Chandigarh, January 9
The ruling Congress is up against odds as distribution of the party ticket for the coming Assembly elections may move some traditionally loyal groups away from it. Rai Sikhs, for example, are one.

“We have always been Congress. But now it is forcing us to shift loyalties,” says Mr Resham Singh, a prominent leader of Rai Sikhs.

The State Election Committee at its last meeting faced dissent over allowing sitting MLAs to contest again. The final decision on the issue, as expected, would be left to the party president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

“Only three of our representatives have applied for the Congress ticket. But indications are that none will get it. In case this happens, our community en masse will support the Akalis and work for the defeat of Congress candidates in 27 Assembly constituencies,”Mr Resham Singh said.

Talking to The Tribune over the phone, the Rai Sikh community leaders claimed that they had nine lakh voters in Punjab. "While in 25 Assembly segments, we are in majority, in the remaining two we have a decisive vote bank.

“We are keen on the Gur Harsahai seat where we have about 70,000 to 75,000 Rai Sikh voters. In the neighbouring Jalalabad, we have about 80,000 Rai Sikh voters. But indications are that the party high command is averse to giving any of our candidates the ticket,” said Mr Harbans Singh, another leader of the community.

Guru Harsahai is represented by Chief Parliamentary Secretary Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi and Jalalabad by Mr Hans Raj Josan. The third seat, Balluana, is with Mr Parkash Singh Bhatti.

Rai Sikh leaders have been camping in the Union Capital for the past several days. They claim to have met Mr Janardhan Dwivedi, general secretary of the All-India Congress Committee, besides all members of the Punjab Election Committee.

“We have met Mr Dwivedi, Mr Shamsher Singh Dullo and Mr Jagmeet Singh Brar. We will be meeting Mr Dwivedi again,” said Mr Harbans Singh.

The community leaders are not happy with the response they have got from the party top brass. The community, they say, is supporting the candidature of Mr Resham Singh (chairman), Mr Harbans Singh (vice-chairman) and Mr Sajjwar Singh (former minister) for the party ticket from Ferozepore.

The Punjab Election Committee, according to sources, feels that all sitting MLAs be given the ticket. This has caused resentment among many aspirants and senior leaders of the party.

“Some of us are in touch with the Akalis. In case the Congress has no place for us, we will join the Akalis,” warned the leaders.

We will watch closely everybody’s performance. All Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police have been told to act totally in an apolitical, neutral and fair manner.” says the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr N. Gopalaswami.

“We will ensure free and fair poll and all necessary steps are being taken. All vacancies of Returning Officers (ROs) and Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) are being filled.”

“All District Election Officers and Deputy Commissioners have been told to remove billboards and hoardings. They have been also told to publicise telephone and fax numbers of ROs and AROs so that voters can register their complaints, if any. They have been told to implement the Model Code of Conduct efficiently and neutrally. Action against relevant provisions of the Indian penal Code and the Code of Civil procedure will be taken for any violation of the code.

“Some parties have expressed their apprehensions about the conduct of the DGP. We do not act on apprehensions. We will watch and then decide. For the time-being, he is not being changed. He stays till we decide otherwise.”

“Sensitivity analysis of polling stations will be done before we list sensitive and hypersensitive polling stations.”

“There will be sufficient police force available. Fifty per cent of the additional force will arrive in Punjab by January 30 and the remaining half by February 7. We cannot disclose the exact strength of additional force being sent to Punjab.”

“There will be no bulk supply of postal ballots. Employees on election duty will be supplied postal ballots individually and they have to send back these ballot papers individually.”

“Policemen on election duty will be paid travelling allowance on a par with other employees on election duty. The Chief Secretary has agreed to provide Rs 17 crore for giving policemen TA/DA.”

“Each constituency will have one observer. Voters are free to write to us about their complaints or grievances. We will support any public forum which highlights grievances or complaints of voters. As of now, there is no provision or forum where we can reach people or voters to know their grievances. We are putting all electoral rolls on our website.

— Prabhjot Singh

Ludhiana, January 9
In case the SAD-BJP alliance is counting on the support of traders in Assembly elections, the turnout at the state-level the Vyapar and Udyog conference organised here today was not heartening.

Comprising mostly of Akali workers brought from all over the state, traders were absent at the new grain market venue at Salem Tabri. A majority of the audience comprised migrants and workers from the industrial hub of the state.

As senior leaders were heard attributing the low turnout to today being a working day to reporters, an announcement that thousands of workers from various parts of the city were part of the audience, exposed the claims.

