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Attack on Rajni fans boomerangs
Punjab, Haryana leaders try their luck in Rajasthan Cong fights for survival in Bihar Havan for elections? UNLF calls for poll boycott
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Karan Brar promises uplift of women
Married into the family of politicians of Sarai Naga village of Muktsar district, elections are not a new thing for Ms Karan Brar, who has been nominated as the Congress candidate from this prestigious constituency. For Ms Brar, the contest against Badals from this seat is not a new thing as her father-in-law, Mr Harcharan Singh Brar, had contested against Mr Parkash Singh Badal and her sister-in-law Babli Brar against Mr Sukhbir Badal in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Ms Karan Brar, whose son Tegbir Singh Brar, is the sarpanch of the village, says that her main aim is to work towards the uplift of rural and urban women by bringing women-oriented projects in the area. She said she would take up the problem of water-logging, potable water and educational facilities on a priority basis. “Once I become MP, I will remove pitchers from the heads of women as I will work hard to provide potable water near their homes. Nobody will use thumb impressions as signature as literacy will be a core issue. Job opportunities will also be created”, she said. Alleging that Mr Sukhbir Badal could not do anything for the people of the Faridkot constituency, she said she knew the people of Faridkot for decades as she had been staying in a village. She said this factor, besides the performance of her father-in-law as minister and later Chief Minister would fetch her votes. “We always fought for the welfare of the people whether or not my family members were in power. My father-in-law gave his best for the welfare of the people when he was the Chief Minister and my mother-in-law did a lot when she was minister and the Leader of the Opposition in Punjab,” she said. Her family and prominent Congressmen of the area are managing her campaign. “I am approaching voters directly. I have been visiting their homes daily,” she added.
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Development is Sukhbir Badal’s agenda
Known as a “man of his word”, former Union Minister Sukhbir Badal, who has been elected MP twice from this constituency, has been visiting the homes of voters after he was nominated SAD-BJP candidate from here. Having a strong cadre of party workers belonging to all age groups, he has covered a large area of his constituency by way of corner meetings, village-level meetings and interactions with representatives of various unions. He has also completed the exercise pertaining to the booth-wise deployment of workers. Former and sitting party MLAs, besides leaders of the SAD-BJP alliance, have also been helping him in his campaign. Credited with the setting up of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences at Faridkot, Malout Institute of Management and Information Technology (Malout), and Regional Centre of Punjab Technical University (Muktsar), besides the establishment of grids to improve the power supply, Mr Badal has been promising more development. “Though I have carried out overall development of my constituency, I am committed to carrying out more development”, he said. He said he would redress the grievances and problems of the youth, including unemployment. Mr Badal said he would bring some major projects pertaining to healthcare, employment generation and higher education if the BJP-led NDA came to power at the Centre again. He claimed that Congressmen in this constituency were disappointed after Mr Jagmeet Brar, MP, shifted to Ferozepore. This factor would go in his favour, Mr Badal claimed.
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HVP’s Jhangra banks on backward classes, Sikhs Karnal, April 7 Once a confidant of the late Tau Devi Lal, Mr Jhangra joined hands with Chaudhary Bansi Lal in 1989. Since then, he has been loyal to him. Born at Kharkhara village in Meham sub-division of Rohtak district on May 8, 1950; he did his graduation in 1972 and joined politics after developing close relations with Chaudhary Charan Singh and Tau Devi Lal. He first contested the state Assembly elections in 1987 from the Safidon constituency on the Lok Dal ticket but lost the elections. In 1989, he parted ways from the Lok Dal and joined the Congress at the behest of Chaudhary Bansi Lal. He also contested the 1991 Assembly elections from the Meham constituency, but again lost the seat. He worked as Chairman of the Haryana Land Reclamation Development Board for three months during the last government of Chaudhary Bansi Lal. Mr Jhangra belongs to a backward class family and claims good support from the backward classes and Sikhs. “My focus is on the peasants and the poor people living in the poor settlements and I have been getting a good response from them”, he said. In reply to a question, he said Congress leader Bhajan Lal during his tenure as Chief Minister divided the backward classes into two categories for reservation in jobs to benefit certain castes. “There is a great resentment among the backward classes against the Congress”, he claimed. He said there were at least 3.25 lakh backward classvoters in the constituency. The vote bank of Sikhs in Karnal and Panipat districts has been estimated at 1.5 lakh. The HVP candidate has alleged that all major political parties, including the ruling Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, have neglected them ever since the state was carved out of Punjab. “The Sikhs can never forget the anti-Sikh riots during the tenure of Chaudhary Bhajan Lal as CM. Therefore, there is no question of the Congress getting the support of Sikhs”, he added. Similarly, the INLD and the BJP have both neglected the Sikhs in the past few years. Even the demand of setting up of a state minority commission and implementing Punjabi as the second language in the state had not been accepted. The BJP-led union government also did not increase the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat during the current season that would work against both the INLD and the BJP. Mr Jhangra was of the view that the deteriorating law and order situation in Karnal and Panipat districts had forced the migration of traders from the area. Lashing out at the INLD, he alleged that extortions had become common and the police was a mute spectator to all that was happening at the behest of the ruling party leaders. He said no new industries had come up in the state except for the NCR region following the fear of criminal activities that were mushrooming at a rapid pace. He demanded that Mr Om Prakash Chautala should issue a white paper on his foreign trips and the new industries set up in the state.Moreover, no efforts have been made by the INLD Government to improve the power situation by attracting investments in setting-up new power plants. The HVP candidate promised to provide basic amenities with hygienic conditions to the poor settlements in the urban and rural areas, initiate efforts to reduce power tariff by at least Re 1 per unit and introduce the slab system on consumption of power for the agriculture sector, device social awakening methods to prevent youth from indulging in crimes and bring in a new job-oriented programme to set-up micro industries at the village level.
