FACE TO FACE
Gurdaspur Lok Sabha Seat
by Varinder Walia

Uplift of poor, Dalits is Bhinder’s concern

Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister of State for Tourism Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder is contesting Lok Sabha elections from the border constituency of Gurdaspur for the record eighth time. She has won the parliamentary elections of 1980, 1985, 1989, 1992 and 1996, defeating BJP-SAD candidates. She, however, lost elections in 1998 and 1999 to cine star-turned-politician Vinod Khanna. The whopping margin of defeat of 1,01,513 in 1998 was reduced to merely 1,399 votes in 1999 though Mr Khanna enjoyed the support of nine SAD-BJP MLAs.

Born in September 1943, Mrs Bhinder graduated from Panjab University, Chandigarh, and became Minister of State for Tourism from 1993 to 1996 during the prime ministership of Mr Narasimha Rao. Her husband, Mr P.S. Bhinder, a retired DGP CISF, will be her chief election manager.

A. Installation of big industrial projects, jobs to the youth, completion of the ambitious Shahpur Kandi dam project, the issue of ammunition depot at Pathankot, building of Kathlaur bridge (sanction of which has already been cleared by Capt Amarinder Singh and defence authorities), rail over-bridges at Jhakolari, Gurdaspur and Bidhipur, sheds for labour and regular drinking water for Dhar, would be taken up on priority.

A. These charges are being levelled by the Opposition and are misleading and politically motivated. The facts are otherwise and can be verified any time. Education, health, employment, industrialisation and infrastructural development have always remained high on my priority list. The subdivisions of Dhar, Dera Baba Nanak and Mukeria along with many sub-tehsils and development blocks were created during my tenure as MP for the convenience of the people of the far-flung areas.

A. It will be my endeavour to get the dues of sugarcane farmers cleared to provide houses to the houseless, pensions to the needy, infrastructural facilities like schools, colleges, professional institutes, stadiums, vet. polyclinics, dispensaries, hospitals, bus stands and construction of latrines for Dalits.

A. In Delhi, you will find hundreds of Delhi policemen from Gurdaspur. I also helped in the regularisation of the services of thousands of temporary workers employed in Ranjit Sagar dam. I was instrumental in getting employment to hundreds of needy boys & girls hailing from my constituency in the police, para-military forces, Army, education, health and technical institutes, milk plant, sugar mills, rice mills, Ranjit Sagar dam, Woollen Mill Dhariwal, etc.

A. My prospects this time are very bright. All Congress MLAs, chairpersons, leaders & workers of my constituency are united in their efforts to defeat the candidate of the ‘communal’ BJP-SAD combine.

Making the area tourist centre is Vinod’s priority

Cine star-turned-politician Vinod Khanna was elected to the 12th Lok Sabha in 1998 by defeating senior Congress leader and former Union Minister of State for Tourism who had earlier won five parliamentary elections from this border constituency of Gurdaspur. However, Mr Khanna could nurture the constituency for a short period since this (12th) Lok Sabha was dissolved within 13 months. Mr Khanna was again elected to the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.

A — "Networking has been my mantra for bringing about sustainable development in Gurdaspur. If it is an indication,when I for the first time I came to Gurdaspur the length of my train was double that of the station. Today, the length of that station is double the train. I got Rs 230 crore central grant package that salvaged Dhariwal Mills which was on the verge of closure, bridges worth Rs 90 crore, roads worth Rs 100 crore, Rs 110 crore for four-laning of roads, Rs 40 crore for the airport and Rs 15 crore for flood protection measures. Major projects are likely to trigger an economic activity of Rs 2,000 crore a year additionally. I recommended a total of 1550 projects and depleted all MPLAD funds to the tune of Rs 10 crore.

A - Residents of Gurdaspur waited for half a century just to get across the Ravi and Beas rivers. Poor farmers used to pay toll to the Himachal Pradesh and J&K governments to get into ‘Gurdaspur from Gurdaspur’ because getting across the river was about 80 km to 100 km away. Despite tall promises, the Congress failed to get it built. However, when it was completed during the NDA rule, the Congress tried to take credit.

A- My biggest concern is unemployment. For Gurdaspur alone, I plan to create 3 lakh jobs in the next five years.