Addressing the gathering, SAD chief Parkash Singh Badal said if voted to power they would implement a ‘own policy, own implementation’ scheme for the benefit of the traders and greater prosperity of Punjab. Under the scheme, the traders could suggest changes in various laws which would be incorporated by the government. The views of their representatives would be taken when for any planning concerning traders, he pointed out.

He also announced that the VAT procedure would be simplified and submission of the C Form be made a yearly exercise. Other laws which were shackling free trade would be removed by them. Inspector raj would be a thing of the past, he promised.

Lambasting the Congress for the poor economic health of the state, he said faulty policies pursued by the government had seen flight of industry from the state and rendered many businesses unviable. We would implement such policies which would see the state surging to the top of the economic development chart, he asserted.

Coming down heavily on the civil servants of the state, Mr Badal said they had become a law unto themselves. The voice of the people had been muffled for the past five years and the time had come to usher an era of change and prosperity. He said the babus and policemen who had ridden roughshod on the aspirations of the people would be brought to book.

Unfolding part of the road map for the future, he said three trade development boards - the small scale, the middle scale and big industries - would be set up. Each board would comprise 11 members who will be leading lights of their trades and their recommendations would be binding on the government. The chairpersons of these boards would enjoy the rank of a Cabinet minister and the bureaucrats would be accountable to them, he added.

Mr Badal also said infrastructure would be developed on the pattern of Singapore and Dubai.

Earlier, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said the decision of the government to allow MNCs in the country had sounded death knell of the small traders. While the Congress is extolling the virtues of vast foreign investment, we should not forget that such companies were facing the wrath of the people in several countries across the globe.

He also appealed to the people to show the door to the Congress so that there could be a new “prakash” in the state.

Others present on the dais included state BJP chief Avinash Rai Khanna, SAD secretary general S.S. Dhindsa, SAD general secretaries Capt Kanwaljit Singh, Mr B.S. Bhunder, Sukhbir Badal, former MP Navjot Singh Sidhu and others.

BiPaSa tops wish list of industry
Ruchika M. Khanna
Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur January 9
The sudden arrival of the Congress Election Observer here today had the party ticket aspirants in a tizzy. The Election Observer, Mr Santosh Pargadia, who is a Rajya Sabha member from Rajasthan, arrived here even as many ticket aspirants complained that they were not informed about his visit.

The Observer went directly to the venue where candidates supported by Mr Ashwani Kumar had gathered.

The Chairperson of Punjab Technical Education Board, Ms Sushil Mahajan, and her supporters were at Verma resort just next to the venue where her rival was stationed with his supporters. However, when she came to know that the Observer might not visit Verma resort then she went to the venue where the candidates supported by Mr Ashwani Kumar had gathered. When Ms Sushil Mahajan tried to meet the Observer, she was pushed by supporters of other candidates. A family member, who was accompanying her, was allegedly slapped and pushed away when he tried move towards the Observer. It was with great difficulty that she managed to meet the Observer.

Supporters of late MP Sukhbans Kaur had to actually take the Observer to another venue to prove their strength. They contacted the state president of the party, Mr Shamsher Singh Dullo, to persuade the Observer to visit the venue where they had collected their supporters. They maintained that if they went to other group's venue then it might lead to a clash between workers of both the groups.

Candidates aspiring for Congress tickets from the district had gathered their supporters at different places in Gurdaspur city today to “impress” the party Observer.

The group supported by Mr Ashwani Kumar, including Mr Khushal Behl, MLA, Gurdaspur, Mr Ashok Sharma, MLA Pathankot, Mr Ashwani Sekri, MLA, Batala, and Mr Rajbir Chaudhary, Chairman Improvement Trust, Pathankot, who is looking for party ticket from Sujanpur, gathered at Chandan Palace. Here the supporters demanded ticket for Mr Raman Behl, son of Mr Khushal Behl, who is also the president of Gurdaspur Municipal Council.

The group of the late Gurdaspur MP Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder, including supporters of the Minister for Transport, Mr Raghunath Sahay Puri, Narot, MLA, Mr Rumal Chand, Dinanagar MLA Ms Aruna Chaudhary, and former minister Mr Lakhbir Singh Randhawa, gathered at Milan Palace. The group members demanded the party ticket for Mr P.S Bhinder, former DGP and husband of the deceased MP.

Some of the candidates alleged that only the group supported by the Union Minister for State, Mr Ashwani Kumar, had information about the arrival of the Election Observer and his supporters had been preparing for a show of strength for more than a week.

The other Congress leaders, including Parliamentary Secretary and Congress MLA from Fatehgarh Churian Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Chairman Punjab Pollution Control Board and MLA from Qadian Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, were caught unawares. They were in a tizzy and kept on ringing up their supporters to know the developments due to the arrival of observer.

