By M Rama Rao, Dec 1, 2007
Stoop to conquer is the message from battle ground Gujarat as the electorate sealed the fate of contenders, real and phoney, for a place in the Gandhinagar Sachivalaya.
Who had stooped low?
“Sonia”, says Narendra Modi.
“No, that discredit goes to Modi”, says Digvijay Singh, the Congress general secretary, who along with Sonia Gandhi came on the EC firing line shortly after Congress, the Left and lawyer- social activist Teesta Setalvad dragged Modi to the EC court.
Interestingly, the Congress-BJP spat has taken place a couple of days after BJP senior LK Advani told Rahul Gandhi, the heir to the Congress throne, “It is time we both stopped treating each other as enemy”.
That advice was given during a chance encounter at the Delhi airport. It was their first meeting. The young Gandhi walked up to Advani, introduced himself saying that he had no occasion thus far to meet him and greeted him formally. It was not a put on act, according to onlookers. And the gesture was in the true Indian tradition of a youngster showing deference to his senior.
Was Advani surprised given the amount of bad blood between 10 Janpath and 11 Ashok Road? The veteran gave no hint. He warmly received Rahul and they both were soon seen engaged in a serious conversation.
Advani, the strategist, has an ability to read the pulse of the nation. So, he has been talking for a while about the need for mainstream parties to put their act together to face the threat posed by forces that have come to represent regional, religious, sectional, and casteist interests. The urgency in his view is more now since Mayawati’s engineering has ushered in a new political climate of hope for some and despair for some others.
Probably, in normal times, Rahul-Advani tête-à-tête could have facilitated a thaw of sorts in the Congress-BJP relations. Not when both are fighting a no holds barred battle in Gujarat. And when Sonia Gandhi, leading the Congress charge against the darling of Hindutva brigade, described him as the ‘maut ka saudagar’ (merchants of death).
The Congress president had taken no names. She made no reference to Modi himself. But her spokesperson, Manu Abhishek Singhvi, a noted jurist, said, “What Sonia Gandhi said is there for all to hear, understand and read”.
Expectedly, Advani rose in defence of Modi. It was an aggressive defence by all means. “You may call him a Hitler. No problem, because in India, Hitler has come to denote not what the German had come to stand for universally but a strong willed person who acts high-handedly. But to call a person a maut ka saudagar? It is an act of provocation”.
Modi went into overdrive.. And Soharabuddin became a metaphor. Electioneering turned to ‘death and fear’.
Media reports quoted Modi as asking crowds, “You tell, what should be done to Sohrabuddin? Their response was predictable: “Kill him, Kill him”. Going by reports, Modi told cheering crowds, ‘Well, that is what I did, And I did what was necessary. Do I need Sonia’s permission for this?”
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who has a criminal record, was killed by Gujarat’s anti-terrorist squad (ATS) on November 26, 2005. Two days later his wife, Kauserbi was also eliminated. It appears her crime was being a witness to her husband’s abduction by the police. By the time the couple were ‘finished’, the police of Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh were also after them. As usual, post encounter press briefing described the victim as a terrorist, a member of the dreaded militant outfit, Lashkar-e- Taiba.
It took almost two years for the encounter to land in the Supreme Court, and a charge sheet to be filed against 13 police officials, who had thought they had covered their tracks. One of these officers is D G Vanzara, who headed the ATS in the rank of a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG). The charge sheet was, and, in fact, is a chilling reminder of the imperfections of our democracy, as the Times of India observed editorially on July 18, 2007.
Politicians have a penchant to concern themselves only with the immediate. For them today is important. Tomorrow is just another day. But for statesmen, neither today nor yesterday is of concern though they do draw their strength from the present and the past. For them tomorrow is a new dawn of hope and pride and not an occasion to cause despair.
The campaign theme in Gujarat shows we have more politicians in the land of Bapu. Most of them are clever by half, experts at hair splitting contentions. The post-maut ka saudagar twists and turns bear this out.
Media reports from the battle ground said Modi stated ‘Sohrabuddin got what he deserved’, and added ‘it is a confessional statement’ by him with some reports going on to say ‘Modi has justified a murder’.
Modi contention is the controversy was generated by a report (in a local English daily) of his December 4 election rally, which was not factual. Particularly the remark, ‘You tell what should be done to Sohrabuddin... And I did what was necessary’, is not reflected in the CD in the possession of the poll body.
In the same breath, Narendra Modi is not at all apologetic of his counter charges. “It is clear that my comment is a part of my speech where on several occasions I have put questions to the audience which the audience has answered. It is my political response to Smt. Gandhi’s allegation that I am Maut-ka-Saudagar. I have replied back alleging that the Congress party is helping those who have spread terrorism in the country”, he stated in his reply to the EC notice..
