O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Populism prevails
Pre-poll budget for Himachal
WITH a year or so left for the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who also holds the Finance portfolio, has come out with a populist budget, which is understandable given the drubbing the Congress received in the recent Punjab and Uttarakhand elections.

Water-borne poison
Look what they found in supply tanks
WHERE does one find lizards, pigeons and cockroaches? Well, the live ones may be seen at assorted places, but the main resting places for the dead ones seem to be the main supply tanks of treated water in so-called modern cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Bangalore.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Invest in children
Don’t be dazzled by the GDP figures
by A.J. Philip
THE first five years are critically important in the life of a person. Studies have shown that 90 per cent of the brain growth happens during this period. To put it differently, if children in the 1-5 age group are not given nutritious food, they will never be able to reach their full potential.

MIDDLE

Manipal days
by Chetana Vaishnavi
Human memory is vague till you refresh it by walking down the memory lanes. Recently I got to walk down the lanes of Manipal, in fact down Manipal’s memory lanes.

OPED

Targeted subsidies are better than sops
by S.S. Johl
In Punjab, as in many states of India, as well as at the Centre, it is not opposition political parties that win elections. It is the ruling parties that lose due to their failure to perform as per expectations of the people.

News analysis
Parallel governance in Jharkhand
by Ambarish Dutta
Unlike Bihar, the Maoist movement in Jharkhand is not limited to armed operations only. It has created a parallel system of governance that covers elected village bodies, Jan Adalats and a people’s police.

News analysis
Development, not slogans, mattered in Uttarakhand
by Naveen S Garewal
The decades of struggle for an independent identity in the form of a separate State has made Uttarakhand’s populace politically very aware, with a lot of expectations for good governance. The poll trends that have emerged from the high expectations and aspirations of the people are very similar in nature to the 2002 polls, but with different results.

EDITORIALS

Populism prevails
Pre-poll budget for Himachal

WITH a year or so left for the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who also holds the Finance portfolio, has come out with a populist budget, which is understandable given the drubbing the Congress received in the recent Punjab and Uttarakhand elections. To provide respite to the people from the price rise, he has promised to make wheat, rice, edible oils, salt and pulses available at affordable rates. While Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram cut excise and customs duties to rein in inflation, Mr Virbhadra Singh has subsidised food items. Last year, like Mr Chidambaram, Mr Virbhadra Singh had introduced gender budgeting, which required that 30 per cent of the outcome from all departments’ budgets must positively impact women. It is not known whether it had the desired impact.

There is nothing wrong in providing relief to the people in distress, but the state largesse should be confined to the needy. The public distribution system, which stinks of corruption, may see the diversion of essential commodities to the black market. Unlike the Union Budget, which focusses on agriculture, education and health, the Himachal budget has no such lofty priority. Even unemployment stands ignored. The state’s track record of human development is fairly good, but the quality of education needs improvement. Thanks to the tax holiday, the state has attracted industries but there are not enough trained and employable youth available in the state.

To create more employment, Himachal Pradesh needs to deploy its limited resources in further tapping its potential in tourism and hydroelectric power apart from promoting environment-friendly industries like information technology and biotechnology. The state should invest more in expanding and upgrading infrastructure in towns which have witnessed an upsurge in industrial activity. Since money goes into areas which yield immediate political benefits, development suffers. By the time Mr Virbhadra Singh completes his five-year tenure, Himachal Pradesh’s debt liability would have increased from Rs 12,000 crore to Rs 18,233 crore. The previous BJP regime, too, depended heavily on borrowings. New taxes are avoided for political reasons. But loans, unlike taxes, are not opposed.

Water-borne poison
Look what they found in supply tanks

WHERE does one find lizards, pigeons and cockroaches? Well, the live ones may be seen at assorted places, but the main resting places for the dead ones seem to be the main supply tanks of treated water in so-called modern cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Bangalore. Truckloads of such pollutants were found in the tanks when they were recently cleaned by a private firm after as many as 12 years. Pray what were the municipal authorities doing all these years? Posting signboards at shallow wells and hand pumps that their water was not fit for human consumption. Nobody cared to look into the tanks of treated water. After all, out of sight is out of mind, isn’t it? Besides, there were microbial pollutants like E. Coli, moths and fungus, as also several feet high layers of bleaching powder — poured in, ironically, as a cleansing agent.