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New-generation Yadavs want more Bhaktiarpur (Barh), April 7 This should mean that Nitish Kumar should have stayed put in Barh, from where he has won continuously since 1991. Instead, he decided to contest from the neighbouring Nalanda too, forcing his party president George Fernandes to go back to Muzafarpur. Nitish Kumar won from Barh even in 1996 when Laloo Yadav’s hold over Bihar was complete. The RJD’s strength has been the sense of belonging the Yadavs have displayed towards the party in the past decade. Bhushan and Pappu represent the views of a new generation among the Yadav community that is convinced that the changes achieved in the social realm, thanks to Laloo Yadav are there to stay. They also want more. A whole lot of rail halts, the proposed rail coach factory in Harnaut, the Barh Super Thermal Power Project and the plan to harness the flood waters that inundate the Taal area are development initiatives that go to the credit of Nitish Kumar. Listing these factors, Bhushan was categorical that “Nitish Kumar deserves to win this time for his development initiatives.’’ But goodwill alone will not do in elections. Not at least in Bihar where the integration of muscle power into the political system is complete. And none would know this better than Nitish Kumar himself. In all the elections since 1996, when he managed to win against Laloo Yadav’s machinery, he had the support of two important men in Barh: Surajbhan Singh, whose writ runs all over Mokamma and whose arrest (on mistaken identity from a gambling den in Biharsharif in 1998) sent ripples across the state’s political set-up and Anant Singh, who reigns over Fathua. Nalanda, however, is a safe seat. Apart from the large proportion of Kurmis, Nitish Kumar can bank on the development projects initiated there by Mr Fernandes during the past six years. The roads to Rajghir are good and the Defence Ordnance Factory now coming up holds the promise of development unknown in the region hitherto. As for Barh, a lot depends on Surajbhan Singh and Anant Singh.
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Jogi’s entry shifts focus to Mahasamund Raipur, April 7 Mr Jogi, who as Chief Minister had promised to win all 11 Lok Sabha seats in the state for the Congress, is now fighting for his own political comeback. His aide Pawan Diwan, tipped for party ticket from Mahasamund, has joined the BJP. Mr Jogi is not in the best of terms with senior Congress leaders at the helm of affairs in the state unit now. Mr Jogi’s woes are a little eased by his rival V C Shukla’s perception among the BJP cadre. Mr Shukla has changed three parties in three years, a point Mr Jogi rarely forgets to emphasise. Mr Jogi’s son Amit, who had spent several days in Marwahi during the Assembly elections, will contribute to the electoral effort of his father in this election also. Mr Jogi’s decision to fight against a veteran like Mr Shukla is seen as a shrewd political move which can enable him to return to the centrestage of Congress politics. “Mr Jogi is an obvious gainer if he wins. If he loses, he can still gain sympathy as his rival is seen as having the initial advantage,’’ says Mr Surender Kumar, a resident of Raipur. The Congress is expecting to give a fresh thrust to its poll drive in the state with the three rallies of Congress President Sonia Gandhi on April 10. Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani will spend two days in Chhattisgarh during his Bharat uday yatra to bolster the BJP’s campaign. While the state Congress has not yet firmed up plans for any of its other campaigners, BJP plans to organise over 50 rallies and meetings in the state before the polling . The BJP’s battery of leaders includes Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharti and Vinod Khanna who will each be addressing four rallies in a day. The party is also finalising venues for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s rallies, which will be held in the last days of the campaigning. State party leaders hope that former union minister Dilip Singh Judev, who is apparently unhappy over denial of Lok Sabha ticket, will actively campaign for party candidates.
