Sunday, September 26, 1999
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Sunday, September 26, 1999 |
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“Behenji” faces
wrath of rivals AKBARPUR: For a decade the BSP has played the spoiler in UP politics. Seldom strong enough to win seats on its own, it, however, concerned most Dalit votes to keep the Congress and more recently the Samajwadi Party from power. In this election it has invited the BJP’s ire because of its key role in bringing down the Vajpayee government. Determined to exact vengeance and worried by the BSP’s growing clout in UP, the party is determined to humble its leader, Ms Mayawati, in her own citadel, Akbarpur (reserved). Ms Sushma Swaraj has visited the constituency already and in the next few days the entire “party rath,” Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, Mr Pramod Mahajan and Mr Vinod Khanna, will roll through Akbarpur, making in the parties hardest fought seat in UP. It has fielded its 1996 candidate, Mr Bachan Ram, who polled 1,75,000 votes in 1996 trailing Ms Mayawati (who won because of an almost equal three-way split in votes) by just 14,000 votes again. In the 1998 poll, although the BJP’s Triveni Ram polled 2,23,000 votes, the party dropped to third place behind the SP. With the Samajwadi Party’s Ram Piare Suman, who shares Ms Mayawati’s Chamar caste, likely to split the 17 per cent Chamar vote, the BJP hopes that its Khatik (7 per cent) candidate will pull in the SC vote which combined with its traditional Brahmin 25 per cent and Thakur 12 per cent vote, should be sufficient to project it to power. As a bonus, it is also counting on a share of Kurmi votes as the Kurmi voters are unhappy with Ms Mayawati’s brusque treatment of her Kurmi ministers, Mr Bharku Ram Verma and Mr Ram Saran Verma. The fact that Ms Mayawati has lost much of her ‘VIP’ sheen of 1998 should help. Ms Mayawati fought the last elections fresh from her stint as Chief Minister when the BJP was on the defensive after pulling out of its alliance with BSP and breaking her party. However, there appears to be a critical flaw in BJP calculations. Mr Bachan Ram is illiterate, hardly the man to push through its aggressive development agenda. The other parties have been going to town with this fact, putting the BJP on the defensive. The Congress, which was only a small player last time, has fielded veteran politician, former Governor and five-time MLA from neighbouring Jaunpur as its candidate. As Revenue Minister in the N.D. Tewari government in 1989, he had given SCs living on other people’s and panchayat land title to the land on which their dwelling were built. The party hopes to cash in on this. It is also eyeing the BJP’s Brahmin and Thakur votebank, saying forward caste voters are more comfortable with its suave and moderate candidate. It has also been wooing the SP’s Muslim votebank by promising weavers, (weaving is the major industry in this region but has been hit hard by power cuts and a stiff rental on electricity meters) several concessions. Despite these factors, it looks like a long haul for the Congress given that Ayodhya is only 30 miles away and Muslim voters at least have forgotten nothing. The Samajwadi Party is no less anxious to humble Ms Mayawati, the biggest stumbling block to its consolidation of the Dalit vote to its Backward-Muslim base. Its campaign is the most aggressive, charging Ms Mayawati, an outsider (she is from Ghaziabad), with ignoring the area after she was elected and even allowing her MP area fund to lapse. |
September 25, 1999
September 24, 1999
September 23, 1999
September 22, 1999
September 21, 1999
September 20, 1999
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| Mr Mulayam Singh for whom the BSP leader
seems a personal obsession, has been adding muscle to the
SP campaign, flying in to address meetings on September
19 when he promised to remove meter rentals and impose a
flat rate on power looms. The party’s candidate, who
also fought from here in 1989 on the Congress ticket, has
good standing with the forward castes and hopes to cash