The left out leaders expressed surprise over the fact that the party’s poll Observer had visited only Gurdaspur and not other areas of the state and here also only a few persons had prior information about the visit.

Putting Punjab economy back on the rails will be my first priority. The five-year misrule of the Amarinder Singh government has put the economy on the downslide with growth rate in state only about 2.4% as against the 8.5% national growth rate.

In fact, the development of state's infrastructure will top my agenda for which an amount of over Rs 10,000 crore per annum is needed if the state wants to catch up with other progressive states. The power sector continues to be Punjab's Achilles' heel with the state reeling under a 5,000 mw shortfall, forcing major corporate houses to opt for the states.

I will tackle the unemployment problem headon as the burgeoning army of the unemployed threatens to pose law and order problems. We will undertake a major employment drive, besides resolving issues regarding farmers, employees and Dalits.

The restoration of "direct contact" between elected representatives and the common man will be high on my agenda. While state issues need urgent attention, local problems, particularly in my constituency, Banur, which has been at the receiving end, are my first priority.

While my attempt will be that vendetta politics does not stage a comeback in Punjab, erring politicians and bureaucrats will have to be brought book. For that I will advocate the formation of the excesses commission."

— Pradeep Sharma

Chandigarh, January 9
Will a registered voter with a photo identity card be allowed to cast his or her vote on February 13?

The logical answer would be yes.

However, if one looks back at the track record of the Election Commission and the last Punjab Assembly elections in 2002, there are one in 20 chances of a voter being refused to exercise his franchise.

In the 2002 Assembly elections, thousands of voters had to return home disappointed as they were refused their right to vote. The reason: Deletion of their names at the eleventh hour on suspicion that they had either moved out or were wrongly registered.

“We are not aware of it,” is how the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr N. Gopalaswami, reacted when asked what was the guarantee that a voter with a valid photo ID-card would be allowed to vote this time.

Since there were protests at many polling stations by people on being denied the right to vote, the Congress government set up one-member inquiry committee, headed by the Principal Secretary, Mr R.P.S. Pawar, to look into their complaints.

The committee issued public notices and asked the complainants to file their objections.

The report of the committee, however, was never made public.

Mr Gopalaswami said it was not in the knowledge of the commission that such a serious aberration had occurred during the last Assembly elections.

“There are some problems because of a change of polling booth, or due to cut and paste of electoral rolls because of computerisation. There could be stray cases where voters may be denied the right to vote but I am not aware if it happened at such a scale in 2002,” said Mr Gopalaswami.

He said the commission would post electoral rolls on its website. “But I do not think everyone has a computer or access to a computer. Here the media has to play a role. Even a voter has to keep the commission informed in case he changes the place of his residence.”

Mr Gopalaswami admitted that though the commission redressed grievances and complaints of political parties, besides watching the interests of the poll staff, yet it had no mechanism or forum to redress the grievances of the common man.

“A voter can send his complaints to the commission. I am aware that a large number of voters in Chandigarh were denied the right to vote in the last Lok Sabha elections. We have tried to rectify that after it was brought to our notice,” he added.

At that time also, The Tribune had published a series of lists of registered voters who were denied their right to franchise before the commission swung into action and re-inducted all those names in its revised electoral rolls.

Bahuguna celebrates b’day with orphans
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 9
Chipko movement leader Sunder Lal Bahuguna celebrated his 80th birthday along with the destitute and orphaned inmates of the Pingalwara Charitable Trust here today.

The Pingalwara children had arranged a small party to celebrate the birthday of Mr Bahuguna at the residence of Dr Inderjeet Kaur, president, Pingalwara, at Mannawala, near here. The trust also distributed sweets to the children.

He said the farmers of Punjab should go for tree farming, which would not only maintain the ecological balance in the region but would enhance their income.

He urged the children to take care of the environment by starting a mission to plant more and more trees. He said that building dams was a temporary solution of the problem. If the government plants more trees with broad leaves on the hills the ecological problem would be solved as these retain more water during rail falls.

Khadi — The clear winner so far
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh , January 9
Just over a month before the Assembly elections in Punjab, so many supporters of different political parties across the state are exercising franchise in favour of khadi.

Seems incredible, but the pre-Independence symbol of patriotism is actually becoming a “sovereign statement of political fashion” in the pre-poll period.

And donning the hues of nationalism are not just the “leaders” in fray, but also party workers - right, for projecting a “Rang De Basanti” image!

A testimony to “khadigiri” is the escalating sales figures. Even though Chandigarh is not going to the polls, the inflow of party workers from Mohali, Kharar, Nayagoan and other places in neighbouring Punjab has resulted in a noticeable increase in the sales.

