Monday, November 9, 1998
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BSP leader held, released JAIPUR, Nov 8 — The BSP's Rajasthan unit chief, Mr Jagat Singh Dayma, was arrested and released on bail yesterday by the Behror police. His nephew Subhash and Mahaveer Gurjar were also arrested along with him. Rebels prove tough |
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TDP
leaders in soup over dinner menu |
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Pokhran blasts for political gains:
Basu CALCUTTA, Nov 8 — West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu has charged the Vajpayee government with “single-handedly destroying” the work done by the previous governments in the field of foreign policy and described the talk of signing the CTBT as “alarming”. Jaya dares Karunanidhi to
face trial Parikh
commission report rejected |
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BSP leader held, released JAIPUR, Nov 8 — The BSP's Rajasthan unit chief, Mr Jagat Singh Dayma, was arrested and released on bail yesterday by the Behror police. His nephew Subhash and Mahaveer Gurjar were also arrested along with him. All three persons were arrested while they were attending the Gurjar panchayat at Nangal Loyki village and were brought to Behror. Arrests were made on the complaint lodged against these people by Ms Urvashi, wife of Mr Dayma. Mr Dayma had publicly beaten up his wife on Friday at Bahror while she was going to file her nomination papers for the Vidhan Sabha elections from the Bansur constituency where Mr Dayma too is a candidate. The police had rescued Mr Urvashi from the wrath of the BSP leader and escorted her to the returning officer's office where she filed her papers. Subsequently, a case was
registered under Sections 147, 341, 323 and 442 of the
IPC at the Behror police station against Mr Dayma, his
nephew Subhash and Mahaveer Gurjar for rioting,
wrongfully restraining Ms Urvashi and hurting her. |
Litmus test for Sonia NEW DELHI, Nov 8 — It is not the ruling BJP, but the Congress, which is going to face a litmus test in the November 25 poll, the countdown for which begins after the expiry of deadline for withdrawal of nominations on Monday evening. More than Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, it will be the leadership of Mrs Sonia Gandhi which will be put to test. In the run-up to the elections, during the distribution of ticket, Mrs Sonia Gandhi has clearly asserted herself. Important state leaders’ wishes have been put aside and the will of 10, Janpath, has prevailed. Thus if the Congress is able to wrest Delhi and Rajasthan from the BJP and retain Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram, Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s leadership will be fully consolidated within the party. Conversely, a not-so-expected verdict will throw up the possibility of a collective leadership emerging within the Congress which will not challenge Mrs Sonia Gandhi but will evolve around her. For the BJP, the run-up to the elections have only highlighted the fragility of the coalition it leads at the Centre. The Lok Shakti has officially called the BJP a "party of crooks". The very fact that along with the Samata Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Lok Shakti have revolted and have put up candidates in states where they do not have any substantial influence shows that in the post-November 25 scenario, if the coalition is under stress, its elasticity may extend to the point of breaking. Similarly, in the anti-BJP front, the Samajwadi Party and the two Communist parties have put up candidates in areas where the lack of such candidates could have helped the Congress. Even in Himachal Pradesh’s Baijnath byelection, the outcome of which can make or break the BJP-led government in the state, candidates of the Samajwadi Party and other parties which otherwise want to pull down the BJP at the Centre, are in the fray and that may not be to the advantage of the Congress. If the BJP is able to wrest Madhya Pradesh from the Congress while losing in the states presently ruled by it, the impact of the November 25 poll result may not be alarming on the political "Richter scale" so as to shake up the Vajpayee government. The Congress begins the campaign on Tuesday with advantage because of the negative ambience against the BJP government at the Centre especially on the prices front. However, neither the Congress nor any other party, including the BJP, is entering this campaign on a positive note of a clear alternative programme which can bring relief to the people. Incumbency factor, therefore, may not be the only ground for the voters to chose for a change. Unless the Congress is able to throw up a positive agenda in the coming fortnight, a drab, issueless election may be on the cards. The BJP’s dilemma is that price rise, which was its traditional "anti" plank, will now be a handle for the Congress. And so will be the politician-criminal nexus. The Bofors allegations are yet to be proved, but nine years ago it pulled down the Rajiv Gandhi regime. Thus the alleged "nexus" between Romesh Sharma and the family of Mrs Sushma Swaraj; or the alleged links between BJP ministers in Uttar Pradesh and the recently slain mafia don Sriprakash Shukla, too have the potential of tainting the ruling party’s image. When the prices of commodities soar, the rulers’ credibility dips, afterall. Talking to mediapersons yesterday, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, while admitting that price rise had put his party on a sticky wicket, hinted that the "final beneficiaries" of the Bofors payoff were likely to be identified next month. Thus BJP is already
