Friday, October 1, 1999
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Friday, October 1, 1999 |
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Patnaik fights warhorse ASKA (Orissa): Steel and Mines Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) President Naveen Patnaik is all set to keep his late father’s flag high in this sugarcane belt of coastal Orissa. This is for the second time that he is contesting from here on the BJD ticket. His father Biju Patnaik had won the seat on the Janata Dal ticket. The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) had tried its best to persuade many of its candidates, including those who had won the seat earlier, to challenge Mr Naveen Patnaik this time. But everyone refused on one pretext or the other. Internal differences are said to be the main reason, which the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) does not want to admit. The differences could be gauged from the fact that in 26 of the 31 panchayats of Aska, the opposition is “Congress versus Congress.’’ Ultimately, the Congress left it to the CPI to take on Mr Naveen Patnaik. The leftists have fielded Mr Dhruti Krushna Panda, a warhorse. The Congress is not openly supporting its ally, the CPI here. The reported lack of coordination and mistrust could be the reasons. So far no Congress leader has visited the constituency to canvass support for Mr Panda. Ramchandrapur and Nalabanta are two villages on the Berhampur- Aska road falling in the Aska Assembly segment of this parliamentary constituency. “It is sheer contempt for the Leftists that the Congress and the BJD have neglected these |
September 30, 1999
September 29, 1999
September 28, 1999
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| two villages,’’ complains a
comrade. “Under these circumstances, how can we
expect any support for our comrade Panda from the
Congress grassroots workers?,’’ he counters
when asked how much support Mr Panda can expect from the
Congress. In the seven assembly segments, the Congress and the BJD are evenly placed. The Congress has no leader in the Kodla segment. “If a leader is found, the Congress can put up a stiff fight,’’ Congress workers say. In his campaign
speeches, Mr Naveen Patnaik highlights the achievements
of the Vajpayee government and promises to improve the
lot of the people. On the other hand, the CPI harps on
the “misrule’’ of the NDA government,
inflation and unemployment and non-fulfilment of promises
made by the BJD last year. — UNI |
Going tough for Indrajit Gupta MIDNAPORE: In spite of having the best track record of winning 10 times in a row since 1960, veteran CPI leader and former Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta is finding it difficult to retain the traditional leftist garrison of Midnapore in the etching of his political career. According to observers, Mr Gupta is under considerable flak for alleged failure to undertake any developmental work. Also unlike last time, the BJP and the Trinamool Congress are fighting the elections together and could take away a sizeable chunk of votes of Mr Gupta. Mr Gupta, who is blamed for not undertaking any developmental work in the constituency by the Opposition as well as by a section of his party supporters is, however, trying to put up a brave face. “It is totally unjustified to blame me for not looking after my constituency and I do not feel that my voters will turn against me”, said an exhausted Mr Gupta who is of late spending 12 to 14 hours a day campaigning and visiting the remotest corners of his semi-urban constituency in a desperate bid to woo the voters. On the contrary, riding on an apparent sympathy wave, BJP nominee Monoranjan Dutta is leaving no stone unturned to capitalise on it. Moreover, the formal pre-poll understanding between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress (TC) to fight jointly seems to be paying dividends. Such an understanding has assumed more significance this time. Mr Dutta’s defeat last year to Mr Gupta by nearly 300,000 votes, was, according to poll observers, due to lack of understanding between the BJP and the TC and inter-party squabbling. The apparent non-existence of the original Congress as a force to reckon with following largescale exodus of party workers to the TC has been on added advantage to Mr Roy. Septugenerian Gupta, contesting for the 12th time, has lost only once in his five-decade-long political career when the then Bharatiya Lok Dal candidate, Mr Ashok Krishna Dutta, defeated him from the Dum Dum Lok Sabha constituency by one lakh votes way back in 1977. After that Mr Gupta never looked back and riding on the crest of his ever-increasing popularity and personal