No wonder, cholera, hepatitis, typhoid and jaundice have been occurring at various places quite regularly. On record, tanks are regularly cleaned to make sure that water-borne diseases are ruled out. It is a shining example of the efficiency of our government agencies that all this slush still got accumulated. The contamination level at places like Nagpur was nearly 144 times as much as the permissible limit.

Many water tanks were left uncovered. Pollutants entered others through corroded or ruptured water supply lines. The government is expected to swing into action now. The agency which leaked out the shocking state of affairs may be blacklisted. There will be a flurry of activity for a few months and then things may be back to “normal”. What comes down has to go up sooner or later — at least in the case of muck in the drinking water.

Defence numbers
Streamline Capital spending

AT Rs 96,000 crore, the defence budget for the year 2007-08 represents a Rs 10,000 crore increase over the revised estimate of Rs 86,000 crore for last year. The fact that the budget estimate was for Rs 89,000 crore, and Rs 3000 crore has been surrendered, is a pointer to the fact that the defence procurement process is still not as smooth as it should be. Capital purchases are critical in the modernisation process, whether it is artillery or the big-ticket 125 aircraft order, for which the Request for Proposal (RFP) has still not been finalised.

The finance ministry has allocated a sum of almost Rs 42,000 crore for Capital spending, which still means that 56 per cent of the spending is on the revenue account. While some of this will go towards routine purchases like fuel and ordinance, the bulk will be appropriated by pay and allowances. The pensions allocation for defence personnel alone is for a staggering Rs 14,648. While Capital spending saw a healthy jump in 2004-05, with monies being paid for acquisitions like the Russian aircraft carrier and the Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) Hawk 100, the spending was kept at the high levels with other major acquisitions like the Scorpene submarine. But the surrender of Rs 3000 crore for last year again reflects poorly on the promise to streamline procurement procedure.

Among other things, the army is waiting for new artillery, the Navy is hoping for more submarines, and the air force is all set to get the process rolling for the 125 Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) order. While the Army gets a large chunk of the budget by virtue of sheer size, both the Air Force and the Navy, are extremely capital intensive. However resistant the procurement process is to rationalisation and acceleration, the attempt must be kept up, and excuses shed. With GDP growing healthily, money is not an issue. Defence Minister A.K. Antony has a unique opportunity here to ensure that the forces are not kept in want.

Thought for the day

Royalty is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay. — John Osborne

ARTICLE

Invest in children
Don’t be dazzled by the GDP figures
by A.J. Philip

THE first five years are critically important in the life of a person. Studies have shown that 90 per cent of the brain growth happens during this period. To put it differently, if children in the 1-5 age group are not given nutritious food, they will never be able to reach their full potential. A large number of our children are born so poor that they do not get good food and are, consequently, unable to attain the capabilities they would have otherwise attained. Though un-quantified, the national loss on this count is gigantic.

The only national programme to address this gargantuan problem is the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, initiated as far back as in 1975.

In his Budget for 2007-08, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has increased the allocation for ICDS from Rs 4,087 crore to Rs 4,761 crore - an increase of Rs 674 crore, a sizeable sum in absolute terms, as most people would see it. To be fair, the allocation for ICDS has been increasing every year. It was just Rs 1,600 crore in 2004-05. However, even this increased allocation is less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of India’s GDP. Compare it with the allocation for defence - Rs 96,000 crore!

Allowance also has to be made for the fact that as of now, ICDS is provided to about 4 crore children through 7 lakh anganwadis. To make the programme universal, there is need to extend the services to a total of 16 crore children in 17 lakh settlements. Once this realisation sinks in, the meagerness of the increase in the allocation for ICDS will automatically dawn on.

But the question here is not exactly about how much money the Central government spends on children but how effective the programme is in addressing the problem of under-nourishment of children. A recent study found that out of every rupee the government spent, only 5 paise went to child-related programmes. This removes the fig leaf of the Central government’s pretence to childcare.

