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PM
visits Santiniketan
Serious
crisis for Congress in AP, Karnataka Cong
guns for PM over N-programme BJP
survey finds 30 pc candidates on weak wicket |
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Cong
rethinking on support to Mulayam Response
for SIT on riot cases sought India
in no mood to take on Pervez Advani, Sonia mourn Tohra’s death
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PM visits
Santiniketan Santiniketan (West Bengal), April 2 On the contrary, by taking out time to visit Santiniketan from his busy schedule in the election days, the Prime Minister had expressed his deep anguish and concern over the theft of the Nobel Prize and other memorabilia from the Visva Bharati museum. This was something unbelievable that such an incident could take place at Santiniketan, wondered Mr Vajpayee. He felt that security arrangements at the museum complex were “too inadequate” which led to the easy burglary of the precious medal and other valuables. He, however, hoped that the stolen medal and other valuables could be recovered soon and the culprits be brought to book. He said, if necessary, the Interpol would be requisitioned for recovering the medal and Tagore’s other memorabilia. Incidentally, on the eve of Mr Vajpayee’s visit, an ivory artefact wrapped in a cloth was found last night at a corner of the museum by the CBI, which surprised many since the CID and the state police, which had been visiting the place almost every day from March 25 after the incident, could not locate any such thing. The CBI officials, however, did not ascertain if the recovered artefact was one of the 50 items stolen from the museum. Shortly after 1 pm, Mr Vajpayee, accompanied by the state Governor, Mr Viren J. Shah, arrived at the Santiniketan in an helicopter flying from the Netaji Subhas international airport at Dum Dum. The Prime Minister drove straight to the Uttarayan complex and inspected the museum. Mr Vajpayee held over an hour-long meeting with the Vice-Chancellor and the university committee’s other members and discussed about the safety and security arrangements at Visva Bharati, of which he has been the Chancellor since 2001. Shortly after 5 pm, Mr Vajpayee flew back to Dum Dum on his way back to New Delhi. |
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Pak boy gets new lease of life at Escorts New Delhi, April 2 Parvez Iqbal has responded well to the surgery and medication for a congenital heart disease at Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC) here. Senior Consultant Dr K.S. Aiyar, who corrected the defect through a surgery which lasted four hours, says the procedure was complicated as the boy was well past the ideal age of six months. “There was a big hole in the heart which ought to have been corrected early in life. The longer the wait, the more traumatic the surgery becomes,” he said. The operation costs Rs 1.6 lakh at the Escorts. Parvez came to Delhi with his parents on March 16 for a surgery for closure of ventricular septal defect (VSD) at the EHIRC. His father, Amir Baksh, says the defect was diagnosed when his son was three years old. “I took him to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore for treatment but was told that surgery would entail high risk.” After spending Rs 20,000 at the institute, Baksh, a government employee was disillusioned. News reports about the Indian government's initiative to provide free treatment to children raised his hopes and he lost no time in finding ways and means to bring his boy to the Escorts. Baksh says that when he came to Delhi, he was not sure if he would be able to take his child back alive. Baksh cannot contain his joy when he sees his son run around the ward. For him, Dr Aiyar is a “Farishta” (angel) and he is thankful to the Indian and Pakistani leadership for mending fences, without which his son would not have been treated. Baksh is looking forward to his return journey tomorrow and hopes to send his boy to school now. Dr Trehan told mediapersons that he would call on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on April 9 as a member of a CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) delegation. He would then go to Amritsar to attend the first Indo-Pak heart summit being organised by the Escorts Heart and Super Speciality Institute there. Dr Trehan said the prime objective of the meeting was to discuss problems faced by cardiologists and physicians and new frontiers in cardiac
diseases. Eminent doctors from the USA, UK and Pakistan would address the delegates. He said 40 doctors from Pakistan and 400 from India had already registered their names for the conference. |
