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The first phase of polling takes place in Assam today. Early forecasts show a hazy picture with the increasing possibility of smaller parties upsetting the plans of Tarun
Gogoi, who is leading the Congress and hoping for a hat-trick.
Unusual poll candidates
Tata, Radia to appear
before PAC today
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Ajit Singh sends Rs
100-cr defamation notice to MP
Jantar Mantar
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The first phase of polling takes place in Assam today. Early forecasts show a hazy picture with the increasing possibility of smaller parties upsetting the plans of Tarun
Gogoi, who is leading the Congress and hoping for a hat-trick. BIJAY SANKAR BORA reports from Guwahati
Would it be possible for Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to wrest power for the Congress in Assam for the third consecutive term by overcoming anti-incumbency, the usual but strong undercurrents of dissension within the party over allotment of poll tickets and the looming threat against ruling party candidates from the anti-talks faction of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam
(ULFA) ?
The Congress which has been in power in Assam since 2001 is flaunting its 'achievements' by way of improved financial health of the state, vast improvement in healthcare and health infrastructure, refurbished educational institutions and standard of education and restoration of peace by persuading several militant outfits to peace process during the last ten years. It promises that the next Congress government will pursue an agenda of inclusive growth to uplift the lot of farmers and rural folk in the state where over 70 per cent people live in villages. "In 2001, when we came to power after defeating the inefficient Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the state was in a financial strait-jacket with employees not getting salaries for months; there was an atmosphere of fear and violence prevailing in the state. Today, the situation has completely reversed as we have been able to usher in an era of all round development and peace. The people haven't forgotten the dark phase of AGP rule during 1996-2001. We are sure to win this election too with better margin," says Gogoi exuding confidence. The opposition however claims the ruling party is faced with 'strong anti-incumbency' in many constituencies because of alleged corruption indulged in by ministers and ruling party MLAs during the last ten years ? The ruling party leaders' alleged biased attitude in selecting beneficiaries for government's pro-poor welfare schemes has also created a strong anti-Congress feeling among a large section of common people who have been witness to growing arrogance among a section of the Congressmen. "The opposition's allegation of corruption against my government and some ministers is baseless. There is not any specific charge of corruption against any of the ministers during the last ten years. We have devolved power to elected panchayat bodies and development is taking place all over the state while the AGP had failed to hold even panchayat polls," Gogoi reacts while dismissing all talk of anti-incumbency. There has been an undercurrent of dissension within the ruling Congress over allotment of tickets. There was huge rush of ticket seekers in Congress this time - over 1500 applied for tickets while there are only 126 constituencies in the state. Not getting tickets, several senior leaders of the party including former chief minister Mrs Anuwara Taimur, Bijit Saikia etc. joined the ranks of opponents. But Congress hopes to tide over the dissension in time. "We have selected party candidates on the basis of winability and it is natural for those who haven't got tickets to react , but that will not affect our poll prospects," said Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhubaneswar Kalita. Dissension over allotment of poll tickets is not confined to the ruling Congress. Similar situation is prevailing in the main opposition parties , AGP and the BJP. The threat from the anti-talks faction of the banned ULFA, led by its fugitive commander-in-chief Paresh Barua, is out to create trouble for Congress in the polls. The outfit has threatened to target Congress leaders during polls to take revenge for Gogoi government's 'peace policy' that precipitated a rift in the ULFA with the larger section led by the outfit's 'chairman' Arabinda Rajkhowa opting for a dialogue with the Government of India. The ULFA has already triggered a blast in the state Congress headquarters in Guwahati injuring three Congress leaders but has failed to dampen the poll-time spirit of Congressmen. "We are not really bothered about the ULFA threat though we have alerted our partymen to remain vigilant. The threat has always been there and there is nothing new about it. We suspect that the ULFA faction has threatened us to help opposition AGP and the BJP in the polls . But the ground reality is that the anti-talks faction of the ULFA doesn't have the strength to influence poll results though they may create trouble in some pockets," says Gogoi , who is spearheading the Congress campaign though he is not in the best of the health at 75 and after a recent heart surgery. Covert AGP- BJP axis against Congress ! The AGP and the BJP failed to hold on to their alliance struck during 2009 Parliamentary polls. However, both the parties have realised the folly at the eleventh hour and struck an informal understanding with both the parties not fielding strong candidates against each other's stalwarts. It is believed that AGP leader and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta took the lead in holding talks with senior BJP leaders in New Delhi and arrived at an understanding. But how such an informal understanding actually works remains to be seen. The Congress won the 2006 Assembly polls with much