in on the general anti-Mayawati sentiment. Also the SP believes last time Ms Mayawati won because of a rumour that the BJP was winning, leading to a swing in Muslim votes in her favour. This time the party hopes that given Ms Mayawati’s diminished stature the rumour mill will work for it. But the BSP appears unruffled “Behenji” as Ms Mayawati is called, has not returned after filing her nomination on September 10. But her achievements are on display everywhere. She galvanised the Dalits when she became the first leader of a Dalit party to head UP. During her two short stints in power, she made Akbarpur a district, renaming it Ambedkarnagar, sanctioned funds for several buildings and a girls college. That the money never came is the BJP’s problem, not her’s. As for the BJP’s Khatik candidate, her party workers say the Dalits know which is their “own” party. They also shrug off allegations of Ms Mayawati not spending her MP area development fund. She spent the 50 lakh given to her. The rest lapsed because of ‘BJP bureaucrats’, they claim. Did “Behenji” ignore the area? She came 15 times in 13 months say party workers. But she is not here now? I ask. “She will come on September 30 and campaign for two days. After all the party needs her everywhere,” the workers say. But given the
determination of her opponents, even a possible tactical
alliance against her, can she win? More important, should
she lose, will her party survive? A question on every
Dalit voter’s mind here. |
Calcutta North-West CALCUTTA: The Trinamool Congress is going hammer and tongs to retain the Calcutta North West Lok Sabha seat, a Congress bastion it wrested last year, taking on former Chief Minister Siddhartha Shanker Ray of the Congress and CPM’s Rajdeo Goala, a newcomer, in a 13-cornered contest for the October 3 elections. Mr Sudip Bandopadhyay, renominated by the Trinamool Congress had unseated former Union Minister Debi Prasad Pal of the Congress by over 1.50 lakh votes last time in his maiden venture into parliamentary politics. Mr Pal, who ranked third after CPM, only recently joined the Trinamool Congress. Mr Bandopadhyay, a confidant of party chief Mamata Banerjee, is sparing no effort to retain his seat and appears unfazed by the presence of Mr Ray, his main rival. Home to the powerful trading community, middle and lower class Bengali, the constituency has an electorate of a little over seven lakh, including 2,60,670 women. Issues raised by the Trinamool Congress are political stability and the party’s assertion that it will join the Union Cabinet in the event of the return of the BJP-led coalition to power “which is necessary to work for the state”. Mr Bandopadhyay, hoping to increase his margin of victory, has been promising of “more central funds for development” and countering criticism by the Congress and the CPM for TC’s electoral alignment with the BJP. “This is a holy alliance aimed at serving the people better”, he asserts. The 77-year-old Ray, reappearing actively in electoral politics after 1996 when he lost to RSP’s Pramathesh Mukherjee in Berhampore Lok Sabha seat, has been accusing the Trinamool Congress of bringing in “communal politics” in West Bengal. “By aligning with communal BJP, the Trinamool Congress has endangered the secular fabric of the state,” he says. He does not spare the CPM which has been charging Mr Ray with being “fully responsible” for the “massacre” of Naxalites in Cossipore-Baranagore areas in August, 1971, and asking people to “reject the man who is a political opportunist.” Seeking to remove “misconceptions” about his controversial role as Chief Minister during 1972-77, Mr Ray says the CPM’s “conspiracy” cannot harm his prospects. Mr Ray points to the two commissions of inquiry instituted by the Jyoti Basu government into the charges, “which absolved him totally”. Unlike other state Congress leaders, Mr Ray has been soft towards Ms Mamata Banerjee and is still hopeful of her return to the parent party. “If Mamata deserts the BJP and rejoins the Congress, I’m ready to withdraw from the contest”, he says. The going has been tough
for CPM nominee Goala, MLA from Belgachia to get a
foothold in the constituency. Chief Minister Jyoti Basu
has already addressed a poll meeting for him to help his
prospects. —PTI |
Kendrapara KENDRAPARA: Archana Nayak, a former firebrand student leader, has her task cut out in the coastal Kendrapara Lok Sabha constituency going to the polls on October 3. Having given her Biju Janata Dal rival Prabhat Samantaray a run for his money in the last elections, she is clashing with him once again hoping to wrest the seat for the congress. Although Congress candidate and former Bihar Governor Nityananda Kanungo, had won from Kendrapara in the very first Lok Sabha polls the constituency has eluded the ruling party’s grasp ever since — even in 1980 and 1984 when the Congress swept the polls winning 20 out of the 21 parliamentary seats on both occasions. Archana, whose candidature for the seat was announced at the last minute due to resistance faced within the Congress, will battle it out with Samantaray in a four-cornered contest. The