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Serious crisis for Congress in AP, Karnataka New Delhi, April 2 The problem in Andhra Pradesh is perhaps more acute as the seat-sharing pact with the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) has led to a virtual revolt in the state Congress unit. There are as many as 50 rebel candidates in the fray. Besides, several sitting Congress legislators as well as the PCC spokesperson, known to be Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s arch rival, have left to join the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Even a senior leader like former minister P.Shiv Shankar, has been compelled to quit. A nervous Central party leadership rushed to AICC General Secretary Vayalar Ravi to Hyderabad to deal with the crisis. Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, senior CWC member in charge of Andhra Pradesh, whose role has now come under the scanner, has not gone to the state, having just returned from Jammu and Kashmir today. Party insiders maintained that the alliance with the TRS, initially considered a winning partnership, has boomeranged given the rebellion it has fuelled. The state unit is furious that the 42 assembly seats allocated to the TRS include several constituencies which were held by the Congress. The state unit is also angry over the distribution of the party ticket. Charges and counter-charges are flying thick and fast as angry aspirants are openly accusing senior leaders of “selling tickets to the highest bidder.” The party has, so far, released the names of 21 Lok Sabha and 147 assembly candidates. Similarly, reports from Karnataka are not too encouraging for the Congress. Party sources said the fact that Chief Minister S.M. Krishna’s decision to shift from his old constituency to Bangalore City speaks volumes about the lack of confidence in the Congress camp. Congress leaders explained that the virtual decimation of the Janata Dal (U) after the death of Ramakrishna Hegde has made the BJP the sole custodian of the anti-Congress vote. The Janata Dal (S), led by
H.D. Deve Gowda, which is also fighting on an anti-Congress plank, is confined to northern Karnataka. Its support base is limited to the Vokaligga community while its vote share does not exceed 10 per cent. Even then, it only ends up cutting into the Congress votebank. The BJP, on the other hand, has the added advantage of enjoying the support of the powerful Lingayat community. It has made serious inroads into the Congress Party’s OBC support base winning over Mr S. Bangarappa, known as a powerful OBC leader. All these factors, combined with a strong anti-incumbency factor, have altered the electoral scene in Karnataka. |
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Cong guns for PM over N-programme New Delhi, April 2 “If Mr Vajpayee had had his way India would never have continued with its nuclear programme and it would not have been put on track and on May 11 and 13, 1998, no nuclear device would have been detonated,” Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal said here at the party’s special briefing held at 2 pm. The Congress had carefully chosen the timing of the attack on Mr Vajpayee as the BJP got only 60 minutes to prepare for an adequate reply as its nuclear strength was in danger of being converted into a weakness by the main Opposition party. BJP
spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took cognisance of the issue suo moto, saying that “I don’t know from when the Congress has turned to be a spying party.... The minutes of the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security are always secret and the Congress is trying to use it for political purpose”. Possibly the absence of other spokespersons in the Capital or because of their pre-occupations, the BJP had to field Mr Naqvi and his lack of understanding of the issue became apparent when he failed to read Mr Sibal’s statement carefully, who had alleged that Mr Vajpayee had opposed the resumption of the nuclear programme in 1979 at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. Mr Sibal said those who voted against were Morarji Desai and Mr Vajpayee. Mr Naqvi put up a brave face, saying that “Mr Vajpayee had within 100 days of his assuming office fulfilled the dream of the country becoming a nuclear power on May 11, 1998.” |
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BJP survey finds 30 pc candidates on weak wicket New Delhi, April 2 Significantly, the BJP which has failed to deny tickets to many of its sitting MPs, has learnt from the survey that the victory of 17 per cent of the 95 sitting MPs in the fray in these two phases is going to be very tough. In the April 20 round, out of the 141 constituencies going to the polls, the BJP has fielded candidates in 101 seats of which 52 are sitting MPs. On April 26, elections are being held in 137 seats. The party has fielded 81 candidates of which 43 are sitting MPs. According to party sources, the survey has been conducted by 547 “Chunav sahayaks” of the party in 182 seats. Chunav sahayaks are party cadres and workers, of whom some are party office-bearers in states, sources said. The current survey has been conducted after March 31, the last date of nomination for the first phase of elections. The source, however, refused to divulge statewise details of the survey findings. Of the 101 candidates contesting in the first phase on April 20, the survey has put 66 candidates in the ‘A’ category, i.e. sure of victory, while 35 others in ‘B’ category, i.e. they have to work very hard to win. In the April 26 elections, the survey has put 53 BJP candidates on the ‘A’ category and 28 candidates in ‘B’ category. The survey has revealed that 48 per cent of the new faces fielded by the BJP have got positive feedback. Among the sample of the survey were BJP cadres, traditional BJP voters, traditional non-BJP voters, first-time voters, youths and women, sources said. The party has heavily banked on such internal surveys in the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi to make corrections in its strategy, sources said adding that the party intended to conduct such surveys on weekly basis to have fresh assessments from the ground. |
