Violence Bill targets ‘majority’

PNS | New Delhi: The BJP on Thursday labelled the draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011 as a law fraught with dangerous consequences saying the legislation would go against the federal rights of the states and hold only the majority community guilty of hate propoganda and targeted violence.

In an article put on the party’s website, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said, “The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 will intrude into the domain of the state, damage the federal polity and create an imbalance in inter-community relationship.”

Jaitley maintained that the Bill seems to have been finalised by the NAC headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The drafting of this Bill appears to be a handiwork of those social entrepreneurs who have learnt from the Gujarat experience of how to fix senior leaders even when they are not liable for an offence,” he said.

Source: Daily Pioneer, 27th May 2011

Delaying Afzal Guru's execution is vote bank politics: BJP

IANS | New Delhi: A day after mercy petitions of two death row convicts were rejected by President Pratibha Patil, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday demanded rejection of the mercy plea of parliament terror attack accused Afzal Guru, terming the delay in his execution "vote-bank politics".

"It is a copy book example of vote-bank politics. A few days back there was a comment from (Delhi Chief Minister) Sheila Dikshit and her officers that the then home minister Shivraj Patil had asked to delay the petition," party spokesman Ravishankar Prasad told reporters.

"Tthe mercy petition should be rejected at the earliest and action be taken," Prasad said.

"This (the parliament attack) was an attack on the nation. Had even one person gone inside parliament with an AK-47, the entire leadership of all political parties could have been killed, and it has been treated like this," he said.

President Patil Thursday rejected the mercy petition of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who was convicted for the 1993 car bomb attack outside the Indian Youth Congress office in New Delhi that killed 12 people and injured 29.

The president has also rejected the mercy petition of Mahendra Nath Das of Assam, who was sentenced to death for murdering a person while out on bail in another murder case.

Afzal Guru is accused of collaborating with five terrorists who attacked India's parliament Dec 13, 2001, killing nine security personnel and staff before being gunned down.

Source: Daily Pioneer, 27th May 2011

One more scam? BJP says PM sat over Rs 85,000 crore coal loot

Manmohan held coal portfolio when dummy companies made a killing

Just a day after prime minister Manmohan Singh celebrated two years of the UPA II rule, the Bharatiya Janata Party has accused him of direct culpability in the "loot" in a Rs 85,000 crore coal 'scam', as he held the portfolio between 2006 and 2009 after Shibu Soren had resigned.

The modus operandi of this latest scam is no different from that of the 2G scam as "rules were bent, definitions changed, modalities distorted to benefit the allottees, and many sold the coal blocks to other companies at hefty premium," Vidarbha MP Hansraj Ahir and party spokesman Prakash Javadekar said at a press conference here.

They alleged that illegal gratification was obtained in this case by bringing a bill in parliament in 2006 and then keeping it hanging for five years to allow the massive loot. They demanded an immediate
probe monitored by the Supreme Court and a special audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).

The scam started with the introduction of the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill in parliament in 2006 for the auction of mines that triggered a rush and the government went on surreptitiously gifting coal blocks free of cost to 143 private companies without waiting for passage of the bill. The bill was passed only in 2010 while the loot went on unchecked.

Ahir and Javadekar said Manmohan Singh had an excuse for the 2G scam that it was the handiwork of former telecom minister A Raja and he didn't know about it, but he cannot have any such alibi as he headed the coal ministry and sat over the coal blocks which were being frittered away for three years to 51 companies in 2006, 19 in 2007, 41 in 2008 and 32 in 2009.

Which are these companies that minted the money? The existing policy allowed allotment of the coal blocks to the actual user industries, namely steel, cement and power plants, while those gifted the blocks had neither any industry nor even any licence to start such an industry to get the blocks. They were all dummy companies.

"The culpability of the prime minister is clearly established as he had presided over this loot of precious natural resources, allowing
fake and bogus companies that either sold the licences or made money by selling coal that they were supposed to utilise in own industries,"
Ahir said.