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Lucknow, April 7 The affidavits of assets filed by the two candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and submitted before returning officers have an interesting tale to tell. While Ms Mayawati is contesting from Akbarpur in the state, Ms Gandhi this time has decided to fight the poll from Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s constituency of Rae Bareli. According to Ms Mayawati’s affidavit submitted on Monday, she has Rs 9.78 crore deposited in various banks and keeps Rs 1.5 lakh as cash in hand. She also owns jewellery worth Rs 30.94 lakh. The diamond-studded jewellery gifted to her during one of her birthdays by party activists had earlier been under investigation. The CBI had been investigating her assets after allegations of her involvement in the multi-crore Taj Heritage Corridor (THC) scam. The BSP President owns four houses worth Rs 1.25 crore in Delhi’s Inderpuri area measuring up to 1698.11 sq yards. On the other hand, Congress President Sonia Gandhi neither owns a car nor a house, in India. She does have an ancestral home worth Rs 12.45 lakh in Italy. According to her affidavit submitted yesterday, she has cash deposits worth Rs 26.20 lakh in UCO Bank and Rs 25,000 as cash in hand. Besides, the Congress President also has RBI bonds worth Rs 10.53 lakh and other policies worth Rs 13.29 lakh. She has also invested Rs 1.29 lakh in the National Savings Certificates (NSC). Her gold and silver jewellery is valued at Rs 14.71 lakh and owns two pieces of land in Delhi and Sultanpur (UP) worth Rs 2.19 lakh. Ms Gandhi has also given Rs 5 lakh to her daughter and party’s star campaigner, Priyanka Vadra, as a loan, the affidavit said.
— UNI
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Attack on Rajni fans boomerangs Chennai, April 7 The support of Rajnikanth, the superstar of
the Tamil film industry, in favour of the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) was a foregone conclusion. The attack on Rajnikanth’s fans by workers of a constituent of the DPA, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), changed all that. On April 2 some activists of the PMK, a relatively small regional party in Tamil Nadu, attacked members of the All India Rajnikanth Narpani Manram (Rajnikanth Fans Association) in Madurai, 500 km south of this state capital. The attack not only sparked off a strong protest from various sections of the state polity but thousands of the film hero’s fans went on a one-day fast in Madurai the next day and vowed to work against the PMK during the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. Rajni, as he is popularly called here, has kept quiet but hinted that he would soon spell out his intentions about the elections before the media soon. His fan association members number more than a staggering figure of four million in Tamil Nadu and they can certainly tilt the electoral balance in many constituencies. Though Rajnikanth is yet to comment on the attack by PMK members on his fans, Satyanarayana, his elder brother and president of his fans’ association, directed the fans to work with renewed vigour to defeat PMK candidates. Out of 40 Lok Sabha constituencies (39 in Tamil Nadu and one in the union territory of Pondicherry), the PMK is contesting six seats. A natural question is what is the bone of contention between a small regional party like the PMK and Rajnikanth’s fans. Last year, Rajnikanth starred in a Tamil film “Baba” in which he was shown to be smoking, drinking and philandering. The founder of the PMK, Dr. S. Ramadoss, belonging to the powerful Vanniyar community, condemned the film as the film’s protagonist was indulging in “immoral acts” and demanded that it be banned. The film was not banned but Ramadoss appealed to the people to boycott the movie. Rajnikanth, who has a large number of blockbusters to his credit, was shocked as the film flopped at the box office. This led to a rivalry between the Tamil superstar and the radical Tamil leader in Ramadoss and the subsequent violence on April 2 in Madurai in which many of Rajnikanth’s fans were injured and hospitalised. The incident came as a rude shock to DMK president M. Karunanidhi. He seemed to be cursing the day he roped in a reluctant Ramadoss, into the DPA. To assuage the feelings of his film star friend and supporter, Rajnikanth, and regain the votes of the millions of his fans, the DMK supremo promptly issued a statement on Monday condemning the attack. The DMK is now reportedly sending feelers to Rajnikanth to ask his fans to confine their protests only to the six seats being contested by the PMK and come out in open support in favour of the DPA nominees. After all, Rajnikanth did emerge as a kingmaker during the 1996 state Assembly elections when the DMK was swept to power by ensuring a crushing defeat to the
AIADMK.