He went to say, “No where in my speech have I explicitly referred to the religion of any person. I have spoken against terrorism. It is not my speech but the complaint which assumes terrorism is linked to a religion”. In so many words, Modi appeared to question the Nirvachan Sadan: how could you issue a notice on the basis of ‘unverified and false media reports’.
At the time of going to press, verdict from the Election Commission was awaited on the new Modinama..
Surprisingly, just before the first phase of polling ended, Sonia Gandhi reinvented her campaign wheel, discarded, in a manner of speaking, ‘maut ka saudagar’ theme and sought the vote to ‘take forward the weak and backward Gujarat’. Her son, Rahul, flew in to give a final push to campaigning and to request Gujaratis ‘to throw away those who are hiding the truth by making bogus claims of development’.
Obviously, the Congress strategists did a campaign rejig who felt it is better to beat Modi with his own weapon – development and Gujarat’s pride. Modi entered the battle on development plank and stuck to that refrain till Sohrabuddin came to haunt him.
Suffice to say the verbal duel has shifted the focus a wee bit away from the poll to Modi, who has emerged larger than the Hindutva cut-out that he was not too long ago.
Monday, December 17, 2007
N WORD IS BACK
by M Rama Rao, Dec 1-16, 2007
The N-word is back. As the temperature dropped to below seven degrees Celsius for the first time on the first Saturday of this December, the Marxist Ayatollah Prakash Karat was back at his past time. He issued a fresh N-ultimatum to the Manmohan Singh government - stop operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal by this month-end or face mid-term elections.
The ultimatum came two days after the Indian team left for
Said Karat, “We don’t want the BJP to win the polls. We have to defeat the Modi government. So we don’t want to disturb the situation now. The Congress may not be worried (over BJP factor) but we are”. In other words the rationale for the Marxist led Left life-line to UPA is clear: they don’t want the UPA coalition government to fall before the
Perfectly justified political line. But the question that begs the answer is: Why did Karat babu deem it necessary to go to the town with his ‘BJP jeetega’ fears when the first round of polling was taking place in another four days, December 11 to be precise. Did he not factor in the possibility of BJP trying to derive some mileage from the fresh scorn heaped on the Congress?
The Marxist headquarters at the AK Gopalan Bhavan close to the heritage Gole Market building is unwilling to field these questions. The Congress friendly Sitaram Yechury offered his own spin on his General Secretary speak which in essence meant nothing but some word play. “The CPM agenda is not to destabilise the government but to stop the nuclear deal because it has increased India’s vulnerability to US pressures in various fields particularly independent foreign policy”, he said from Gujarat where he was campaigning, and yet left unanswered the all important question: What was the trigger that had almost activated the Karat bomb?
Well, the trigger was the developments in the red citadel Kolkata and its black spot, Nandigram. The Central Reserve Police Force too played no mean role.. After deployment, it demanded a clear mandate for action and clear delineation of areas for its charge. This was something unusual for a force known all over the county for their lathis. And then it unearthed graves.
On Dec 5, CRPF had found five graves from Bidyapith village in the CPM stronghold of Khejuri from where charred human bones and skulls were dug out the next day. The remains were sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory for examination. The CBI recovered more bones from another grave at Talpati canal at Bhangabera in Nandigram around the same time.
Another freshly dug grave was unearthed on Monday, December 10. It was at Parulbari village near Maheshpur and attracted police attention after the locals complained of a bad smell emanating from the place. Maheshpur was a strong hold of Bhumi Uchched Paratirodh Committee till very recently.
Superintendent of Police, Midnapore (East), Satyeswar Panda described the grave as freshly dug. His colleagues suspect that these bodies might be those of outsiders who had taken part in the ‘Nandigram battle’. The police discovered some flesh and long hair about 100 metres from the grave.
The new grave was found in an area owned by Amrita Das, a local. He cultivates paddy on his land but the place where the grave was discovered has not been cultivated for months. When police questioned him, Das gave conflicting statements on why he didn’t cultivate paddy in that portion of his land. Initially, he said that he was not in the village for the past few months and was unaware of the persons who had cultivated on his land.
When pressed further, he said that portion of the land was not good for cultivation of paddy so he used to ignore it, according to the officer investigating the case.
Just eight days prior to these ‘discoveries’, on Dec 2, Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi visited Nandigram belt. It was his first visit to the area which has been in the headlines after the industry friendly Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government selected Nandigram for a chemical hub in January 2007 and invited the wrath of the locals initially and of Marxist betenoire Mamata Bannerjee later on.