preparing for the post November 25 showdown. The question
is whether the Congress under Mrs Sonia Gandhi will take
a proactive posture in the elections or will it play a
reactive role, thereby giving the advantage of first
volley to the BJP. |
Rebels prove tough for BJP, Cong NEW DELHI, Nov 8 — The two major political parties contesting the Delhi Assembly poll, the BJP and the Congress, today had a tough time trying to tackle the rebels. Senior leaders of both parties are reported to be in touch with the rebels to convince them to opt out of the poll fray. In this regard, the Delhi unit of the BJP’s damage control exercise undertaken to placate the rebel candidates met with little success. With the last date for the withdrawal of nominations being tomorrow, senior city leaders were reported to be in touch with the rebels who filed their nomination papers after finding their names missing from the party’s list of candidates. The chairman of the election committee of BJP’s Delhi unit, Mr V. K. Malhotra, admitted that about 20 candidates who belonged to the BJP had filed nomination papers against the party candidates. "However, even during the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections we had succeeded in convincing the rebels to step down for the best interest of the party, so we are sure that we will succeed this time also," he said. In the BJP, there are three sitting MLAs who have filed their nominations as independent candidates. Mr Malhotra has already made it clear that all those who remained in the electoral fray would be expelled from the party after Monday. The party is also finding it difficult to explain the dissidence over the Shalimar Bagh seat. Mr Tilak Raj Kataria, a senior RSS functionary, has filed his nomination papers from the Shalimar Bagh constituency against the party candidate, Mr Ravindra Bansal. Mr Bansal is reported to be close to the former Chief Minister, Mr Sahib Singh, who had won from the Shalimar Bagh seat with a record margin of 28,000 votes. The BJP is not alone in the midst of rebels working against the interests of the party candidate. The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) is also trying to tackle a similar situation. The president of DPCC, Ms Sheila Dikshit, said if the rebels did not withdraw voluntarily stern action would be taken against them. The rebels who may give sleepless nights to the party candidates include Mr Ramesh Datta who has filed his nomination papers from the Minto Road constituency against the sitting MLA, Ms Tajdar Babbar. The sitting MLA from Seelampur, Mr Matin Ahmed, will be a ‘strong’ rebel to contend with. After being omitted from the list of candidates, Mr Ahmed is also miffed with the party. Mr Jai Kishan, the sitting
MLA from Sultanpur Majra, is also reported to be in no
mood to listen to reason. He is agitated over his being
denied ticket and the Congress candidate from his area
may face problems from his supporters. |
TDP leaders in soup over dinner menu HYDERABAD, Nov 8 (PTI) — Close on the heels of film star Salman Khan having a brush with the law enforcing authorities for violating the Wildlife Protection Act, top Telugu Desam functionaries are facing rough weather for allegedly serving meats of endangered animals at a party in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. The state government has ordered a high-level inquiry into the allegations that venison along with meat of other endangered animals and birds were served at a party hosted in honour of the Irrigation Minister T Nageshwara Rao for completing three years in office on October 13. The party, hosted by a top TDP functionary of the district, was attended among others by the Lok Sabha Speaker Mr BMC Balayogi, four other state ministers, Telugu Desam leaders and some top officials. The meat of wild boar, peacock and spotted deer was allegedly served at the party. Sternly denying the allegations, Mr Rao contended that he arrived from a public meeting very late and was unaware of the menu. “I had only curd rice”, he said. Main Opposition party, the Congress demanded the resignation of all public representatives who attended the dinner and charged the state government with trying to cover up the issue by ordering a probe by officials favourable to the accused. The party, organised at Marlakunta village, was attended by an estimated 500 invitees and sponsored by a local TDP leader, Mr K Satyanarayana, who has been absconding since the controversy broke out. The Forest Minister KE Prabhakar said the state would not spare anyone who violated the law and take firm action. An inquiry was ordered into the incident and arrest warrants were pending against Mr Satyanrayana and other accused, he said. Forest officials, however, maintained that there was no material evidence showing violation of the Wildlife Protection Act or to prove that animals and birds covered under endgangered species were slaughtered. A State Congress spokesman, Mr G. M. K. Naidu, accused the Irrigation Minister of being “irresponsible” as he was in the thick of celebrations while the Srisailam Power House was being inundated in flood waters. State Youth Congress
