Bhopal, April 1
In a candid admission just a fortnight before elections, senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj today said she was not confident of the party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) getting a majority.

Swaraj, who is in charge for Madhya Pradesh, said in Bhopal: “I am not sure if the NDA will get a majority.”

However, if “the NDA emerges as a single largest coalition (after the elections)”, it could form the government with post-poll alliances, she said.

At a press conference, the senior BJP leader said there was no confusion in her party over the issue of Varun Gandhi, the party's candidate in Pilibhit who has been jailed under the National Security Act (NSA) for his alleged inflammatory speeches, nor was the party distancing itself from him.

Swaraj said the party disapproved of the alleged “hate speeches”, if he had made any, but was against the discriminatory treatment meted out to him by the Election Commission and the slapping of NSA by the Uttar Pradesh government.

Accusing the Election Commission of adopting double standards on the issue, the BJP leader said: “People like Mukhtar Ansari and Atiq Ahmed” were allowed to contest polls in this country while it was advised that Varun Gandhi should not be fielded. “There should be one yardstick”.

“Ansari, from the BSP and Ahmed, who was with the Samajwadi Party and has now joined the Apna Dal, have criminal cases against them,” she added.

On SP’s Sanjay Dutt not contesting from Lucknow seat, she said: “It hardly makes any difference because the BJP will win the prestigious seat held by (former prime minister) Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the voters in Lucknow see the BJP candidate (Lalji Tandon) as their representative”.

On the NDA’s election issues, she said the BJP and its allies would tell the people about the Congress-led government's failures, including price rise, terrorism, retrenchment of employees, farmer’s suicides and the “compromise” with the sovereignty of the nation while signing the India-US nuclear deal. — IANS

New Delhi, April 1
Describing his arrest as politically motivated and aimed at preventing him from contesting the Lok Sabha poll, BJP leader Varun Gandhi today challenged in the Supreme Court his detention under the National Security Act (NSA) in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, for maintenance of public order.

The detention order upon his surrender on March 29 before the court of law "stinks of politically motivated ill-will", besides being "wholly arbitrary, mala fide and unjust", Varun said in his petition and sought its quashing and his subsequent release.

Pending the disposal of the petition, he has sought a stay on the detention order issued under sub-section (2) to Section 3 of the NSA, 1980. Before the petition was filed at 1700 hrs, senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi mentioned before a Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan that Varun was approaching the court, upon which the CJI said it could be heard tomorrow.

Naming the Uttar Pradesh government and the Pilibhit District Magistrate as respondent No. two and one, respectively, Varun said the purported reason for his preventive detention was to maintain public order. However, the detention order had specified that his arrest led to and caused the alleged public disorder.

"Therefore, admittedly not only is the petitioner not responsible in any way for the public disorder on his arrest, but also the public disorder is only on account of his arrest. Therefore, the impugned order is clearly, manifestly and patently perverse," he pleaded.

The series of developments had been sparked off allegedly by a communal speech delivered by Varun while campaigning in Pilibhit, from where he is expected to contest the Lok Sabha poll. After some news channels aired the speech, the Election Commission suo motu ordered registration of a case against him. Apprehending his arrest, he obtained an anticipatory bail from Delhi High Court.

Upon the expiry of the bail, he surrendered before a Pilibhit court, following which there was some public disorder in the district.

The entire effort was the combined efforts of the two respondents to ensure that he "is not able to contest and campaign for the general election scheduled for next month, so as to sabotage the electoral debut of the petitioner”, it has been contended.

"The impugned order is thus in violation of Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution" relating to the right to contest elections, which was the "bulwark in a democracy" and ought to be side aside by the apex court, he said. Also, it was in gross violation of the fundamental rights of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 21 and 22 of the Constitution.

Hyderabad, April 1
Opening the doors of international nuclear market to India following the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s (NSG) waiver, the first consignment of 60 tonnes of natural uranium arrived here from France.

The uranium ore from French nuclear supplier AREVA Inc. will be processed at Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) here and converted into fuel pellets to be used in the nuclear reactors for generation of power.

The first consignment is part of 300 tonnes of uranium ore, which India will get from France under the bilateral agreement between the two countries following NSG clearance. The remaining material would be received by the end of this month.

“This is a historic occasion for India. Wonderful days are ahead for us to boost the nuclear energy production,” the NFC chief executive R N Jayaraj said.

Following the 123 Agreement between India and the United States and waiver by the NSG, India signed an agreement with France for bilateral cooperation for supply of nuclear reactors and fuel. Subsequently, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) entered into a contract with AREVA for supply of 300 tonnes of uranium.

The material would be processed in the designated fuel plants at the NFC and made into fuel bundles to be used at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS 1 & 2- 220 MW each), which are under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

As per the nuclear agreement, the reactors where imported fuel is used are covered under international safeguards domain. Presently, the NFC is supplying nuclear fuel for all the 15 Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRS), including the RAPS units.

The quantity of 300 tonnes will enable the NFC to produce 20,000 fuel bundles. Each bundle containing about 15 kg of uranium dioxide could generate about 6.4 lakh units of power, the NFC official said.