Gandhi has been unusually harsh in his critique of Buddhadeb and his tryst with farmers’ destiny. But the visit went off without any hitch. In fact, the governor took time off to play cricket with children at the grounds of
In Lyuten’s Delhi around the same time, Mamata Bannerjee, the maverick Trinamul Congress chief, called on Sonia Gandhi and made out a case for a more pro-active Congress role on Nandigram and related issues. A couple of hours later, AICC announced that a fact finding team would be sent to Nandigram. And Congress men in Kolkata issued a statement demanding the scalp of chief minister. Did they do so with or without the cue? No one is ready to field the question, at least for the present.
Eom
BUDDHA SPEAK
You may not like him. But you cannot dislike him and his disarming smile in particular. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister, is an unsual comrade and an equally unusual politician. There is a frankness in him that disarms you. Like when he said (Dec 4), ‘I should not have said it was tit-for tat, opposition was paid back in their own coin’. The reference was to the way the CPM cadres regained control over Nandigram by evicting the Mamata brigade.
In
Reaction was swift and sharp from his adversaries. Said Mamata Bannerjee: “Whenever he comes up with a sort of regret, the violence starts”.
West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WPCC) General Secretary Manas Bhuiyan said that "Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is in the habit of making regrets later for his comments. He had done it on several occasions in the past. He should quit after his admission that Nandigram was an administrative and political failure."
The RSP leaders said Nandigram fiasco was because of CPM's ‘unilateral decision to handle the situation there keeping the partners in the dark’..
Forward Bloc state Secretary Ashok Ghosh said: “What we have been saying, what the people and the intellectuals have been saying has been echoed now by the Chief Minister admitting that Nandigram was an administrative and political failure”.
POLITICAL MOBILISATION IN DOWN UNDER
by M RAMA RAO, Dec 15-31 in The Field Marshal, Chandigarh
Developments in Andhra Pradesh have become the talk of the political circuit in the capital. It is not always the
Political analysts and pundits are impressed by the response the Mayawati phenomenon has evoked in Andhra Pradesh. Also topic for animated discussion is the possibility of yet another film star, Chiranjivi, Chiru to his fans, entering politics. He is a mega star and has a fan following which is the envy of any cadre based party. Till now he confined himself to charity work particularly blood donation campaigns.
Opinion is divided on how enduring Maya-Chiru developments will be.
‘Chiranjivi is not a MGR or a NTR despite his fan following’, according to a senior political leader, who pointed out that the circumstances that propelled MGR and NTR into politics were different. In his assessment, Chiranjivi by allowing the suspense to last a little longer will not help his own cause. Whatever decision he takes, he has to take it quickly. Politics, in essence, is timing.
Another leader, a Leftist who hails from Tamilnadu, cites the case of super star Rajnikant.. ‘There was this talk of Rajni joining politics for days and months. Nothing happened. Why he did not take the plunge I don’t know but his practice of helping build kalyanmandapams and the like is not enough passport to electoral politics’.
In this context, the experience of thespian Shivaji Ganesan is cited to make the point that even in a land where film hero worship is the order all heroes cannot make it big in elections. Shivaji was in and out of Congress and had lost an assembly election.
An interesting point, several political pundits here make is that caste is not primary for winning an election. It plays a peripheral role in electoral politics, according to a Left thinker.
But CPI general secretary A B Bardhan doesn’t see any thing wrong in caste based politics. “As a Communist I am opposed to caste politics but caste is a reality in politics. What can I do? BSP, SP are caste based parties. What is wrong if the OBCs want a share in political power pie? So if he (Chiranjivi) starts a new party, let us see what happens. Let him first announce his plan and plank”.
In Andhra Pradesh, several leaders are ready to jump on the Chiranjivi band wagon if it gets rolling. This is giving sleepless nights to the two main local players, the Telugu Desam party (TDP) started by NTR and now run by his son-in-law, Chandrababu Naidu, and the good old Congress party.
Some social scientists hold the view that ‘Andhra Pradesh is not Uttar Pradesh and that Mayawati, whatever be the clamour among the political class, will not make an impact on Andhra Pradesh scene. More over, unlike in UP and
.
This view is shared by senior Left and BJP leaders who point out that the scheduled castes are divided into two camps – Malas ( the traditionally front runners with high literacy rates) and Madigas ( the largest in numbers but insignificant in the share of political pie). ‘Bringing about unity in the SC ranks doesn’t appear to be possible. Any how, even before these divisions happened, BSP, during the hey days of Kanshiram, had failed to make inroads into Andhra Pradesh’.