What’s the state of the Indian children 32 years after ICDS was started? Some statistics are quite revealing. A recent study of ICDS covering six states, including Himachal Pradesh, which was appropriately titled Focus On Children Under Six (FOCUS), found that though it is operational in almost every block, barely one-fourth of all children under six are covered under the very important supplementary nutrition component of the programme.

Variations among the states on the money spent on the nutrition of children in anganwadis are startling, to say the least. For instance, Tamil Nadu, which was the first to introduce a mid-day meal programme in schools in 1982, i.e., two decades before the Supreme Court mandated all the states to do so, the cost per meal per child was Rs 1.20. In Bihar, the spending was 15 paise per meal per child. What kind of food can be given at 15 paise, when you have to factor in corruption also?

The FOCUS study also found that in some states the programme was run in a spasmodic manner. “There is no feeding of children in the first few months of the financial year due to procedural delays”. In other words, the children must wait till the budgetary allocations trickle down to the anganwadis. Corruption is rampant. For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, a bland, monotonous, ready-to-eat mixture called panjiri is distributed. It has little nutritional value and is supplied by one state-level contractor. The anganwadis in the state spend more time in fudging of records than in serving the needs of children and lactating mothers.

The net result is that half of all Indian children are undernourished, more than half suffer from anaemia and a similar proportion escapes full immunisation. India loses 6 per cent of its newborns before their first birthday, 50 per cent of the toddlers to malnutrition and a whole generation to poor health, low skills and poverty. A Lancet study found that all over the world, 200 million children fail to reach their full potential. Out of them, the single largest group - 65 million — belongs to India.

The Economic Survey presented in Parliament a day before the Budget contained some statistics, of course, sourced from the Human Development Report, 2006, which are quite revealing. India and China attained freedom almost around the same time. Yet, China has overtaken India on all the health parameters. For instance, the life expectancy at birth is 63 years in India, against 71 in China. Far more interesting is how poverty-stricken Bangladesh has stolen a march over India on all these indices.

In 1990, out of every 1,000 children born in India, 123 died before they could reach the age of 5. The corresponding figure for Bangladesh was 144 children. Just 14 years later, i.e., in 2004, Bangladesh had a much better figure of 77, against India’s 85. The infant mortality rate and the maternal mortality ratio are now better in Bangladesh than in India. This is an impressive achievement given that in 2004 Bangladesh reported a per capita income of $406 - 58 per cent lower than India’s $640.

Perhaps, this has something to do with the fact that “public expenditure on health as a proportion of GDP is almost twice as high in Bangladesh (1.6 per cent) as in India (0.9 per cent). The reverse applies to military expenditure: 2.3 per cent of GDP in India compared with 1.1 per cent in Bangladesh”. However, the nutrition situation is no better in Bangladesh than in India. In both countries half of all children are undernourished.

The UNDP report says India has the highest proportion of undernourished children in the world, along with Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nepal. Surely, these figures are not complimentary to “Shining India”.

Even within the country there are substantial pockets where children live in dreadful conditions as, say, among the Musahars of Bihar or the Sahariyas of Madhya Pradesh. And it is worth remembering that Musahars alone represent a population of about 2.5 million — more than the entire population of Bhutan or, for that matter, of 45 of the 177 countries listed in the Human Development Report.

The Economic Survey says the economy is projected to grow at 9.2 per cent in 2006-07 building on the 9 per cent growth in the previous year. There is a perception that once the desired economic growth is achieved, improvements in child nutrition and health will automatically follow. But this happens only at a very modest rate. Can the children be asked to wait till then, i.e., till the GDP growth rate reaches the double-digit level and infrastructure has developed to the desired extent?

A democracy will become meaningful to the citizens only when the state can ensure the safe delivery of a healthy child and the survival of both mother and child. Surely, the government cannot claim lack of resources with the foreign exchange reserves overflowing at $180 billion as Mr Chidambaram says and uncollected tax revenue pegged at Rs 80,000 crore. What is sorely lacking is the will to invest in children. It is time the government realised that healthy children were synonymous with healthy economy.

MIDDLE

Manipal days
by Chetana Vaishnavi

Human memory is vague till you refresh it by walking down the memory lanes. Recently I got to walk down the lanes of Manipal, in fact down Manipal’s memory lanes.