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Cong rethinking on support to Mulayam New Delhi, April 2 Although reconciled to a four-cornered contest in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is hoping that pressure from the minorities, who want the two parties to patch-up, will force the Samajwadi Party to go in for a rethink. When the Congress issued a virtual warning to the Samajwadi Party last week to prove its secular credentials failing which it would walk out of its government, party leaders had indicated that it was only a matter of time before it snapped ties with the Samajwadi Party. It was explained that since the two parties are fighting each other in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Congress would have little option but to pull out of the government. It could not support the SP-led government and, at the same time, campaign against it in the electoral battlefield. In fact, senior Congress leaders had indicated that it would snap ties with the SP before releasing its list of Lok Sabha candidates for Uttar Pradesh so as to clear the confusion for its cadres. Not only did the Congress follow up its threat with an invitation to the Samajwadi Party leaders for a seat-sharing arrangement in Uttar Pradesh, but it has since released the names of 46 candidates for UP. Yet, there is no word on when the Congress will take that final step. The explanation being
preferred for this ambivalent position is that the Congress does not want to be blamed for backing out of a secular alliance. |
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Response for SIT on riot cases sought New Delhi, April 2 A Bench of Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Mr Justice
S.B. Sinha and Mr Justice S.H. Kapadia, while seeking reply from the Gujarat Government by April 16, also said that it should make its stand clear on the setting up of a panel for fresh assessment of compensation to the victims. The proposal for SIT and the committee to monitor prosecution was forwarded by amicus curiae Harish Salve, who quoted several instances of closure of the case without proper investigation by the local police, shabby conduct of trial by the prosecutors, resulting in the acquittal of several accused and scores of others getting bails. Mr Salve said the SIT should be headed by a retired police officer of integrity and the committee by a retired judge. Nearly 700 cases of the 4,000 FIRs registered in the case had been closed by the police, he said. |
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India in no mood to take on Pervez New Delhi, April 2 General Musharraf had reportedly told a select group of journalists and intellectuals at the Army House on March 30 night that if there were no forward movement on the resolution of Kashmir issue when Foreign Ministers of both countries meet in July/August, he would not be a party to the peace process. “If the peace process does not move forward. Then I will not be a party to it,” he was quoted as having said. Two days after this remark, there was no statement or reaction from the Ministry of External Affairs and sources said no such statement was needed in the wake of what Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan and Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar went on record to say on the subject. |
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Advani, Sonia mourn Tohra’s death New Delhi, April 2 Describing Tohra as a man of high values, Mr Advani said his demise had created a void in the political and social spheres. Congress President Sonia Gandhi also mourned the death of Mr Tohra. She described him as one of the tallest leaders of Punjab, messiah of the peasants and champion of the downtrodden. |
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Sonia’s foreign origin a political issue, says Advani Chittorgarh, April 2 Talking to newspersons on the 21st day of his Bharat Uday Yatra, Mr Advani said there should be a discussion on this issue which was political in nature. The Congress was the worst-affected party as it had split on this issue, the Deputy Prime Minister recalled.
— UNI |
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Lakshmi’s ‘husband’ disqualified Mumbai, April 2 Mr Joy D’cruz, media manager, Gladrags, said the decision to disqualify Mishra, a participant in this year’s contest, was taken in view of “uncertainty’’ surrounding his background. Lakshmi had surrendered her crown in the wake of a controversy over her marital status. Both Lakshmi and Mishra, in an agreement for accommodation at suburban Malad, had registered themselves as “husband and wife’’ and were reportedly living together.
— UNI |
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