A - My priority is super projects like international airport, international tourist destinations, international sporting and cricketing venues, state-of-the-art townships, large infrastructural projects, industrial hubs, sugar mills. Super projects create jobs and wealth at the same time. My second priority is to bring a special economic package for the border belt so that Gurdaspur becomes a proposition for industrialists from India and the world for investment. My third priority is to focus on agro-based industries for which I would like to bring right credit connections to farmers.

A- My priority is to make gurdaspur international tourists destination for sports, cricketing venue, formula 1 car racing, marathons, for amusement, for leisure, for adventure sports, for film shooting and to create tourist friendly facilities all over Gurdaspur. "Gur-das-pur means the land of Guru and his das. To me Gurdaspur is the land of my Guru and I am a das of its people."

Modi’s proposed visit draws TMC’s ire
Subhrangshu Gupta

Kolkata: The BJP, which made inroads into Bengal with the help of Ms Mamata Banerjee, now wants to follow “the Modi line” in the Lok Sabha elections, ignoring her resistance.

Party sources say  Mr Modi will come to the city some time in the first week of April.

Mr Pankaj Banerjee, chairman of the TMC’s policy-making body expressed surprise that the BJP had invited Mr Modi to hold election meetings. He alleged the TMC had been not consulted before inviting Mr Modi to participate in the election campaign for them. The TMC was opposed to inviting Mr Modi for campaign as it would adversely affect their poll prospects.

The TMC leadership instead wants Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee to address the joint poll campaign for the NDA in Kolkata and elsewhere.

However, according to state BJP sources, Mr Vajpayee will not be available for any election meeting in Kolkata. But he has agreed to address two meetings — one at Krishnanagar and another at Dum Dum, where two BJP ministers, Mr Satyabarata Mukherjee and Mr Tapan Sikhdar, are contesting.

Though the BJP and the TMC are jointly fighting the elections in Bengal as NDA partners, their relationship has been embittered to a large extent over seat-sharing controversies. The BJP had demanded Purulia and Bankura in addition to the 13 seats it contested in the 1999 elections. But the TMC refused.

BJP General Secretary Rahul Sinha criticised Ms Banerjee for denying them these two seats which, he claimed she had agreed to spare for the BJP at her meeting with Mr Vajpayee in New Delhi last week. But TMC leaders denied Ms Banerjee had agreed to surrender Purulia and Bankura seats to the BJP.

Cong list sparks off protests

Chennai, March 24
Irate Congress workers, dissatisfied over the reported allotment of 10 seats to the Elangovan faction in Tamil Nadu for the May 10 Lok Sabha poll, have been staging demonstrations in the city and other parts of the state since last night.

At the party headquarters Sathyamuthi Bhavan here, at least 100 workers, including women, staged protests and threatened to go on a day’s hunger strike. They also burnt an effigy of Congress General Secretary in charge of Tamil Nadu Kamal Nath.

The Congress has been allotted 10 seats in the seat-sharing arrangement in the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA).

The activists, however, dispersed after Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) President G.K. Vasan got in touch with the functionaries from New Delhi and assured them that the list of candiates would be revised.

Protest demonstrations were staged in places like Vellore, Villupuram and Karur, where workers burnt effigies of Mr Kamal Nath, according to reports reaching the DGP police headquarters here.

Congress coordinating committee member from Tamil Nadu Abbas Ibrahim and here that the party high command had accepted the change of candidates as demanded by the party in Tamil Nadu.

The demonstrations followed in the wake of the proposed allocation of only two seats to candidates belonging to the Vasan camp, namely Mr K.V. Thangabalu (Salem) and Mr N.S.V. Chittan (Dindigul).

According to the list of candidates leaked out in New Delhi last night, the Tirunelveli seat was given to businessman Vasantkumar, the Rasipuram seat to Mr J. Palani, the Palani parliamentary seat to Mr R. Gandhi and the Namakkal seat to Mr Jaikumar. — UNI

Lust for political power thicker than blood

New Delhi, March 24
Courting the risk of a wedge in familial ties, members of some prominent political families are forging new kinships with rival parties to burnish their prospects in the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

The families faced with this peculiar dilemma include the royalty in western Orissa, the committed Congress families in Punjab, the Scindia clan and the ‘Diggy Raja’ family in Madhya Pradesh, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia in Rajasthan and the ‘Lals’ in Haryana.