“Manipal” in the vernacular means “a village of mud” though it is an internationally known academic centre, attracting students from far and wide. Twenty years backwards into the time machine, gave me vivid pictures of hilarious episodes.

I played one of my best practical jokes as a student there. Bored with the monotonous routine, one day I decided to play married. I bought an imitation “Mangalsutra” and borrowed a heavy Zari saree from a friendly neighbour. Draped in a saree, wearing a mangalsutra and my engagement ring (this was a real one!) and looking every inch a shy bride, I blushed my way to college one fine Monday morning.

Seeing my sudden transformation from a jean-clad tomboy to a shy blushing bride, my friends and colleagues dropped down their jaws. Gathering their wits about, they congratulated me profusely and expressed their annoyance at my getting married unannounced.

The news of my marriage spread like a forest fire. “Well,” I shied, “I got married yesterday. My in-laws suddenly landed here from Srinagar. They insisted that the marriage should be performed right away due to some auspicious stars. And I relented.”

One of my senior colleagues, in the company of his friends, burst out in pretended rage: “Where is our rival? We want to meet him!” In the same vein, I teased him back: “Did you not just miss the bus?”

Indrani, one of my senior friends, looked disapprovingly at me and said: “You should not have rushed into marriage so soon, particularly when your parents are away.” Sheepishly and avoiding her gaze I asked: “But what could I do? See, my mother-in-law has sent half a dozen silk sarees — such nice beautiful ones!” And hastily I added: “We got married in the court yesterday!” I was just hoping my friends would see through the game. Imagine me getting married instantly in a court and that too on a Sunday!

I told my friends that I would be going out to watch a movie, “Tapasya”, with my newly acquired husband and would they care to join us for a treat at Diana’s after the show? I was careful enough not to be too insistent, because “Diana” was a three-star restaurant and my joke would put a big dent in my pocket. Nevertheless, I withdrew all my savings from the bank to treat any of the unwanted invitees in case they really turned up. Thankfully, none did.

I remained “married” for two more days. Stephen, a lecturer along with Indrani, again cornered me and reiterated their disapproval of my “marriage” in my parents’ absence. Seeing their special concern for me, I spilled out the beans and we all had a hearty laugh together.

But I continued wearing the imitation mangalsutra till I actually got married, as it saved me from eve-teasers!

OPED

Targeted subsidies are better than sops
by S.S. Johl

In Punjab, as in many states of India, as well as at the Centre, it is not opposition political parties that win elections. It is the ruling parties that lose due to their failure to perform as per expectations of the people.

In fact, the socio-economic problems in the country and in the states are so huge and daunting that any political party that comes to power riding on untenable promises, emerging out of competitive populist politics, cannot measure up to the expectations of the people and the electorate goes for a change.

The easy way in such a situation is to go in for populist measures such as allowing free power and water to the farm sector and to the poorer segments of the population, shaguns, low cost flour and pulses, etc., and that too when the finances of the state were and are in a dire state.

Our political class refuses to understand that subsidy on power and water does not help the common farmer. Grain crops, especially wheat and rice, which are major consumers of power and water, are primarily purchased by the government at minimum support prices.

When recommending the minimum support prices, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices estimates the cost of production at the actual costs the farmers incur. As a consequence, the cost of power and water to the farmers is taken at zero.

Accordingly the minimum support prices remain low. Since the MSP remains low, the issue prices too remain low. Thus the benefit of free power and water passes on to the consumers of the deficit states. The farmer acts as a conduit only. If water and power are rightly priced, this will no doubt increase the cost of production, but will fetch higher minimum support prices also.

Farmers’ interests lie in the margin between his costs and returns (prices) he gets. It does not matter if this margin emerges out of higher costs and higher prices or lower costs and lower prices. Unfortunately the political parties refuse to understand that and as a result the state continues subsidising the consumers of the deficit states, not the farmers of the state.

The farmers understand this and are not therefore much enamoured with these unhealthy sops. This is the reason this factor did not count in the voting decisions in the rural areas. It is the Akali-BJP government that had earlier made electric power and water free to the farm sector, but it did not count at the hustings and they lost the elections at that time.