And on their part, the Telugu OBCs are not a homogenous group and this fact may come in the way of new polarisation. “Kapus are a dominant group. In coastal districts they are rich but in Telangana they are poor. Also, once political chips are down other marginalised OBCs will clamour for their share under the sun. Like it happened in
Nonetheless, the overwhelming view is ‘Chiranjivi’s potential as a vote getter cannot be minimised. He will be a big draw even if he is not cut in the NTR mould. If he plays his cards well, he can create a new niche for himself in Andhra Pradesh Politics.
Mayawati is planning to hold a massive rally in
MID TERM BLUES BECOME OPEN ENDED
byM RAMA RAO in Field Marshal, Fortnightly from Chandigar, Dec 15-31, 2007
Re-think on the advisability of opting for a Lok Sabha election in April s visible in the Congress camp. Latest thinking favours the ballot in November.
The Congress high command views 2008 as a year of elections. Three North-eastern states, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland will elect their MLAs in February- March.
Four other states will go for assembly elections in November. These are BJP ruled Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan and Congress ruled
BJP has suffered a series of setbacks in by-elections in Madhya Pradesh. The situation was no different in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where the BJP is driven by dissensions.
The latest by-elections in Madhya Pradesh have gone the Congress way. Chief Minister (GIVE HIS NAME HERE) conducted the campaign for the Kargoan Lok Sabha seat and the Sanwar assembly seat (
Firstly, the victory margin was convincing - 10,000 votes in the case of Sanwar and a huge 1, 18, 638 votes at Kargoan, a traditional BJP seat.
Secondly, the myth created over Sadhvi Uma Bharati is shattered with her Bharatiya Janshakti Party’s nominee coming a poor third. At Sanwar he polled just 3671 votes. This is for fourth time Uma Bharati has failed to open her party’s account in the by-elections since she left the BJP. Her forays into UP and Gujarat have not yielded much in electoral terms since she traded of her (doubtful) political credentials for the goodwill of the Sangh Parivar in both the states.
Thirdly and more importantly, the by-elections saw the emergence of Jyotiraditya Scindia, as a leader in his own right in Madhya Pradesh which was hitherto mostly the turf of Digvijay Singh and Arjun Singh. Scindia junior personally selected the nominee, Silavat, for Sanwar and campaigned for his victory. In other words, the Gennext is coming into own.
Vasundhara Raje, the lone BJP Maharani, is not happily placed. Her problems are challenges thrown up by her one time mentors – Jaswant Singh and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.. Then there is the added trouble from the Gujjars, a self-inflicted wound for Vasundhara in a way. She has bought a reprieve from them but it will prove costly in electoral terms.
Doctor Saheb, as Chhattisgarh chief minister …… is addressed has some track record that can be envy of his opponents within and outside the BJP. Yet, he has to contend with a resurgent Congress which has tasted by-election successes, cashing on his Maoist ‘handicap’.
Election to these three states can be advanced to April to suit the Lok Sabha dates arguing that it would help cut down expenditure. Any how already a precedent has been set in Himachal Pradesh, where the Election Commission rather arbitrarily advanced the elections due in Feb to December it self.
But is it worth the trouble. Why not give a longer rope to the BJP to tie itself in knots with anti-incumbency? This question is doing the rounds now. And there appear to be many takers for the idea of pushing the Lok Sabha election to 2008 end.
For this section, November is a better bet for Lok Sabha election. According to them, it would mean advancing elections by some six months. ‘That is not a big deal in electoral politics’ and the government can be deemed to have run its full five year course.
Another plus is that Sonia Congress can lay a rightful claim for an ability to run coalitions. The UPA is its first coalition experiment.
Hitherto, BJP has been projecting itself as the only expert in running multi-party coalitions. It has been taking digs at the Congress. A November poll will therefore certainly blunt the BJP edge.
Another plus from the Congress perspective is the time it will have to derive full advantage from the slew of sops and the multi-crore rupee Bharat Nirman publicity campaign presently under way.
Informed sources in the Congress and the Left circles say Sonia Gandhi, personally speaking, is inclined towards November. The Ministerialists, however, are advocating March –April to deny the BJP and BSP the breathing space they need to put their act.
Analysts outside the Congress also are not unconvinced by the argument that November would give some benefit to the BJP and BSP. According to them, the BJP is a divided house with no quick fix in sight.
The result in
In so far the BSP is concerned, these analysts contend that the Maya phenomenon will have a limited reach and impact even in normal times. Mayawati has to put in long hours of work and effort to repeat her experiment outside Uttar Pradesh. As such March-April or November makes no difference.
In other words, the advancing of Lok Sabha elections has once again become an open ended issue.
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