charisma returned to the Lok Sabha first from the Basirhat constituency in 1980 and 1981 and then from Midnapore six times in a row. This time Mr Gupta, though initially reluctant to contest, is locked in a five-cornered contest against Mr Manoranjan Dutta of the BJP, Mr Samir Roy of the Congress and two Independents — Mr Akshay Kumar Khan and Mr Mritunjoy Chakraborty. Last year, Mr Gupta defeated Mr Dutta by a margin of more than 2.75 lakh votes in a four-cornered contest. As a majority of the more than 1.9 million voters in this constituency are from the farming community, alleged lack of government initiative to introduce any special agricultural subsidy for them and failure to prevent recurrence of floods every year in the district have become the major poll planks this time. The non-fulfilment of pre-election promises by Mr Gupta since 1996 for establishing the double line railway track between Midnapore and Kharagpur town has turned a large number of floating urban voters against the veteran Communist leader. Meanwhile, a number of
poll-related clashes at the panchayat level in the
district earlier this month has forced the state
administration to undertake elaborate security measures
to ensure a free and fair poll on October 3. — UNI |
Tea tribes in limelight GUWAHATI: Constituting nearly 35 per cent of Assam’s total electorate, the tea tribe community of this tea heartland are always in the limelight during elections as different parties go out of their way to woo them. Living and working in enclaves removed from the surrounding local population, the tea tribes are usually a marginalised community, but come elections and political parties descend on them with promises galore. Tea garden labourers, drawn mostly from Jharkhand and parts of Central India, are the key constituents of the upper and central Assam constituencies of Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Kaliabor, Tezpur, parts of Nagaon and Lakhimpur as well as the Barak valley constituency of Silchar. Traditional Congress supporters, the tea labourers have sent their own community member and former central minister from the Congress Paban Singh Ghatowar to Parliament from Dibrugarh for four consecutive terms since 1985. Ghatowar, a prominent tea tribe leader who grew up in the gardens with his mother retiring only recently as a head labourer, symbolised the community’s hopes and aspirations. In the other constituencies, too, the Congress banks heavily on the tea tribesmen, who have always bailed it out amid allegations from the Opposition that labourers are provided with unlimited liquor who then vote for the party. Irked by the presumption that illiterate tea tribesmen can be taken for a ride, the educated among them, particularly students under the banner of the All-Assam Tea Tribes Students Association (ATTSA), have decided not to extend support to any political party in the poll. The ATTSA has announced a ban on political parties campaigning at night in the tea gardens, ostensibly to prevent “vote-hungry political parties from disrupting the much-needed sleep of the hard-working tea labourers”. However, residents point out that the ban has been imposed to create problems for the Congress, to which the ATTSA is opposed, as it has a tradition of organising night feasts among tea garden labourers to secure their votes. Another reason why the ATTSA is unhappy with the Congress is because though it has been continuously supported by illiterate tea workers for the past 50 years, nothing has been done to improve their lot. The Asom Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS), an INTUC-affiliated trade union of tea labourers, will as before extend all support to the Congress candidates in the October 3 poll in the state. An ACMS spokesman said the organisation had been extending support to the Congress for all these years and it had still not lost hope. But the party should put up more candidates as the community had a huge population of nearly 70 lakh. The ACMS also agreed that the Congress had failed to “reciprocate the unrelenting support” of the tea tribes and warned that if this continued the trade union would be forced to consider an alternative political platform. Besides former Union Minister Paban Singh Ghatowar from Dibrugarh, three Independent candidates of the community are contesting the poll from the Tezpur Lok Sabha constituency. The AGP and the BJP, which are locked in triangular contests in most of the constituencies dominated by the tea tribe community, are also trying to woo them. The BJP particularly has
been buoyed to some extent following the ATTSA’s
“moral support” to it though officially the
students’ body is not supporting any party. Several