other two aspirants are state Samajwadi Party chief Baishnab Parida and Sukumar Mallick, an independent. Samantaray had defeated Nayak by a narrow margin of 7,825 votes in the last elections. With history against her, Archana has begun her campaign in right earnest. She faces an arduous task despite her close fight with her rival in a constituency which used to be the late Biju Patnaik’s pocket borough. “I want to make history this time,” she says. Former Union Minister Srikant Jena, who won the seat in 1996 and finished third in the poll held last year is not contesting though there was speculation about him becoming the Congress nominee from there this time. Jena has joined the Congress. Devastated by a cyclonic storm in 1971 when tidal waves from the sea swept into hundreds of villages killing an estimated 10,000 people, the highly fertile constituency has remained an impregnable Opposition bastion where Biju has remained a cult figure even after his death. It was Biju who came to the aid of the people, personally supervising the rescue operations. Biju’s name spelt magic here. No other politician could ever match his charisma, said a businessman in Kendrapara. Paradip port that was built at the personal initiative of Biju during his first tenure as Chief Minister in 1961-63 and the expressway he built to connect the port town with the ore-rich hinterland of Sukinda and Keonjhar made the towering leader a household name in the region. Nityananda Kanungo’s victory from the seat in the first election over Dhruba Charan Sahu of the Socialist Party remained the only Congress win from Kendrapara till date. Praja Socialist Party (PSP) member Surendranath Dwivedi won the seat twice in succession in 1962 and 1967 defeating Surendra Mohanty of the Congress. Although Mohanty turned the tables on Dwivedi in the 1971 Lok Sabha poll, the seat still eluded Congress hands. Mohanty fought the elections as a candidate of the Utkal Congress, a regional outfit floated by Biju Patnaik after he quit the Congress. Biju, after walking out of jail to contest the poll in 1977, fought the election from Kendrapara as the Janata Party nominee to vanquish Bhagabat Prasad Mohanty (Congress), at present the state’s Minister for Higher Education, by a margin of over 1,44,000 votes. He then went on to become the Union Steel and Mines Minister in the Morarji Desai and Charan Singh governments at the Centre. With the Janata Party government’s fall and Indira Gandhi’s rise, the Congress swept the mid-term elections in 1980. The party nearly made a clean sweep of all but one of the 21 seats in the state. In Kendrapara a virtually unknown Congress challenger, Gayachand Bhuyan gave a tough fight to Biju who won by a meagre margin of 5,000 votes. Biju Patnaik completed a hat-trick from Kendrapara by retaining the seat in 1984 defeating Bhagabat Prasad Mohanty (Congress) by over 16,000 votes. Biju, who was also elected to the state assembly from Bhubaneswar subsequently, resigned from the Lok Sabha. In the byelection which followed, Biju protege Sarat Kumar Deb defeated Congress strongman Basanta Kumar Biswal by over 40,000 votes. The Lok Sabha elections held in 1989 saw Janata Dal leader Rabi Ray defeating Bhagabat Prasad Mohanty (Cong) by over 96,000 votes. Ray, who went on to become the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, retained the seat again in the 1991 elections at the expense of Mohanty though with a reduced margin of about 45,000 votes. In the 1996 parliamentary poll, Srikant Jena, who had won the Cuttack seat in 1989 and 1991, decided to shift to Kendrapara. He defeated a Congress minister Batakrushna Jena by nearly 40,000 votes. Although Jena failed to make it to the Lok Sabha from Kendrapara in 1998 — he lost his security deposit in the triangular fight — the seat still remained out of reach for the Congress as party candidate Nayak’s best efforts were not good enough to win her the election. Nayak, facing Samantaray
in a virtual straight contest this time as well, has to
cross hurdles in the shape of differences within the
party and a powerful opponent, if she wants history to be
rewritten. —PTI |