The Kairons in Punjab, diehard supporters of the Congress, were jolted when the family scion Adesh Partap Singh Kairon joined the Shiromani Akali Dal after marrying the daughter of SAD President Parkash Singh Badal in the early 90s.

Elected on SAD ticket from Patti to the state Assembly in 1997, he became a Cabinet minister in the government led by his father-in-law. He was re-elected to the Assembly in 2002 on SAD ticket.

However, Surinder’s brother and Adesh’s uncle Gurinder Singh Kairon had unsuccessfully contested the 1999 LS poll on Congress ticket.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s wife Preneet Kaur is seeking re-election from Patiala, but her brother-in-law Simranjit Singh Mann is seeking a second term to the Lok Sabha from Sangrur as a candidate of SAD (Amritsar) headed by himself. Preneet’s sister is married to Mann.

The late Vijaya Raje Scindia owed allegiance to the BJP while her son Madhavrao threw in his lot with the Congress. Mr Scindia’s son Jyotiraditya is also with the Congress while his aunt Yashodhara is with the BJP.

Lakshman Singh has been winning from Rajgarh Lok Sabha seat for the last four terms while Yashodhara has been victorious as a BJP candidate from Shivpuri.

On the other hand, Yashodhara says that she and her elder sister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who is Rajasthan’s Chief Minister, were always on their mother’s side.

Members of prominent political families in Rajasthan are trying to keep their hold on the diaspora even by switching their loyalties to different political parties that suits them.

Right from Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia to MPs and MLAs, many prominent leaders of Rajasthan have their relatives in the same party or in the rival camp.

Shekhawat’s son-in-law Narpat Singh Rajvi is the Industry Minister in the Vasundhara Cabinet, while his nephew Pratap Singh Kachariawas, a former president of the state BJP Yuva Morcha, has recently joined the Congress.

Members of the Jat royal family of Bharatpur are often seen changing their political loyalties in different elections. Vishwendra Singh, BJP MP from Bharatpur, has a love-hate relationship with the BJP leadership and has announced quitting the BJP during the Assembly election, but no papers submitted.

His wife Divya Singh, former BJP MP from Bharatpur, joined the INLD on the eve of the recent Assembly election.

However, in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, the prominent political families are a united lot and the next of kin are not split unlike other states. Both in the Congress and the BJP, none of the prominent political families are a divided lot.

The case of Loktantrik Congress Party (LCP) president and state minister Harishanker Tiwari and his son Bhishma Shanker Tiwari is typical.

When Tiwari’s party was supporting the previous Rajnath Singh government in the state, his son had fought on a BJP symbol from Balrampur. Even as the BJP this time shifted Gonda MP Brijbhushan Singh to Balrampur, Bhishma Shanker joined the SP.

When Dr Sanjay Singh parted his ways from the Congress, it was for shaking hands with the BJP. His wife Amita Singh was till recently a BJP MLA. But Dr Sanjay Singh rejoined the Congress last year after being snubbed by the BJP leadership on the issue of renaming of Amethi — his hometown— by the then Chief Minister Mayawati who was leading the BSP-BJP alliance.

After remaining in different parties, Ms Amita Singh finally resigned as the BJP’s Amethi MLA and joined her husband in Congress.

In Haryana, the infamous land of ‘Aya Rams and Gaya Rams’, the politics is centred around three Lals — Bansi Lal, Devi Lal and Bhajan Lal.

Chief Minister and Indian National Lok Dal supremo Om Praksh Chautala’s elder son Ajay Singh is the party MP from Bhiwani and younger son Abhey Singh is an MLA from Rori.

However, Chautala’s estranged brother Ranjit Singh, who had joined the Congress in the mid-90s, has now switched over to the BJP ‘‘out of frustration with the Congress.’’ He was a minister in the erstwhile Devi Lal government in 1987.

Bansi Lal, heading the Haryana Vikas Party, has his one son Surendra Singh as the party’s secretary-general. But his elder son Ranbir Singh Mohindra is in the Congress. He had contested unsuccessfully from Bhiwani on Congress ticket once.