national leaders, including Union Information and
Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan, have concentrated
their campaigns on the tea belt. — PTI |
TC emergence changes scene AGARTALA: As the ‘’flowers and grass,’’ the symbol of the Trinamool Congress, slowly grows in popularity, both major political entities—the ruling CPM-led Left Front and the Congress— appears jittery for the first time in Tripura’s electoral history. Since the 1952 Lok Sabha elections, the electorate of this tiny state has remained sharply polarised in their loyalties to the left parties and the Congress. This electoral scene almost routinely reappeared till last year, except for the assembly elections in 1978 when the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS), won four seats on its own to emerge as the third force in the state. However, the political situation in Tripura forced the TUJS to find a friendly party in the Congress. It entered into a political understanding and fought four assembly and as many Lok Sabha elections together from 1983 onwards. This bipolar electoral scene in Tripura seems to have undergone a major change this time with the emergence of the Trinamol Congress, apparently at the cost of the Congress. After the TUJS, on its own, snapped its 17-year-old-ties with the Congress, the BJP, the Trinamool Congress and the TUJS have formed an alliance to defeat the ruling CPM-led Left Front and the opposition Congress. Former state Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Sudhir Ranjan Majumder, who resigned from the Congress and was appointed state unit president of the Trinamool Congress, is seeking election on the Trinamool Congress ticket from Tripura West, one of the two Lok Sabha constituencies of the state, the other being Tripura East. The ruling CPM has fielded former state Home Minister Samar Chowdhury, a member of the dissolved Lok Sabha, while the Congress has put up a young lawyer, Mr Pijush Kanti Biswas, against Mr Majumder. On October 3, an electorate of 9,40,753, including 4,54,431 women, would decide the fate of 12 aspirants, including the nominee of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), contesting from this constituency, which comprises seven tribal and five Scheduled Castes reserved assembly segments, besides 18 general segments spread over hills and plains. Since the first Lok Sabha elections, the Left parties have won the seat seven times (1952, 1962, 1971, 1980, 1984, 1996 and 1998), and the Congress four times (1957, 1967, 1989 and 1991). In 1977, some Congressmen floated the Congress for Democracy (CFD) with the help of the Janata Party. The seat was then won by CFD leader and Tripura’s first Chief Minister Sachindra Lal Singh. In the last Lok Sabha elections in 1998, the CPM-led Left Front candidate Samar Chowdhury had secured 47 per cent of the total valid votes, while Congress nominee Radhika Ranjan Gupta got 45 per cent of the valid votes and BJP candidate h s Roy Chowdhury 7 per cent. In the 1996 elections, the Left Front and the Congress candidates secured 51 per cent and 39 per cent of votes, respectively. The internal feud to which the Congress has been reduced to in the wake of the Trinamool Congress’ emergence and the TUJS’s desertion have already benefited the Left Front. A large number of leaders, including the sitting MLA, former ministers and MLAs, besides workers have joined the fledgling Trinamool Congress under the leadership of Mr Sudhir Majumder, who was once the Tripura Pradesh Congress President (TPCC), Chief Minister and a Rajya Sabha member. Insurgency and unemployment remained the main issue of the campaign of all political parties. The ruling Left Front blamed the BJP-led government at the Centre for ‘’not providing additional paramilitary forces to curb insurgency in the state,’’ while the Congress, and the BJP-Trinamool Congress-TUJS alliance accused the state government of failure to tackle extremist activities. Chief Minister and CPM Politburo member Manik Sarkar, party state unit secretary Baidyanath Majumder and Finance Minister Badal Chowdhury were the main campaigners for the Left Front, while TPCC President Gopal Roy and opposition leader Samir Ranjan Burman campaigned for the Congress. Mr Sudhir Ranjan
Majumder, former Information Minister Ratan Chakraborty,
TUJS general secretary Rabindra Debbarma and BJP state
unit President h s Roy Chowdhury were the principal
speakers of the three party alliance. — UNI |