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Punjab, Haryana leaders try their luck in Rajasthan Jaipur: Whatever be the dispute on the distribution of waters between Punjab and Haryana, Rajasthan has been welcoming several politicians of the neighbouring states to play their cards here for the past two decades. It has virtually adopted them as sons of its soil and the current election scenario in Rajasthan proves the point. Stalwarts like Buta Singh and Balram Jakhar are contesting from the Jalore and Churu constituencies, respectively, on Congress ticket while film star Dharmendra is a BJP candidate from the Bikaner constituency of north-western Rajasthan. Drawing crowds in his election meetings, Dharmendra does not forget to highlight the fact that he is the son of a poor Punjab farmer. Rajasthan’s socio-political friendship with undivided Punjab dates back to twenties when bhajan singers of the Arya Samaj aroused patriotic sentiments at public meetings during the agrarian movements launched in the Shekhawati region. Ties with Punjab in the real sense became evident during the 1984 Lok Sabha elections. The political career of towering leaders like Buta Singh and Balram Jakhar was at stake due to militancy. It was at this critical juncture that the Congress high command asked them to fight the Lok Sabha elections from Rajasthan. Balram Jakhar fought from the Sikar constituency while Buta Singh contested from the Jalore (reserved) constituency and won the elections. Even after the return of normalcy in Punjab, these two leaders continued to play a significant role in the politics of the state for the past 20 years. Like Punjab, Haryana too developed political friendship with Rajasthan. A beginning was made in 1972, when Sumitra Bai, sister of Rao Virendra Singh, fought the Lok Sabha elections on the Vishal Haryana Party ticket from Alwar and lost by a little margin. It was during the 1989 Lok Sabha elections that the doyen of Haryana politics, Devi Lal, won from the Sikar constituency by defeating Balram Jakhar. Devi Lal’s grandson, Ajay Singh Chautala, made a debut in Rajasthan politics when he entered the state Assembly from the Datanramgarh constituency of Sikar district and again in 1993 from the Bhadra constituency of Hanumangarh district. In the recent elections to the state assembly, several members of the INLD headed by Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala were victorious and surprised political observes with four of them being elected to the state legislature. The INLD is gaining ground in the Jat-dominated Shekhawati and Marwar regions. In the coming elections, Mahant Chand Nath of Rohtak is contesting from the Alwar constituency while former minister Kartar Singh is contesting from the Dausa constituency on BJP ticket against Sachin Pilot.
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Cong fights for survival in Bihar
Patna, April 7 The grand old party of India which had staked claim to 20 odd seats ultimately managed to secure only four seats after several rounds of hard bargaining with the RJD strongman, triggering resentment in the party. So evident is the bitterness that not a single Congress leader, not even its state chief Ramjatan Sinha, was present when Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and Lok Janshakti party President Ramvilas Paswan announced the formalisation of the secular alliance on March 27. The RJD leader allotted Begusarai, Aurangabad, Madhubani and Sasaram seats to the Congress as part of the seat-sharing arrangement, claiming that he had been authorised by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and AICC general secretary in charge of Bihar R.K. Dhavan to make the announcement. The Congress is yet to finalise its candidate for the Begusarai seat which Mr Rajo Singh had won last time. According to party insiders, Mr Rajo Singh is likely to be denied a ticket from the Begusarai seat for which the names of BPCC chief Sinha, former Union Minister Krishna Sahi and Congress minister in the Rabri Devi cabinet Veena Sahi were under consideration. So deep is the acrimony that BPCC president Sinha and Mr Laloo Yadav do not not even care to maintain a facade of unity during public appearances.
— PTI
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Havan for elections? Ranchi, April 7 “The havan was organised for peace and prosperity of all citizens,” the BJP Chief Minister, who performed puja along with his wife, told reporters. Asked whether it had anything to do with the BJP’s poll prospects, Mr Munda evaded a direct reply, saying that “the BJP-led government should come back to power under Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s leadership.” Venkatasan said the same priests had performed puja at Jayalalitha’s house a fortnight ago.
— PTI
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UNLF calls for poll boycott Imphal, April 7 In a statement here, the banned UNLF, said the decision to boycott the elections was taken by its central committee to intensify the “revolutionary movement in Manipur”. “Poll-related activities like holding of public meetings, canvassing, campaigning, flag hoisting, should be stopped with immediate effect by political parties and workers,” the statement signed by the Assistant Secretary (Publicity)at the Central Committee Secretariat, UNLF, said. Official sources said the government was aware of the UNLF’s poll boycott call and it would meet any challenge.
— PTI
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Married into the family of politicians of Sarai Naga village of Muktsar district, elections are not a new thing for Ms Karan Brar, who has been nominated as the Congress candidate from this prestigious constituency.
Known as a “man of his word”, former Union Minister Sukhbir Badal, who has been elected MP twice from this constituency, has been visiting the homes of voters after he was nominated SAD-BJP candidate from here.
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