leader P Sudhakar Reddy held a dharna before the office
of the Conservator of Forests in Khammam and demanded
immediate action against the minister. |
Pokhran blasts for political gains: Basu CALCUTTA, Nov 8 (PTI) — West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu has charged the Vajpayee government with “single-handedly destroying” the work done by the previous governments in the field of foreign policy and described the talk of signing the CTBT as “alarming”. The BJP-led coalition was governing the country on a thin majority and has no administrative or popular sanction to alter India’s foreign policy direction for worse, the CPM leader said in a write-up entitled “The perils of the BJP bomb”. Stating that the nationally accepted position was not to sign the CTBT, Mr Basu said what was alarming was that the Vajpayee government was talking these days about signing the treaty. The people should put pressure on the Centre to dissuade it from signing the treaty without popular sanction, he said in the write-up published in “Atomic India”, the special number of the quarterly journal “The new Approach” which was released by President K R Narayanan here on Saturday. Making a scathing attack on the BJP, Mr Basu said that in the past 50 years India has never been so “crisis-ridden” and the Pokhran-II blasts represented the saffron party’s desire to make the country go nuclear in total disregard of popular opinion and realities at home and abroad. Accusing the BJP-led government of conducting the nuclear tests to gain “short-term political advantage”, Mr Basu said that the BJP would be distorting history if it claimed credit for India’s nuclear capabilities. Pokhran-II blasts, he said, gave rise to jingoism and hysteria entirely directed at Pakistan, whose leaders responded equally irresponsibly by carrying out a matching string of nuclear tests. Both India and Pakistan, Mr Basu said, stood scorned for making the danger of nuclear war in South Asia very real. The jingoism fuelled by the pursuit of “Hindutva”, the veteran Marxist leader said, had considerably frustrated the attempts of various democratic and progressive forces on either side of the border to reduce tension and normalise relations between the two neighbours. The nuclear tests also represented the Vajpayee government’s “desperate attempts to divert popular attention from its many inadequacies and failure to tackle mounting problems on the domestic front,” he said. Taking the Centre to task for India’s souring of ties with China, he said that the realities did not suggest that China could be held responsible for India’s stepped-up nuclear activity. After the Indo-China war
in 1962, Mr Basu said, various quarters in both countries
had been working steadily towards improving relations
between India and China and they had achieved a degree of
success in the past two decades. |
Jaya dares Karunanidhi to face trial CHENNAI, Nov 8 (PTI) — Stepping up her offensive against the DMK Government in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK leader Jayalalitha today asked whether Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi was prepared to stand trial for corruption charges levelled against him by the Sarkaria Commission. In a statement here, Ms Jayalalitha, against whom cases have been filed on charges of corruption during the previous AIADMK rule headed by her, alleged that in the entire history of the state, it was Mr Karunanidhi’s earlier regime alone which had been dismissed on bribery and corruption charges. “We have great respect for Judges and the judicial system in the country. This is the reason for our going to courts of law for justice. If Mr Karunanidhi is so concerned about justice, has he the courage to stand trial for the charges levelled against him by the Sarkaria Commission,” she asked. Pointing out that it was Justice Sarkaria who had made the ‘stinging observation’ that Mr Karunanidhi had “violated every legal norm of the Centre’s national sugar policy”, Ms Jayalalitha said “it is unlikely that Mr Karunanidhi could have forgotten the telling observation” of the commission. While recommending the dismissal of the Karunanidhi government in the 1970s, the then Governor K.K. Shah had adduced seven reasons, Ms Jayalalitha said. “Out of these, four pertained to the fact that the Karunanidhi government was steeped in corruption,” she alleged. “On none of the matters, whether it was the Veeranam project, drought relief, rice scandal or pesticide case, did Karunanidhi observe any legal decorum as stated by the Governor,” she charged. The AIADMK leader said “Karunanidhi has no locus standi to pontificate on our cases after such accusations were made openly against him.” “What right has Karunanidhi to talk of meting out justice?”, she asked. Meanwhile Tamil Nadu minister on Sunday joined issue with Ms Jayalalitha over her charge that activities of the LTTE had registered an increase in the state ever since Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi took over the reins of the administration. In a statement here,