The Congress government started charging for farm power, though at a highly subsidised rate and farmers started paying the bills. But, as the elections approached, they too made power free again. It again did not win them elections. No stretch of the imagination can justify the provision of free power to farmers who grow hundreds of acres of wheat and rice crops. Those who may really need such subsidies do not have the tube wells and mostly use diesel for their pumps. Or they buy water from the neighboring tube wells on payment.

Successive governments have been overlooking the fact that the underground water table in central Punjab is declining fast at a rate of more than seventy centimetres per year, because more than 80 percent of the water requirements of crops here are met through pumping of water from the subsurface aquifers.

This is an alarming situation and the state is heading towards desertification, which does not augur well for the state as well as the country. One wonders if the new government in Punjab will get sensitised towards the impending disaster and retrace its steps from this extremely bad policy.

Let us hope saner counsel will prevail. State policy needs to encourage shifts in production patterns and the development of technologies that put lesser demand on water for growing of alternative crops. This aspect is missing from the research and development policy of the state as well. The previous governments did not listen to saner advice on the issue. Let us hope that the new government will develop the right perception and will pull back the state from the brink.

There is no doubt that the agriculture sector cannot survive without subsidies. Yet the subsidies must develop the capacities of the sector through enhanced investment and not through input subsidies that do not get into the pockets of the farmers. Such subsidies can be for land development, underground water channels, installation of tube wells for small farmers, improved implements, horticultural crop development, adoption of modern technologies, framers’ training, etc.

Let us not turn the farmers into beggars, but instead develop their capabilities to produce more and better, and thus improve their incomes. Poorer sections of the society also need help and subsidies, yet such subsidies are no replacement for creating gainful employment opportunities for them.

This can happen only if the industry is encouraged to set up their units and ancillaries in the rural areas through long-term, substantive, tax concessions with the condition that more than 80 per cent employment will be of locals. In order to ensure clean environment in the rural areas, capital subsidies can be given for clean industries and treatment of effluents.

If any political party wishes to retain power, it needs to ensure gainful employment opportunities for the rural population and poorer sections of the society so that it does not have to indulge in election time banalities, and distribute intoxicants and sops for garnering votes.

News analysis
Parallel governance in Jharkhand
by Ambarish Dutta

Unlike Bihar, the Maoist movement in Jharkhand is not limited to armed operations only. It has created a parallel system of governance that covers elected village bodies, Jan Adalats and a people’s police.

This is perhaps the only thing that can justify the failure on the part of both the police and intelligence to gather any prior information regarding the brutal killing of the JMM MP Sunil Mahato, by the Naxalites near Jamshedpur.

Since its inception in November 2000 as a separate state, Jharkhand has become a laboratory for the Maoists to experiment with the idea of establishing a parallel system of governance.

The latest reports available with the Jharkhand government suggests that Maoists have transformed 16 out of 22 districts in the state into a “guerrilla zone”. Maoist violence claimed the lives of nearly 700 people in Jharkhand in the last the five years, including over 200 policemen.

Incidentally, the brutal attack on the JMM MP was the first-ever incident where Left-wing rebels have targeted a top figure of the political establishment.

It was somewhere in the Jharkhand-Bihar border that the Maoists recently organised their 9th party congress, to redevise their strategies.

Sources said that by taking advantage of denial of justice at the grassroots, in a state where tribals, barring a few pockets, were deprived of the fruits of development even after the creation of a separate state for them, the Maoists established a parallel judiciary there.

The primary difference between the Maoist “kangaroo” courts and the subordinate judiciary is the time and cost factor. While the common folk have no way of reaching the existing judicial system, the kangaroo courts reach the deprived sections of society. The Maoists are the sole arbiters of disputes related to water, wife and land.

The attack on Sunil Mahato, who belonged to a party which once was formed with the promise to take up cudgels for tribals, thus bears testimony to the near collapse of democratic mechanisms to usher in economic development in many parts of the state.

Besides, the Maoists are also supporting the tribals’ battle to protect their rights to the forests – a Bill on which is still pending in Parliament because of lack of consensus among political parties.

Even as the successful attack on Sunil Mahato, by openly challenging the state, was expected to rejuvenate the Maoists, sources said that the ultra left wing was presently on a massive membership drive, especially from rural parts of Ranchi, West Singbhum, Dhanbad, Palamau and Garwah.