Under the separation plan, India will place 10 PHWRs under safeguards by the end of 2014 by placing two reactors each year.

Bhubaneswar, April 1
The death toll in Tuesday’s unseasonal tornado in Orissa rose to 10 Wednesday with the recovery of two more bodies, officials said. “Two dead bodies were found early this morning. We fear there could be more people trapped under the debris,” district sub-collector Ranjan Kumar Das told IANS.

He added that at least 20 people are suspected to have perished in the storm. The tornado followed by a hailstorm wreaked havoc in at least 11 villages of Rajkanika block in the coastal district of Kendrapada. It struck around 4.30pm on Tuesday and continued for nearly one-and-a-half hours.

It took several hours for relief and rescue teams to reach the affected villages because a large number of uprooted trees blocked the way. While officials said the number of injured admitted to hospitals is over 100, they fear the figure will rise to 300.

The twister was so strong that several vehicles were tossed around like toys. At Arasa village, a tractor crashed to the ground after being lifted into the air by the storm. The driver was killed on the spot.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, who is on a two-day trip to the state for the poll campaign, is expected to visit the affected areas on Wednesday, official sources said. — IANS

New Delhi, April 1
The BJP was yet again caught off guard when its leader in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh was shown today by TV news channels distributing currency notes and food packets to voters yesterday in his son’s Barmer constituency in Rajasthan.

While Singh remained unapologetic about his action and the Congress strongly criticising double standards of “the party with a difference”, the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate LK Advani were clearly on the back foot not knowing what to say.

The Congress’ reaction seemed to be guided by the message of party president Sonia Gandhi, who is reported to have asked her party men to desist from personal attacks and stick to policies and issues, except when an opponent specifically targets personalities in the Congress.

Taking a cue from this, the Congress too has trained its guns not just on Jaswant Singh but also the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate and their attempt to appear holier than thou.

Meanwhile, the Barmer district administration has sent a preliminary report to the EC on the distribution of money by Jaswant Singh. Singh was caught on camera giving away Rs 10,000 and food packets at a meeting in Gajaria village of Barmer.

Singh’s son Manvendra Singh is the sitting MP and party candidate from here. According to sources, the district administration has charged the BJP leader with three offences - money distribution, distribution of food packets and promise to install hand pumps.

The video clip also showed BJP national vice-president Kailash Meghwal standing alongside Jaswant Singh. In his defence Singh said: “It is my duty to help the poor. If Congress thinks helping the poor is a crime, I cannot help it, I'll continue to help them.”

But the Congress mocked his claim while urging the EC to take strong legal action against him and Manvendra Singh. It also took a swipe at Advani who had only the other day made a huge issue of Indian black money being stashed away in Swiss banks. Congress spokesperson Jayanati Natrajan said: “A leader who cannot keep his own house in order can never hope to run a government”.

New Delhi, April 1
Keeping open his post-poll alliance option, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar whose party is a key constituent of the Congress-led UPA will attend a Third Front rally in Orissa on Friday and share the platform with CPM chief Prakash Karat among others.

The Congress shrugged off Pawar’s decision to attend the rally in Bhubaneshwar observing that its alliance with his NCP was only limited to Maharashtra. It hoped he would introspect as to what kind of message he would be sending by sharing the dais with leaders of CPM and BJD.

Pawar suggested he found nothing wrong in taking part in the rally. It would be for the first time that Pawar would share dais with leaders of the Third Front, which was launched in Tumkur in Karnataka last month as a non-Congress and non-BJP alternative.

Pawar said the NCP has a seat-sharing deal with the ruling BJD in Orissa and, therefore, would be attending the rally. The NCP has alliances with different parties in different states like the way Congress had forged ties.

Pawar’s decision came a day after the NCP caused a flutter in UPA when the party refused to accept Manmohan Singh as the prime ministerial candidate of the UPA saying he was a candidate only of the Congress.

“Our alliance with the NCP is for Maharashtra. But it is for them to introspect as to what kind of message they are sending by sharing the dais in Orissa,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.

CPM’s Sitaram Yechury said Pawar’s move was inevitable after the Congress took the stand that it would only have state-level alliances with its allies. — PTI

Mumbai, April 1
With the Samajwadi Party deciding to field a minimum of 15 candidates in Mumbai, the Congress faces the prospect of losing on its share of Muslim votes to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s outfit. At the same time, insiders say the SP will not contest against Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party candidates and will actually help it increase its tally.

Sources in the SP say Priya Dutt-who will contest from Mumbai North-Central seat is the only Congress candidate who will be “spared” by the SP. On the other hand, Pawar has been able to keep the SP on his side after a meeting with Amar Singh. Alarmed Congress observers are keeping a close tab on proceedings and waiting to see from which constituencies the SP fields its candidates.

SP leader Abu Asim Azmi had asked for the Mumbai North-West seat from the Congress-NCP combine, which has a sizeable population of north Indians and Muslims. Though Pawar was in favour of giving a seat to the SP, the Congress turned down the request. The Congress, however, has not yet found a ‘suitable’ candidate from among the large number of aspirants.