reduced margin basically because of the absence of any alliance between the AGP and the BJP. The AGP has struck formal alliance with a few smaller regional parties and has also not fielded strong candidates against veteran Left party leaders in its obvious attempt to keep all options open to form an anti-Congress alliance after the polls, if the situation permits. Mahanta is clearly looking forward to regain his ground in Assam politics after remaining in the background since 2001. It has been a long and lean phase for Mahanta since AGP under his leadership was decimated by the Congress in 2001 polls. The Congress exploited growing public resentment against the Mahanta-led AGP government's alleged involvement in 'secret killing' (extrajudicial killings)of innocent kins of members of the banned ULFA. After the 2001 debacle AGP was too quick to make a scapegoat out of Mahanta and dropped him from the party's cluster of top leaders like a hot potato. Feeling insulted, Mahanta formed a new party called AGP (Progressive) with his followers and contested the 2006 polls. Unfortunately, only Mahanta could win among all the AGP(P) candidates. The original AGP and the AGP(P) merged before the 2009 Lok Sabha election and Mahanta was back in the fold of the AGP that he had founded in 1985 after signing the Assam Accord with the then Union government headed by Rajiv Gandhi as a culmination of student-led Assam Agitation against illegal migration from Bangladesh. In this election Mahanta is contesting from two constituencies to prove a point before his detractors within and outside the party. Given Mahanta's proximity to top rung BJP leaders , he is most likely to emerge the leader of any AGP-BJP formation in a post poll scenario.
Alarmed at the covert understanding arrived at by the AGP and the BJP, Chief Minister Gogoi commented , "People of Assam very well understand the secret understanding between the myopic regionalism of the AGP and the communal politics of the BJP and both the parties are bound to fail in their attempt to hoodwink voters this time too. The AGP has proved that it is not efficient when it comes to governance during its two tenures during 1985-1990 and 1996-2001 while the BJP-led NDA government did nothing significant for the welfare of Assam. The BJP leaders only remember Assam when there is an election round the corner." The regional AGP has decided not to have pre-poll alliance with the BJP fearing that it would drive away minority voters. In the 2006 Assembly polls AGP's vote share was over 20 % and that of the BJP was 12 % and their combined vote share was marginally more than the Congress vote share of 31 %. King makers in-waiting ! Two smaller but very significant political parties - Bodoland People's Front (BPF) and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) -- which have their support base among two different communities in Assam, hope to be kingmakers in the post-poll scenario as it is commonly believed now that none of the major parties including Congress will win the magical figure of 63 in the 126-member Assam Assembly. The Bodoland People's Front (BPF) is contesting a total of 29 constituencies on its own after the Congress decided to do away with the alliance forged before the 2006 polls. Congress leaders reason that the decision to snap alliance with the BPF is in the interest of keeping the party base intact in BPF-ruled Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) areas where Bodo tribe is the dominant community. The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee ( APCC) chief Bhubaneswar Kalita has been under tremendous pressure from Congress workers in Bodo tribe dominated areas to do away with the pre-poll alliance with the BPF to save the party from getting wiped out in Bodo tribe dominated areas. Without the support of the BPF, which won 11 LACs in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council (BTADC) areas in the 2006 polls, the Congress couldn't have formed the government for the second consecutive time in 2006 by winning only 55 seats in the 126-member Assam House. The BPF was formed by former militant leaders of the now disbanded Bodo LiberationTiger (BLT) after signing of Bodo Peace Accord in February 2003 . The party led by former BLT chief Hagrama Mohilary is in power in the BTADC, a fruit of the Bodo Peace Accord. It has been the only coalition partner in the Congress-led government in Assam since 2006. Realising that the BPF would again become indispensable for the Congress after the polls, the Chief Minister says that though there is no pre-poll alliance with the BPF this time, the party will be the Congress' first choice of partners if there is need for another coalition government after the polls. The BPF chief Mohilary too echoes Gogoi while saying that all is well between Congress and the BPF though both the parties are fighting polls separately this time. The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), an amalgamation of over a dozen minority political groups, led by perfume mogul Badaruddin Ajmal, is an isolated force but with the potential to become an indispensable force during the formation of the next government. Ajmal, who has good rapport with AICC leaders, has major differences with Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi because of the latter's opposition to any sort of Congress-AIUDF alignment in state politics. The AIUDF which came into being in 2005, played spoilsport for the Congress in 2006 Assembly polls by wining ten seats at the expense of the Congress in its traditional bastion among immigrant Muslims. Ajmal, who has a good relation with Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, was getting cosy to the AGP. But with the AGP reviving its ties with the BJP, the party is now left to fight polls on its own. The party has fielded candidates in 86 constituencies while its leader Ajmal says, "The AIUDF will be the king maker after the polls."