Calcutta North-East CALCUTTA: The Union Information and Broadcasting minister in the Narasimha Rao cabinet and now the president of the Trinamool Congress, Mr Ajit Kumar Panja, is the lone political leader in Calcutta who survives “full form” with his anti-CPI(M) identity in this Marxist citadel since 1972. Mr Panja had been an MLA in the state assembly and a minister in the Siddhartha Ray’s government between 1972-76 and an MP and subsequently a minister at the Centre under the prime ministership of Mrs Indira Gandhi, Mr Rajiv Gandhi and Mr Narasimha Rao, holding independent portfolios like Coal and Information and Broadcasting. Mr Panja has won all elections except one, he has contested whether for Parliament or the state assembly because of his popularity among electorate thanks to his efforts and welfare activities in the locality. He nurtures his constituency and follows a methodical and articulate poll strategy which help him win in the elections. The erstwhile Congress leader, who had been loyal to the Gandhi family, suddenly left the Congress and joined hands with Ms Mamata Banerjee as he found himself in an insecure position in the party, which according to him, was due to the dubious role played by Mr Pranab Mukherjee against him. Mr Panja often accuses Mr Mukherjee as the main cause of the destruction of the Bengal unit of the Congress. The Bengal Congress now exists only in paper and Mr Mukherjee is successful in his mission, Mr Panja remarks. The Trinamool Congress is the real Congress and soon you will see the Trinamool’s “Leaves and Flowers” (party symbol) blooming everywhere in Bengal, Mr Panja emphasises. He is contesting his old home seat of North-East Calcutta for the fifth time since 1984. Prior to that he represented the state assembly from the area. In the 1998 Lok Sabha poll, he won by a margin of 64,872 votes by defeating Mr Prasanta Chatterjee of the CPI(M), the Mayor of Calcutta. In the 1996 elections his main rival was Mr Dipen Ghosh of the CPI (M) a former Rajya Sabha member and now the Editor of Ganashakti, the CPI (M)’s daily. This time also Mr Panja is facing Mr Prasanta Chatterjee. And like the 1998 elections, he will be fighting as the Trimamool candidate. The Congress has fielded Mr Tapash Roy, a sitting MLA, who had been once Mr Panja’s confidant in the party and his junior at the Calcutta High Court. Though Mr Roy is a local youth it will be a difficult task for him to dislodge his “guru”. Mr Panja’s style of functioning and political manoeuvring and electioneering have been proved to be unparalleled, which have helped him to defeat the CPI(M) a number of time. Mr Prasanta Chatterjee’s party has strongholds in several areas of the constituency. He has been the city Mayor for over a decade and gets involved in all development activities of the metropolis, which has put him in an advantageous position. The CPI(M) is a cadre-based party and Mr Chatterjee is not short of manpower. Mr Jyoti Basu has addressed two election meetings in the North Calcutta which involves two Lok Sabha seats — North-East Calcutta and North-West Calcutta. Mr Panja seems to be not
much worried about his prospect in the poll. The
Trinamool leader, Ms Mamata Banerjee, seems to be
complacent about Mr Panja’s success. |
Men behind the eloquent
politician NEW DELHI: As the war of words continues in the poll of 1999, the men who provide the ammunition remain unsung — the invisible speech writers. Speech writers rely on the concept of “navrasas” in their speeches to generate sympathy, emotion and anger to cash in on the mood of the electorate to garner votes from them, according a media watcher. Their emergence is suggestive of the fact that leaders have moved away from the people, says Dr Bhaskar Rao, Chairman, Centre of Media Studies. The chief role of a speech writer, particularly at the time of elections, is to convert the audience to the candidate’s side and to hold on to the faithful through the power of words, says Ramamohan Rao, a former Information Officer, PIB. Hundreds of speeches are written during elections and the speech writer has to ensure that each speech deals with a different issue. It must have the requisite local flavour and the power to hold the audience spellbound at all times, says Jairam Ramesh, secretary, All-India congress Committee, Economic Affairs Department. The speech writer, therefore, is the dramatist in the political opera who directs the performance through the backroom and ensures that the performer’s lines and language change with the venue to have the best impact on the audience. “Elarigar manaskara, swadeshige puruskara, videshige tiraskara” greetings to all, victory to India, banish the foreigner, says Sushma Swaraj as she campaigns in Bellary and woos voters in confident Kannada. Sonia Gandhi is not far behind. At her meetings she unfailingly reminds the electorate of her 31 years as member of the Gandhi family. She plays the “bahu” to the hilt. “My baraat came here decades ago and only my ashes will leave the land,” she says and reminds the crowds in Karnataka that they were