Of the Badhana brothers, Avtar Singh was a Congress MP from Meerut in the 13th Lok Sabha, while his brother Kartar Singh is a minister in the Chautala government. Mr Avtar Singh is now trying for the Congress ticket from Faridabad. — UNI 

Rebels up in arms against Karunakaran dynasty
Jacob George
Tribune News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The K.Karunakaran dynasty in Kerala is facing its worst-ever challenge as the leader’s close aides, who had failed to get the Lok Sabha tickets, are up in arms.

Karunakaran henchmen-turned detractors Rajmohan Unnithan and T.Saratchandra Prasad, general secretaries, had brought the worst charges against his son K. Muraleedharan. The wily “leader” Karunakaran, for a change, is on the back foot, trying to buy peace with the rebels.

However, the rebels are far from impressed with Mr Karunakaran’s willingness to make amends for denying them the Lok Sabha ticket.

What spurred the revolt was Mr Karunakaran’s wholesale seat barter with certain sections to ensure the victory of his children. At 86, Mr Karunakaran opted for the Rajya Sabha. But while doing so, Mr Karunakaran bequeathed his sitting Lok Sabha seat of Mukundapuram, near Thrissur, to daughter Padmaja Venugopal.

Three-time MP K.Muraleedharan, who had somersaulted at the height of group feuds to become Power Minister in the Antony Cabinet, is seeking a mandate to the Assembly from Wadakkancherry.

The general secretaries have accused Mr Muraleedharan of taking a bribe of Rs 25 lakh from Sooranadu Rajasekharan for allotting the Kollam seat and pocketing huge funds collected in the name of a dissident rally held in Ernakulam on November 19.

They have also accused Mr Karunakaran of fielding a non-Congressman in

Ernakulam to ensure the support of Latin Catholic bishops for his daughter in the neighbouring Mukundapuram and son in Wadakkancherry.

The bishops’ nominee, a virtual non-entity, Edward Edezhathu, is the candidate in Ernakulam. His rival is sitting member Sebastian Paul of the Left Democratic Front.

Mr Muraleedharan, the de facto leader of the Karunakaran group, thought he could silence the “betrayers” by getting them expelled from the party. But his plans have gone awry, with the other three groups in the State unit prevailing on party President P.P.Thankachan not to take any drastic step and vitiate the poll climate.

Mr Thankachan, who issued show-cause notices to Mr Unnithan and Mr Prasad, has apparently mellowed after getting their explanations. The duo has demanded an impartial probe into the allegations than hang them for stating the truth.

Significantly, Mr Unnithan has cited Mr Muraleedharan’s sister as a witness to the bribe offer.

There is a deep-seated sibling rivalry in the Karunakaran household.

Mr Muralledharan apparently sees a potential threat to the throne from his own sister.

Congress dissidents also hold Chief Minister A.K.Antony responsible for the current crisis. The Left Democratic Front and the BJP have asked the Congress to come clean on the charges raised by the former lieutenants of Mr Karunakaran.

Mr Antony, the sole member of the Central Election Committee from the state, is seen to meekly surrender to the Mr Karunakaran. His ‘Mr Clean’ image and relevance as a corrective force in the Congress are at stake.

Mulayam not averse to tie-up with Cong
L.H. Naqvi
Tribune News Service

Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav is now willing to do business with the Congress. A day after Ms Mayawati surprised her opponents by announcing the names of 205 candidates for the Lok Sabha poll, the Samajwadi supremo was reported singing a different tune. Remember less than a week ago his trusted lieutenant, Mr Amar Singh, had picked on the reported statement of a senior Congress leader on the possibility of withdrawing support to the Samajwadi Party-led coalition in UP. He had said a firm, or rather rude, no to an alliance even if it meant splitting the secular vote.

The Samajwadi leader is too seasoned a politician not to understand the implication of Ms Mayawati’s move. She has virtually forced his hand by giving 36 per cent seats in UP alone to the backward caste and most backward caste candidates. He can no longer afford to play the waiting game with the Congress. In 1999 his party won 26 Lok Sabha seats from UP, 12 more than Ms Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. In the assembly elections also the Samajwadis pipped the BSP to the number one spot.