The Secretary, Khadi Ashram, Chandigarh, Mr Brig Kumar Sharma, says with state elections just round the corner, the sales of khadi apparels from their Sector 17 outlet alone have registered a marked increase of as much as 10 per cent.

Associated with the khadi industry for over five decades, he says there was a time when khadi was a must for Congress workers. Even the national flag was made of khadi. Over the years, khadi became more of a ramp material with few commoners and more models wearing the textile. Things are, however, fast changing now with politicians sashaying down the poll ramp in khadi attires as a run-up to the elections.

Also linked with the khadi business for over half a century, worker Leela Ram says even those seldom wearing khadi are opting for the stuff. They are wearing not just kurtas and pyjamas, but also coats.

Besides bestowing a patriotic image, the stuff does not add to the poll expenditure. “You can take home a kurta for as less as Rs 150,” says another khadi worker Yash Pal. “A good coat, too, does not cost more than Rs 700”.

Interestingly, the canvassers are completing the ensemble by combining khadi with slick sneakers. The branded ones with air-cushioned soles are a hot favourite. After all, comfort is as vital as the image for the workers out in the fields from the dawn of elections to the dusk of poll results. 

‘Mulajams’ gear up to grill politicians
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 9
A beginning is being made by the Punjab Mulajam Sangharsh Committee to ask questions from politicians who will be in the Assembly election fray with regard to their vision and approach to various issues being faced by the state.

Mr Ranbir Singh Dhillon, convener of the committee, said here today said that all politicians contesting the elections would be invited to panchayats to be organised by the committee to answer questions regarding the state's economy, agriculture, unemployment, education, health and issues related to employees, etc.

He said the first such panchayat would be held at Zira on January 18 and the last on February 10. In all, 12 panchayats would be held, he added.

Patiala, January 9
Mr R.K. Verma, Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer has appointed Returning Officers and Assistant Returning Officers for Patiala constituency for the forthcoming assembly elections. In a press note issued here today, Mr Verma has appointed Mr A.P.S Virk, SDM (Rajpura) as the Rajpura Returning Officer (RO), Mr R.P.S Walia, Assistant Commissioner (General) as Ghanour RO, Mr Mohinder Pal, Deputy Director (Local bodies) as Dakala RO, Mr Munish Kumar, Shutrana SDM as Patran RO, Mr Gurmeet Singh, SDM (Samana) as Samana RO, Mr Bhupinder Singh Rai, SDM (Patiala) as Patiala RO and Mr Ashok Kumar Sikka, SDM (Nabha) as Nabha RO.

Mr Verma has also appointed Mr Rajesh Dhiman, Tehsildar as Rajpura Assistant Returning Officer (ARO), Mr M.S Grewal (DDPO) as Ghanuar ARO, Mr Gagandeep Singh Virk (BDPO) as Dakala ARO, Mr Vinod Kumar (BDPO) as Shutrana ARO, Mr Sukhjinder Singh, Tehsildar as Samana ARO, Mr Subhash Bhardwaj, Tehsildar as Patiala ARO and Mr Moti Lal Sharma as Nabha ARO.

Ropar, January 9
A 32-year old lady was seriously injured after she was stabbed with a kirpan by her husband over a family dispute outside the Gurdwara Batha Sahib here, late this evening. The injured Sukhjinder Kaur was rushed to the PGI while her husband Sukhwinder Singh fled the scene.

The incident took place at around 8.30 pm when heated arguments were exchanged between Sukhjinder and her husband while having a meal at the gurdwara. Sukhwinder Singh initially beat up his wife, who was rescued by the devotees present there.

Later, he went out of the gurdwara and purchased a kirpan from a makeshift shop outside. As soon as his wife came out of the gurdwara, he stabbed her on the head and arms.

The police say that the two of them are from Kishangarh in Karnal and have been staying in a room at the gurdwara since yesterday. They came to attend a case hearing that is pending in the district court here. The SHO(city), Kesar Singh said, the statement of the injured will be recorded.

Patiala, January 9
In a week-long workshop for researchers of Punjabi Department, Dr Shakuntla Rao, Assistant Professor, University of New York, addressing the students of Journalism and Mass Communication of Punjabi University, said today that effects of globalisation were evident in Bollywood films these days.

Dr Rao said a sea change had occurred in the subject matter, landscaping, technology and the way films were being made in India.

Pointing out the differences between Indian cinema and Hollywood cinema, she said Indian movies were fantasy based, carrying its audiences to the world of illusions while movies in the west were technologically sound.