Social Welfare Minister S.P. Sarguna Pandian said by
levelling such charges, Ms Jayalalitha was attempting to
divert the attention of people from the observation of
courts that there was prima facie evidence for the
alleged corruption charges against her and, therefore,
she should come forward to prove her innocence in the
court. |
Parikh commission report rejected LUCKNOW, Nov 8 (PTI) — The Uttar Pradesh government has rejected the recommendations of the Justice C D Parikh Commission which probed the 1982 communal riots in Meerut, Cabinet sources said. They said the Cabinet at its meeting here yesterday found no justification in implementing the report after 16 years. The Cabinet also decided against making the report public as it was of the view that its contents might vitiate communal atmosphere in the state, the sources said. The Supreme Court had recently directed the state government to submit the action-taken report on the commission’s recommendations to it within two months. The government would, however, send its comments to the apex court soon, the sources said. The Meerut communal riots
had claimed at least 50 lives. The then Sripati
Mishra-led Congress government had set up the commission
which submitted its report in 1984. |
Mysterious disease kills 22 deer BERHAMPUR, Nov 8 (PTI) — Wildlife officials are worried over the outbreak of a mysterious disease which has claimed a large number of deer and other animals at the deer park at Taptapani, about 60 km from here, in recent weeks. At least 22 deer died within a week of the disease, Conservator of Forest BKL Rao told PTI here. The disease, according to Rao, was caused by a rare and deadly virus which spread very fast. The Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) concerned had been asked to take the necessary remedial measures, he said. Veterinarians from
Berhampur and the Nandankanan Biological Park near
Bhubaneswar, had already visited the spot and treated the
affected animals. Care was being taken to ensure that the
other deer and animals were not affected, Rao said. |
BJP allots 7 seats to INLD JAIPUR, Nov 8 (UNI) — The Bharatiya Janata Party today entered into seat adjustment with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Rajasthan by allotting the party seven Assembly seats for the November 25 Vidhan Sabha elections. INLD president Om Prakash
Chautala told newspersons here his party would contest in
seven seats, mostly in areas bordering Haryana. |
Onion prices may go up NEW DELHI, Nov 8 — The high onion prices which had hit the consumer hard may witness an upswing after the current spell of rainfall. The prices which are hovering between Rs 30 and Rs 40 per kg in the Capital may go up by at least Rs 5 per kg by next week. Onion was yesterday being sold between Rs 20 and Rs 30 in the wholesale market. The wholesale prices may go up marginally which will subsequently effect the retail price in the market, a member of the Onion and Potato Sellers Association, Mr Rajendra Sharma, said. Mr Rajendra Sharma pointed out that the unseasonal rain had destroyed the crop which was harvested from October to December. Meanwhile, the Mother Dairy outlets in the Capital have begun selling onions at Rs 10 per kg on ration cards yesterday. Earlier, these outlets
were selling onion bulbs at Rs 15 per kg. |
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| Militant killed in
encounter AGARTALA: Militants have released a school student and kidnapped a farmer in separate incidents in Tripura, while one ultra was killed and four others arrested following an encounter with security forces in the state. The police said here on Sunday that Mr Rabindrashankar Dutta, a non-tribal student, who was kidnapped by the outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) militant from his residence at Jogaibari village in West District on October 21, returned home unhurt on Saturday night. Meanwhile, a militant of the Tripura Tiger Commando Force (TTCF) — a splinter group of the NLFT — was killed and four others were arrested after an encounter with security forces at the Sarbong area in South District on Saturday. — PTI India’s oldest
biological fossils Bhutan bans
‘Onjus’ sale Nirankari samagam
from Nov 14 SAARC
‘neglecting’ disabled Sindhi history on
Internet 10 years’ RI
for rapist |
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