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Unusual poll candidates
Guwahati, April 3 The other three surrendered militants in the fray are Suresh Bora (Congress candidate from Barhampur LAC), Prafulla Bora (NCP candidate from Bihpuria LAC) and Jayanta Khound (Independent candidate from Naoboicha LAC) . All of them are now businessmen by profession while Bora also leads a self-help group. Moreover, Bodoland People's Front (BPF) has also fielded several former Bodo LiberationTiger (BLY) militants in the polls. The BPF is in fact a political party formed by former BLT leaders and cadres after signing of Bodo Peace Accord in 2003. Meanwhile, Terror Victims' Family Forum , a platform of over 6000 militancy-affected people in the state has expressed concern over former militants contesting polls and called upon the voters not support them. The Forum's president Brojen Hazarika said, " Just because one has left a militant outfit and surrendered, shouldn't make him/her eligible for contesting election until the person is tried in the court of law for committing crimes while being member of an outlawed outfit." IIM graduate in the fray: Arguably the most brilliant (academically) candidate in the fray belongs to the BJP. The party has fielded an IIM, Ahmedabad alumnus Pradyut Bora (36) in Jalukbari constituency against the Congress candidate and health minister Dr Himanta Bishwa Sharma. Pradyut Bora studied, successively, at the Rashtriya Indian Military (RIMC), Dehra Dun; Delhi Public School (DPS), Noida; St Stephen's College, Delhi; and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. Bora read English Literature at the undergraduate level, and thereafter worked with the start-up team of Biblio: A Review of Books, India's leading literary and book-review journal. He started his post-MBA career as a management consultant with Hewitt Associates, one of the world's foremost consultancies, and then went on to become the VP (Business Development) of Digital Talkies, India's first digital filmmaking company. He incubated a software company and ran it for six years, before joining politics full-time. While IIM graduates can be found in diverse careers from writing to education to NGOs, Prodyut Bora has pioneered the move to politics. He is now the State General Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Assam Pradesh . He was the national convenor of BJP's Information Technology (IT) Cell.
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Tata, Radia to appear
before PAC today
New Delhi, April 3 The panel, headed by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, is expected to quiz Radia on the tapped conversations, which include allegations of trying to influence portfolio allocation to ministers in UPA-II government. Radia, chairperson of Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, is heard making efforts to ensure that DMK leader A Raja gets the Telecom portfolio. Raja is now in jail in connection with the 2G Spectrum allocation scam. Tata is scheduled to appear before the PAC at 3 pm. The PAC is expected to record the evidence of Tata on the recent developments in the telecom sector, including allocation of 2G and 3G Spectrum. On Tuesday, the PAC had asked Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani, Etisalat DB Telecom CEO Atul Jham, S-Tel CEO Shamik Das and Unitech Wireless Managing Director Sigve Brekke to appear before it. A Joint Parliamentary Committee, chaired by Congress leader PC Chacko, has also been set up to look into all the details of the 2G Spectrum allocation in 2008 and in the telecom sector from 1998 onwards. Ever since the setting up of the JPC, there has been talk of a turf war between Chacko and Joshi. The two leaders had a meeting with Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday and asked her to give directions to demarcate the areas of examination by the JPC and the PAC. The PAC has also sought details from the Department of Telecommunications on issues of 2G Spectrum allocation and other developments in the sector. — PTI
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Ajit Singh sends Rs
100-cr defamation notice to MP
Lucknow, April 3 “Brij Bhushan in an interview given to a news channel had said that me and my party members did not vote against the UPA government on July 22, 2008 during motion of confidence in Parliament,” the RLD chief said in a statement issued here. Terming the SP MP's statement as “false” Singh has also rejected allegations of WikiLeaks that his MPs had been bribed ahead of the crucial trust vote in 2008. “Brij Bhushan has said in the interview that Ajit Singh says that he voted on the Floor with the Opposition, then he is wrong, because his MPs did not vote,” the legal notice said. The notice stated that, “In reality, as per the record, the RLD chief along with his two MPs Anuradha Chaudhary and Munshiram voted against the then UPA government.” It has been stated in the notice that before motion of confidence Singh issued a whip on July 20 to vote against the government. “Discussion on RLD voting against the government were held on July 21 and 22 and there is record in Parliament that Ajit and his two MPs voted against it,” the legal notice said.