Yet, Ms Mayawati got the first invite to form the government. If she can do a bit of political poaching in the Yadav leader’s territory, she would be in a better position to put a heavy premium on her support to whichever party comes out with the shopping list after the Lok Sabha elections.

Now the Samajwadis will have to pull out all stops to check the ‘Dalit ki Beti’ from causing further political mayhem in UP. The possibility of acts of violence by over-enthusiastic Samajwadi activists, on the pattern of the Lucknow guest house attack on Behnji, has made intelligence agencies put UP on the most sensitive list.

Have no illusions about the campaign being peaceful. Not if the going gets tough for Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav. His contribution to giving criminals political respect is phenomenal. He was in the opposition in the UP assembly when Phoolan Devi went on the rampage and killed 22 members of Thakur families in Behmai. He had demanded Mr Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s head, then Chief Minister, for failing to maintain law and order.

Yet, he floated the Samajwadi Janata Party in 1989 and joined Mr V. P. Singh’s anti-Congress front. The SJP became the Samajwadi Party in 1991. And Mr Mulayam Singh accorded Phoolan Devi the dubious distinction of representing Mirzapur in the Lok Sabha. Among his first acts on becoming Chief Minister again last year, was to have POTA cases withdrawn against notorious Raja Bhaiya and his father. He is now trying to protect another history-sheeter, Mukhtar Ansari, booked for supplying arms to Kashmiri militants.

But make no mistake about the BSP’s ability to answer fire with fire. The contest as it is shaping up is sure to give sleepless nights to the Samajwadi supremo. He has political worries as well. Of all the key players in UP only Behan Mayawati has what she calls the transferable votes.And only she has the political audacity to up the ante, as it were. Not the Congress, not even the Samajwadi Party, as far as its Muslim following is concerned. Had the Babri Masjid not fallen, Mr Mulayam Singh’s OBCs support base may have been far smaller than the Dalit constituency of Ms Mayawati. The Muslim factor has given that slight edge to the Samajwadi Party over the BSP, its immediate political rival.

Holding on to that advantage is not going to be easy.

Poll activity picks up in border villages
Our Correspondent

Jammu, March 24
Thanks to the enforcement of ceasefire on the LoC, posters, flags and buntings of different parties contesting the Lok Sabha poll have appeared in several border villages in Akhnoor, R.S. Pora, Hira Nagar and Samba for the first time in the past five years.

When this correspondent had visited the Pallanwala and Panjtoot border areas during the 1999 Lok Sabha poll and in the 2002 Assembly elections there was no sign of pre-poll activity there was no sign of party flags and buntings. Hardly any candidate visited these areas as there was no need to canvas because these areas had remained deserted due to heavy Pakistani firing and mortar shelling.

However, with a sizeable number of border migrants back not only to Pallanwala and Panjtoot but to other border hamlets also, activities of various parties have started touring these areas seeking voters support.

In the 2002 Assembly elections the rehabilitation of border migrants, grant of cash relief and free ration to them in the camps were the main poll issues. The Congress cashed on it at the cost of the National Conference. Since the issue is still alive the BJP leaders have started a campaign against the Congress, which being a partner in the coalition government, has failed to provide plots in safer places for the the construction of houses for those who usually migrate from their villages during shelling by the Pakistani troops. Not only this the police lathi charge on a group of border migrant demonstrators recently in which one villager Chhaju Ram was killed was being fully exploited by the BJP.

Roshan Lal and Kailasho Devi of Pallanwala are happy over the ceasefire. They are happier over the restoration of peace and democracy in their areas which had become belts of ghosts in the past five years.

BJP fields surprise candidate against Scindia junior
N.D. Sharma

Bhopal: A major surprise in the BJP’s fourth list of candidates released in Delhi is the nomination of Mr Hari Vallabh Shukla from Guna where Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia is the Congress candidate. Mr Shukla is a Rashtriya Samanata Dal member of the present Madhya Pradesh Assembly. In the last Assembly polls, he had defeated, among others, the sitting BJP MLA, Mr Narendra Birthare, in the Pohri constituency in Shivpuri district. No one was in a position to say when Mr Shukla had joined the BJP.

