for the corresponding period last year.

For the past three months, hardly a day has passed without bloodshed on the streets. The underworld has now shifted its target from industrialists and builders to corporate executives, professionals and restaurant owners. In the past one month alone, there were over 20 daylight murders for ransom.

Most doctors and restaurant owners shiver when their phones ring. The extortionists generally drop the name of an underworld don and put a price on their lives. According to sources, the amount ranges between Rs 100,000 ($ 2,381) and Rs 50 million ($ 1.2 million) depending on “target assessment” by the “bhai”, a local euphemism for a don.

An owner of a small restaurant says he has been receiving threatening calls for the past six months. “I don’t want to pay up. If I pay up today they would expect money from me till the end of my life, he says.

The two police guards posted at his residence and at the restaurant do not make him feel safe. “I am constantly worried about my young daughter who goes to school,” he says.

The gruesome killing of a doctor in his private hospital in the central neighbourhood of Kalyan sparked panic among doctors. For several days, doctors in the area refused to open their clinics. Several of them even disconnected their phones and applied for gun licences.

However, nothing seems to be stopping the extortionists. On November 2, a teenager barged into the city office of Allied Deal Int. Ltd. and shot at Mr Rajesh Pillai, a marketing executive, from a close range. Three bullets pierced through his body. Mr Pillai is in critical condition in a nearby hospital.

Though a majority of the extortion cases never get registered with the police, this year about 250 persons mustered courage to walk up to the police and file complaints.

Mr Prakash Landge, a police officer in the anti-extortion cell, says the police can be really effective only if the victims came forward to inform them about the extortion calls they receive. “Unless you tell us, how can we help you,” he asks.

But there is a crisis of confidence. A reputed orthopaedic doctor says, “Most of us do not go to police since that is the surest way to draw attention of more extortionists”.

Meanwhile, the increasing extortion cases have begun to have an adverse impact on business in the metropolis. A non-banking finance company posted a good half-yearly result which it would have announced to the public from the rooftops in normal circumstances. “We decided against having a press conference and publicity since it could attract extortionists,” said the company’s chairman-cum-managing director.

There is a flip side to the saga. “The economic distress due to spiralling prices and growing unemployment are at the root of the present crisis,” says Mr Datta Ishwalkar, a trade unionist who fought on behalf of retrenched industrial workers of Mumbai.

The collapse of Mumbai’s textile industry is complete. Moreover, about 2,700 small factories in the Thane-Belapur industrial belt have pulled their shutters down leaving thousands of industrial workers without any means of livelihood.

Poet-novelist Nagarjun dead

DARBHANGA (Bihar), Nov 5 (UNI) — Renowned Hindi litterateur Vaidyanath Mishra, better known as Nagarjun, died early today.

He was 87. He was suffering from asthma and was in coma since Monday. He is survived by four sons and two daughters.

Nagarjun was born at Tarauni village of Darbhanga district in 1911 and had his primary education in Sanskrit.

He began his literary career with ‘‘Yatri’’ in Maithili. Nagarjun was the first poet and writer in Mithila who gave a new direction to the Left ideology. Identified as a poet of the masses, Nagarjun was arrested during the JP movement when he was reciting his poems on the road in 1974.

He had participated in the Independence movement after his return from Sri Lanka in 1938.

Nagarjun was close to Sahajanand Saraswati and Rahul Sankrityayana and accompanied the latter when he went to jail in connection with the farmers’ movement. He attained the distinction of a national poet and was identified with the farmers’ movement and struggle against feudal forces.

His literary work, ‘‘Akal’’, was very popular at that time. He was also a member of the Communist Party of India till 1962.

He won the Sahitya Akademi award for his collection of poems, ‘‘Patraheen Nagn Gachh’’ in Maithili. He also received honours from the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh Governments.

Buddha’s ashes on display

PATNA, Nov 5 (UNI) — The rare soapstone relic casket containing Lord Buddha’s bones and ashes was kept for public viewing for the first time since its discovery in 1956 in Vaishali, marking the inauguration of the four-day Bauddha Mahotsav in Bihar today.

The casket, placed in a special brass pot after it was taken out from the vault of the famous Patna museum amid chants of “Buddham sharanam gachami” by a group of 15 monks, was handed over to Chief Minister Rabri Devi who put it on a tastefully decorated van for its onward journey to Bodh Gaya this morning.

As many as 80 different vehicles joined the caravan, while the van carrying the casket was guarded by armed police. The monks, mostly from south Asian countries, prayed for world peace and burnt incense sticks saying, oh Buddha, please bestow peace on us.

The caravan was scheduled to stop at different places on way to Bodh Gaya where the relic casket would be placed on the Vajrasana behind the Mahabodhi temple where Lord Buddha was said to have attained enlightenment.

After the monks again perform pooja there, the casket would be taken in a procession to the Archaeological Survey of India museum for public viewing. About 20 photo pictures, depicting various stages in the life of Lord Buddha starting from Mayadevi’s dream, would be placed around the casket in the ASI museum till November 8.

The Chief Minister will receive the casket at Bodh Gaya before it was taken to the temple which was spruced up to the enchantment of the tourists, particularly those from abroad.

Army developing IT war games

BELGAUM, Nov 5 (UNI) — Keeping pace with the Information Technology (IT) revolution, the Indian Army is developing high-tech PC-based war games to train its officers to tackle battle situations.

The software is being jointly developed by the Army and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said Lt-Gen Vijay Oberoi, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Army Training Command.

In an interview to UNI, he said, recently a software, Shatranj, had been developed to train men at the battalion level and was currently being used for training purposes.

Another software, Sangram, would be at the disposal of the Army Training Command very soon to train officers and men at the division level. By next year a comprehensive war game would be used at the core level by the training institutes of the Army.

It would help in the Army’s cost-cutting exercise as the officers and men would be able to learn directly on computers, and field exercises and training which involve costly equipment could be reduced.

HC verdict to be challenged
AURANGABAD: The Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr Gopinath Munde, has said the state government will soon challenge in the Supreme Court the verdict of the Bombay High Court, which has acquitted the main accused in the Jalgaon sex scandal. The Bombay High Court on Tuesday acquitted the prime accused and a municipal councillor Pandit Omkar Sakpale , after he completed four years in jail in the sex scandal, on the grounds that evidence against him did not appear to be “natural and believable”. — UNI

2 bank robbers arrested
SATARA: Two members of a gang that allegedly stole cash and gold ornaments worth Rs 4 crore from a Kerala bank last month have been arrested by the Maharashtra police at Mahabaleshwar in Satara district. The police said the two, Vaibhav Dhondu Gondlu from Thane and Nandkumar Laxman Pavaskar of Chiplun district, had been handed over to the Kerala police. — PTI

Hooch claims 7 lives
KOTDWARA (Garhwal): Seven persons have died and 15 taken ill after consuming spurious liquor at Manjure in Chamba block of Uttar Pradesh’s Tehri district. The victims drank the illicit liquor at a village gathering on Wednesday and were immediately taken ill, revenue officials said. They were rushed to the primary health centre at Chamba, but seven died, while two seriously ill were later admitted to a hospital in Dehradun, they said. — PTI

UNESCO reading centres for girls
JAIPUR: Japan’s Asia-Pacific cultural centre for UNESCO is to set up reading centres for girls in different parts of Rajasthan. The Tokyo-based centre would extend financial support in providing material and equipment for the proposed centres which will function as learning centres for neo-literates, Aska Aoshima of the centre said. The centres, to be called “pothi ghar”, would be set up initially in Ajmer, Bhilwara, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Udaipur districts under a pilot project, she said. — PTI