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Jantar Mantar
Last week’s wedding celebrations of Congress president’s all-powerful political secretary Ahmed Patel’s son were a lesson in being politically correct. The reception and the functions preceding it were not held at a five-star hotel but at a bungalow on Aurangzeb Road. The décor was simple and elegant. The guest list was restricted. Flashy parties by the couple’s friends were vetoed. Instead, Sufi singer Zila Khan regaled the guests one evening and on another, it was qawwalis by the famous Nizami brothers. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, son Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Vice President Hamid Ansari were present at the exclusive ‘nikaah’ ceremony. Union Mnister Farooq Abdullah was one of the witnesses from the bride’s side. His son Omar Abdullah and family were also present. Ghulam Nabi Azad, Saifuddin Soz and Karan Singh were among the other prominent guests. Fshion designers Rohit Bal, Rohit Gandhi and film actor Preity Zinta added to the glam quotient. But the proverbial icing on the cake was when the newly-weds - Faisal and Zainub - drove off in a flower-bedecked battery operated Reva car instead of a fancy sedan. The couple was clearly influenced by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s recent rant against gas-guzzling SUVs. The Shunglu Effect
VK Shunglu, the former Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), who was asked by the Prime Minister's office to probe into alleged irregularities in the organisation of the Commonwealth Games, has put the cat among the pigeons. With the hard hitting reports indicting virtually every bigwig - Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Lt Guv Tejinder Khanna and former Organising Committee head Suresh Kalmadi - the government is in a fix on how to deal with these findings. It has, therefore, decided to treat them as fact-finding reports, requiring further investigation and analysis. While those who have been rapped have complained that their side of the story was not recorded, Dikshit’s detractors are pressing for action against her on the plea that the Centre should use the same yardstick as it did when it ordered action against suspended Prasar Bharati chief BS Lalli within days after it received Shunglu’s first report. On the flip side, a whisper campaign is on in Delhi suggesting that the real reason for the former CAG’s enthusiasm is his belief that this could fetch him a Governor’s post. Gadkari tightens grip
When the RSS picked Nitin Gadkari as the BJP president, the party’s Delhi team did not take him seriously and tended to treat him as a bumbling provincial leader. But, more than a year later, Gadkari has gradually tightened his grip on the party organisation and with the RSS backing him to the hilt, he has not hesitated to take on some of the powerful Delhi leaders. He admits in private conversations that he does not depend on the office bearers alone to get feedback and has instead evolved his own system of collecting information. To begin with, he has cracked down on senior leaders who were known to brief selected media persons informally. Gadkari, apparently, confronted them with their telephone records, often pointing to a particular conversation the leader had with a journalist and the story which was published by that correspondent the next day. Gadkari’s style may be unconventional but it has certainly proved effective. |
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Five former militants who were members and leaders of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) are in the fray in Assam. Two of them are sitting MLAs - Jiten Gogoi (Bokakhat LAC) and Kushal Duwari (Thowra LAC) - who are contesting as Independent.
Lucknow, April 3
Radia, whose tapped phone conversations with politicians, corporates, bureaucrats, and journalists, form a key part of investigations into the 2G Spectrum scam, will appear before the panel at 11 am tomorrow.