Maoists in Jharkhand were also reportedly targeting children in the 10–15 age group, in order to use them to keep a watch on police movements.

What is also alarming was the growing link between the Maoists and various secessionist forces, in different parts of the country, including Islamic fundamentalists.

News analysis
Development, not slogans, mattered in Uttarakhand
by Naveen S Garewal

The decades of struggle for an independent identity in the form of a separate State has made Uttarakhand’s populace politically very aware, with a lot of expectations for good governance. The poll trends that have emerged from the high expectations and aspirations of the people are very similar in nature to the 2002 polls, but with different results.

After forming the government in the year 2000 on the basis of it’s strength in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the BJP was voted out of power less than 2 years later in 2002, because it fell short of what the people had hoped for after breaking away from UP.

In the current elections the Congress bore the brunt of some national issues like inflation, but it was mainly people’s anger against the failure of the Congress to address local issues of development, conservation, rapid a-forestation, etc which worked against them. Besides, inadequate employment generation, and failure to build hydro-electric stations resulted in a clear “perform or perish” message.

An important factor that has emerged in the current poll is that the voters have looked beyond the parties and voted for ‘better’ candidates. The image and reputation of the candidates have played a very important role in their victory or defeat. Not new to Uttarakhand, this particular trait has always been prevalent in voters of the region.

N.D Tiwari won his first election in 1952 from Haldwani as Praja Socialist Party candidate defeating the Congress nominee Shayam Lal Verma for whom Jawaharlal Nehru had campaigned. This time Sonia Gandhi campaigned at the same place for PWD and Information Minister Indira Hariydesh, but she too lost. Similarly people have rejected former BJP Chief Minister Nityanand Swami (Laxman Chowk) and Tiwaris son-in-law Navprabhat (Vikas Nagar).

There is a very clear hill versus plains divide in the State that has 45 out of the 70 seats in the hills and the remaining 25 in the plains. The hill seats are in the northern parts of the State and are divided into the Garhwal and Kumaon regions. These touch Nepal and China borders. The plains are located in the southern part of the State and in the Terai area around the Ganges River. The hill seats have voted against the Congress for ignoring their interests, while both the BJP and the Congress has had mixed responses in the plains.

Popularly known as the ‘Abode of Gods”, Uttarakhand has shown trends of voting on Hindutava issues, especially in places of religious importance to Hindus. The BJP has had considerably gains in Haridwar, Rishikesh, Kedarnath and Badrinath. But voters did not go all out with the Hindutava card the BJP played; they rejected many bad candidates who did not enjoy good personal reputations.

Homes in Uttarakhand depend a lot on the money sent by employees working outside the State commonly known as “money order economy”. This includes employees of various kinds, but a large number of them are serving defence personnel in Garhwal and Kumaon regiments of the Indian Army. Therefore, the people of the state are very sensitive to issues of national security. Any incident of terrorism, violence or anti-national activity has a direct fallout here.

Efforts of former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to improve relations with Pakistan is still talked about in Uttarakhand and it influenced the voting behaviour.

Women too played a very important role in these polls and when both the BJP and Congress fielded only 5 and 7 candidates, the women formed a group of their own and contested elections. Though, they did not get much success, it affected both the BJP and the Congress.

People in Uttarakhand want the political parties to clearly spell out their agenda for governance before the poll. But before the elections both the Congress and the BJP did not address the issue of leadership and the people were in the dark about the leadership of the parties after the poll. No one announced their Chief Ministerial candidate.

Congress was at a disadvantage after Tiwari announced his retirement from politics, but no successor was named. People did not appreciate this move of the Congress and voted against it. Since the BJP was in a similar situation, not naming Bhagat Singh Koshyari or B.C Khanduri, it too stayed short of the simple majority by winning only 34 seats.

It is important here to mention the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, which won only three seats. This regional party is credited with launching the struggle for Uttarakhand and taking the agenda of a separate State to homes in far flung villages. But since the party had failed to display any vision about development, the people have rejected all but 3 of its 61 candidates. This includes its chief Kashi Singh Airy.