To add to its concerns, the Congress is still worried about the possibility of a tacit understanding between the NCP and the Shiv Sena. This despite the fact that there is no official talk between the NCP and the Sena after the latter retained its ties with the BJP.

Pawar is also said to be keeping his line of communication open with secular forces to get support in the event of a hung Parliament.

“The Congress has formally informed us that it would not be able to part with the Mumbai North-West seat,” Singh said at a press conference here. “Therefore, I have to announce with a heavy heart that the SP will contest the maximum number of seats in Maharashtra.” The Samajwadi Party had sought the seat for its Maharashtra unit president Abu Asim.

New Delhi, April 1
Denying cracks in the Third Front following troubles between the CPM and TDP over seat sharing in Andhra Pradesh, Marxists yesterday said the Front was doing fine and more people were joining it.The CPM, in fact, took credit for the fact that the issue of secret Swiss accounts, which they had first raised on March 16 at the time of their manifesto release, has now been adopted by the BJP.

“The very fact that the leader of a principal political party - the BJP - has so vociferously raised an issue we espoused shows our worth,” CPM’s central committee member Nilotpal Basu yesterday said, promising to do everything possible to ensure social control of higher education, if voted to power. Releasing the last two campaign booklets in a pack of eight, the CPM singularly took credit for reconceptualisation of the National Rural Health Mission, and nailed the UPA for failing to deliver on two major CMP promises - increasing the expenditure on education to 6 per cent of the GDP and on health to 3 per cent of the GDP.

Currently, the expenditure on these two key sectors is stagnating at 3.08 per cent for education and 0.9 per cent for health. Describing as real the health and education concerns of people, the Marxists played up the non-passage of the Right to Education Bill by the Congress-led UPA, saying the government, by not enacting the law, had failed 380 million illiterates of the country. Basu also challenged the UPA’s claims of enhanced allocation to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, saying the allocation actually decreased with every passing year. The communists were most unsparing on the issue of “privatisation of education and health sectors”, and said they had little faith in the functioning of regulatory bodies like the UGC and AICTE, under whose nose a slew of private education institutions were flourishing.

In the health sector, too, the CPM blamed the UPA for not delivering the dream of “health for all” and mocked at the meager renumeration of Rs 600 a month the UPA was giving to accredited social health workers (ASHAs).

“The government calls ASHAs the backbone of NRHM and pays them so little,” said Basu, dissecting UPA”s poor immunisation record. Fifty six per cent of our children don’t receive immunisation under the national programme,” says the CPM booklet, making an issue of the closure of three public sector vaccine manufacturing units, including those at Cuddalore and Kasauli.

Bangalore, April 1
The Congress today said it would contest 440 out of the total 543 vacancies for elected legislators in the Lok Sabha.

Talking to reporters here, Anand Sharma, Congress spokesman and Minister of State for External Affairs, however, made it clear that despite contesting in more than 80 per cent of the seats, the party was not having any illusion about forming the government at the Centre on its own strength.

“We are aware of the situation at the ground level in the country,” Sharma said, adding the party was hoping to cobble up a coalition government at the Centre once again.

He said with regard to the prospect of forming a coalition government, the UPA headed by the Congress was in a stronger wicket than the BJP-led NDA (dubbed by Sharma as the “principal challenger of UPA”). The Congress leader said pre-poll arrangements with other parties worked out by the UPA had given it an edge over its rival NDA.

“We may have lost some allies but we have also gained new allies. For instance, we have entered into an alliance with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and National Conference in J&K,” he said.

The Congress spokesperson added that losing allies Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar also did not signify permanent rupture with these outfits.

BRIEFLY

Goa Cong, NCP ministers indulge in verbal duel 
Panaji: A meeting between the Congress and Goa here on Wednesday saw two of their Ministers having a verbal duel, sources said. The meeting at Congress House here was attended by Goa Chief Minister Digamber Kamat, state Congress president Subhash Shirodkar and a few Congress and NCP Ministers. Sources present in the meet said Congress Minister Joaquim Alemao and NCP Minister Micky Pacheco exchanged heated words over some issue. NCP representatives blamed the Congress Minister for the incident and walked out, demanding an apology from him, the sources said. The Chief Minister tried to pacify the NCP leaders but to no avail.

Award for Rahman
CHENNAI: Music maestro and double-Oscar winner AR Rahman would be awarded an honorary doctorate by a British university in July, his musical institution’s operational head said here on Wednesday. “The degree will be conferred upon Rahman during a graduation ceremony of the Middlesex University in London,” T Selvakumar, managing director of Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory, said here. Rahman’s conservatory, which trains students in both Indian and Western music, is in talks with Middlesex University to develop a bachelor’s programme in music.

Nithari killings
GHAZIABAD: A special CBI court here on Wednesday postponed its verdict in the alleged rape and murder of a minor in the sensational Nithari killings case after it decided to re-examine a Uttar Pradesh police officer who led the initial probe in the incident. Special CBI judge Rama Jain asked Dinesh Kumar Yadav, a UP police officer, who led the initial probe in the Nithari case, to appear before court on April 15 for re-examination. Yadav is also the key witness in the rape and murder case of eight-year-old Aarti, one of the victims in sensational Nithari serial killings.