3,000 securitymen for Sikkim GANGTOK: Preparations are in full swing for simultaneous poll to the lone Lok Sabha and 32 assembly seats in Sikkim on October 3. Talking to the media here, District Collector (East) and Returning Officer for the Sikkim parliamentary constituency Vijay Bhusan Pathak said 3,000 personnel would be deployed in the four districts to man the 336 polling booths. The Centre had been asked to spare four companies of the Central Security Forces in addition to 4000 state police personnel, including armed police, civil police and Home Guards, to maintain a strict vigil. Polling personnel would
have to trek several miles to reach 12 of the
state’s most remote polling stations. Polling
station at the Gnathang primary school was situated at an
altitude of 16,000 feet on the Indo-Tibet border. — UNI |
‘Fork’ that is a threat to ‘hand’ GUWAHATI: Just when Congress candidate Nepal Chandra Das thought he had the voter eating out of his ‘‘hand’’ in the Karimganj Lok Sabha constituency, along comes a namesake to prod him with a ‘‘fork’’. Mr Das’s namesake is an Independent with the ‘‘fork’’ as the election symbol. The matter becomes all the more complicated as the Independent Das has got the ‘‘fork’’ printed in his campaign posters with its handle considerably shortened to resemble the hand. The Congress candidate
has complained to the Returning Officer not to allow his
namesake to rake in votes with the handy
‘‘fork’’. — UNI |
A lost battle for BJP in Sultanpur SULTANPUR: It is one constituency in the country where the BJP lost the elections even before the votes were polled. And party loyalists in this Lok Sabha seat seem to be confused as to whom they should support. This situation occurred after the nomination papers of the official BJP candidate, Satyadeo Singh, were rejected by the Returning Officer as they were incomplete. The BJP candidate then moved the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, which, too, turned down his plea last Monday. The party has now formally announced its support to an Independent candidate, Chandrabhushan Dwivedi, with an “aeroplane” as his election symbol. The candidature of Dwivedi, a prominent leader of “kar sevaks” during the Ayodhya demolition, was supported by Vishwa Hindu Parishad President Ashok Singhal at a public meeting here. However, confusion arose when another top VHP and Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas leader, Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans Dave of Ayodhya, held a press conference here in support of another Independent and former Shiv Sena state unit chief, Pawan Pandey. Another prominent RSS leader who holds sway in Sultanpur, Ram Dayal Singh, has expressed support for the Bahujan Samaj Party nominee, Jaibhadra Singh. All three candidates have their pockets of influence in this area, but the dedicated voter of the BJP-sangh Parivar does not know which way to go. The other prominent contestants here are Deepa Kaul of the Congress and Ram Lakhan Verma of the Samajwadi Party. While Dwivedi’s symbol is an “aeroplane”, the symbol of Pandey is a “comb” and that of the BSP an “elephant”. The problem of the BJP
supporters was summed up by one of them in this manner:
“Koi haathi pe baitha hai, to koi hawaijahaz mein
sawari kar raha hai aur hamare Mahantji apni daadhi pe
kanghi kar rahe hain. (someone is riding an elephant, the
other an aeroplane and our Mahant is combing his
beard).” — PTI |
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The people of West Bengal are clamouring for change. They want to throw out the Marxist regime and rebuild the state. — Mamata Banerjee How can the BJP join hands with Pawar who conspired to bring down the Vajpayee government at the Centre by one vote? Things will not come to such a pass. — Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on whether the BJP will strike a post-election deal with the NCP Maharashtra We are looking for 55 seats. This should be sufficient for us to have a say in the matters and sway things our way in Parliament. — BSP leader Mayawati The CPM has no principles. Its anti-Congress stand in Kerala and West Bengal is a sham. It is also a party which has suddenly found an ally in M & Jayalalitha. — Atal Behari Vajpayee So far I have resisted the pressure to contest. Some people announced my name as the Youth Congress president without even asking me. But I don’t want to get into something without working for it. — Priyanka Gandhi From a leader of backwards, he (Laloo Yadav) has come down to my, me and mine and planted a jungle raj. Madhepura’s vote will be a vote for Bihar’s rehabilitation. — Sharad Yadav at Madhepura in Bihar Don’t underestimate the villager. Even he understands these issues now. — Chief election agent of Chandra Shekhar on Kargil the BJP-Congress war of polemics — (Compiled
by Mukul Bansal) |
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