the ones who had offered succour to her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, during her most trying times. The “Kargilised nationalism” of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee echoes in his emotional speeches which recreate the aura of the war. “For the first time not an inch of territory was retained by the enemy... the Pakistanis were so scared that they didn’t dare to collect the dead.” Great words laced with nationalist fervour which establish the perfect bond between the war and the man who aspires to be Prime Minister again. “Speeches are so written that they fit in with the personality of the speaker... a speech should vibe well with the speaker’s personality,” says Ramesh. A speech writer should get into the speaker’s shoes and make him say things he believes in and show him in good light as more often than not the public formulates an image of a politician through his speeches,” says Ramamohan Rao. A speech writer has to ensure that the speaker’s speeches clearly send across the message to the electorate, that the candidate has his finger on the pulse of the people. And this requires that the speech writer do his “home work,” says Ramesh. While writing a speech, he has to keep in mind the sensibilities of the audience, the issues which are uppermost in their minds. And for the audience to understand the speech he has to ensure that the speech is written is direct rather than profound, is conversational and has a theme. “The issues which dominate the election scene all lay emphasis on the past, no party has a futuristic vision... they are bogged down by inane arguments and issues.” Sources in the BJP say Prime Minister Vajpayee’s speeches are generally delivered extempore. He happens to rely heavily on inputs provided by local party leaders and is generally briefed on problems in the constituency which he is about to visit, says a BJP source. A speech writer in these circumstances has also to ensure that the speaker does not repeat promises made the previous time and his role, therefore, is that of a sounding board, besides collecting information and briefing the speaker, says Ramamohan Rao. “Sonia expends a great deal of energy on her speeches, writing, rewriting, even changing words at the last minute,” says a party source acknowledging that inputs come from various quarters. The party has department which collates constituency specific information from Pradesh Congress Committee, District Congress Committee and senior state leaders, the vital elements of the area, relationship with the Gandhi-Nehru family and present political context and problems. But how is a speech written and how much time does it take? Speech writing is often a cooperative enterprise and the speech has ultimately to be approved by the speaker, says Ramesh, acknowledging that he, too, suffers from the writer’s block. “Once I get the all-important theme it takes an hour writing a speech of 1,000 words.” Also reading the speech aloud is very important, says Ramesh adding a speech might read great when you write it but it might not look good when you read it aloud. What of one-liners, how are they created? “They are like dimples on cheeks,” he says. “Many of them are spontaneous while some emerge out of discussions and conversations,” says Ramamohan Rao. And how does a speech writer feel when the speaker receives all the “kudos”? “Part of the job” say some while others like Ramesh say: “The role of a speechmaker.” And if these rights can
make politicians connect with their electorate through
the power of words, though only temporarily, so be it.
— PTI |
One out of 300 casts vote SHIMLA, Sept 25 (PTI) — Voters of Goro Kanwari polling station in Shoghi area of Shimla boycotted poll today to register their protest against non-implementation of their demands. Mr Sanjiv Kumar, a local advocate, said only one out of 300 votes were cast and the lone voter to defy the boycott call was the president of local BJP. Another report from Kangra said people boycotted poll in a polling booth in Baijnath but they were persuaded in the afternoon by local MLA Dulo Ram to withdraw the boycott call. Fifty to 60 per cent people exercised franchise in the three assembly seats of Kulu, Banjar and Ani segments of the Mandi Parliamentary constituency in Kulu district, according to Mr Ashwani Kapoor, Deputy Commissioner, who is also the Returning Officer. He said the highest
polling (74 pc) was reported in the Hurla polling station
in the Kulu Assembly constituency and the lowest (40pc)
at the Banjar polling station. |
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