The BJP had also fielded the former Chief Minister, Mr Digvijay Singh’s younger brother, Mr Laxman Singh, from his Rajgarh constituency, ignoring strong protests from the party workers in Rajgarh district. Mr Laxman Singh, who had represented the Rajgarh constituency in Lok Sabha since 1994, had recently quit the Congress and joined the BJP. The BJP workers from Rajgarh had also held demonstrations in Bhopal demanding any candidate other than Mr Laxman Singh.

Mr Digvijay Singh, meanwhile, reiterated his resolve to keep no stone unturned to defeat Mr Laxman Singh. Mr Digvijay Singh’s sincerity would be on test in the Chachaura and the Raghogarh segments of the Rajgarh constituency. Mr Laxman Singh had always received the winning margin only in these two segments mainly because of the personal influence of Mr Digvijay Singh.

Mr Ramakrishna Kusmaria, sitting Lok Sabha member from Damoh, had been shifted to the Khajuraho constituency from where Chief Minister Uma Bharati’s brother Swami Prasad Lodhi, was a strong contender. Ms Bharati had represented Khajuraho four times in the Lok Sabha.

The Rajya Sabha member and former Chief Minister, Mr Kailash Joshi, had been fielded from Bhopal constituency. He was the party candidate from Bhopal in 1999 also but was made to step aside for Ms Uma Bharati who had refused to contest from any other constituency. The party high command had also submitted to the “tiriya hath” .

While the BJP announced its candidates for all 29 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress was yet to find suitable candidates for key constituencies like Bhopal, Rajgarh, Indore and Gwalior. 

Sonia-Pawar joint campaign from Monday
Tribune News Service

MUMBAI: Congress President Sonia Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar will begin their joint election campaign in Maharashtra on Monday, according to party sources here.

The two will address a joint meeting at Solapur, the constituency of Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, which passed on to the Bharatiya Janata Party in a by-election last year. The two leaders will carry on their joint roadshow to different parts of the state later on.

Their joint campaign will be kicked off after the two leaders offer prayers at the Tulja Bhawani temple at Tuljapur, according to a statement issued by the Congress.

This is the first time Mr Pawar will share platform with Ms Gandhi after he parted ways with the Congress before the 1999 Lok Sabha poll on the issue of her foreign origin.

According to party sources, the two leaders may address joint meetings in sensitive constituencies and important cities. Mumbai, too, may be included in their itinerary.

The secular alliance in Maharashtra comprises the Congress, the NCP, three factions of the Republican Party of India and the Janata Dal (S). While the Congress and the NCP will contest 26 and 18 seats, respectively, the smaller parties will contest one seat each. Maharashtra sends 48 members to the Lok Sabha.

BRIEFLY

WOMEN VOTERS OUTNUMBER MEN IN TN
CHENNAI: Women voters outnumber men in 35 of the 39 parliamentary constituencies in Tamil Nadu, which goes to the polls on May 10. Only four constituencies — North Madras, Central Madras, Coimbator and Nagercoil — have more men voters, an official press note said on Tuesday. In all, there were 4,71,07,178 voters in the state with 2,39,18,206 women and 2,31,88,972 men. — UNI

AT 117, SHE WANTS TO SEE INDIA SHINING
JALPAIGURI: She had dreamt to see a prosperous India where people would live in peace with neighbours when the country attained freedom in 1947. However, her dreams still largely remain unfulfilled in 2004, when she has turned 117, with another General Election round the corner. Ms Sushilabala Mandal, the oldest voter in Jalpaiguri district living with her sixth generation, hopes to see that happening even today and will cast her vote on May 10 with that dream flickering in her mind. — PTI

LALOO ‘COSTLIER’ THAN NITISH
PATNA: RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav is in one way “costlier” than senior JD(U) leader and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar in Bihar. While a life-size poster of Mr Yadav, clad in white “kurta-pyjama” sporting his unique hairdo, comes at Rs 1500, Mr Nitish Kumar’s poster costs Rs 400. Framed in beautifully designed wooden beads and attractive colour combinations, Mr Yadav’s poster is proving to be a big draw among partymen despite the high prices. Mr Nitish Kumar’s poster at a shop selling campaign materials in the JD(U) office premises is plain and simple. — UNI