He said the going rate as per the business circles is Rs 50 per tonne and thus more than Rs 85,000 crores changed hands during the four-year coal scam.
Source: www.governancenow.com, 23th May 2011

Advani wanted Mamata to win in West Bengal, says BJP

KOLKATA: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani had initially disapproved of the decision taken by the party's West Bengal unit to field candidates in almost all seats in the Assembly elections as he felt it would prove disadvantageous to the Trinamool Congress, BJP State president Rahul Sinha told journalists on Monday.

Mr. Sinha said Mr. Advani had accepted the arrangement only after he was convinced that, given the polarised political situation in the State, the large number of BJP candidates would not dent the Trinamool's chances of overthrowing the Left Front government.

“Though Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee went about slamming the BJP at all her campaign rallies alleging us to be partnering with the Left Front, the truth is that Mr. Advani wanted her party to emerge victorious as he was certain that it was only the Trinamool Congress that could oust the Left Front government from West Bengal,” Mr. Sinha said.

Mr. Sinha's remarks were in answer to a question whether the BJP's prospects were harmed due to the absence of sting against the Trinamool, in the campaign of senior party leaders. The BJP failed to win a single seat.

“Not disheartened”

Admitting that the failure was “painful,” Mr. Sinha said the party was not disheartened as it saw the rout of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) as an opportunity to strengthen its own organisation in the State.

“The manner in which the top-rung leadership of the CPI(M) has been decimated in the elections, it can no longer play the Opposition's role properly. The BJP will fill the vacuum now with an eye on the 2013 panchayat and 2014 Lok Sabha elections.”

Vote share

Refuting reports that the BJP's vote share had dropped in the Assembly elections in comparison to the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Mr. Sinha said that unlike in 2009, when the party had forged an alliance with several smaller parties such as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad and others, the BJP had fought the 2011 elections alone. Thus, he said, an illusion of lesser vote share was created.

Alleging that BJP workers and candidates had been attacked by Trinamool supporters after the declaration of the poll results, he said the Trinamool leadership should restrain its cadres from committing the same mistakes as the CPI(M).

Raktima Bose, The Hindu, Tuesday, May 17, 2011

BJP slams Govt for hike in petrol price

BJP spokesperson SHAHNAWAZ HUSSAIN
at press conference

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday criticised the hike in petrol price and alleged that the “anti aam-admi” government was waiting for the assembly elections to get over to make the announcement.

“The BJP strongly condemns this increase in price of petrol. The government which always harps on being with the ‘aam admi’ (common man) is betraying it. The UPA regime says it does not control price of petrol but kept a check on it till the elections,” party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.

He described the price hike a “gift” from the government after the Congress victory in West Bengal and Assam. “This is a joke on the people,” he said.

The main opposition maintained that the government could cut down on some of the central taxes to give relief to the people.

“In the last two years, the increase in petrol price has been by Rs. 23 per litre. This government should realise that when petrol prices go up, then prices of other commodities also go up,” Mr. Hussain said.

The BJP will take this issue to the people through agitation on the streets as well as raise it in Parliament.

“This government has nothing to do with the welfare of the ‘aam admi’ and is only concerned about votes. Since the UPA came to power in 2004, petrol prices have increased 19 times. In the last nine months the increase has been done nine times,” Mr. Hussain said.

Source: The Hindu 14th May 2011

Mamata wary of BJP vote division

Why is Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee so wary of the BJP? Why is she so relentlessly attacking it in every election rally? Why is she asking voters not to cast even a single vote in favour of the BJP?

For Ms Banerjee, the stakes in the ongoing Assembly elections are extremely high. She believes that she is on the threshold of power in West Bengal and apprehends that if anyone can play spoilsport, it is the BJP. “The CPI(M) and BJP are bhai bhai. The former has invited the BJP to divide our vote. Casting a vote for BJP means giving a vote to the Left Front,” she has repeatedly told the people.
A close analysis of the last Lok Sabha election results show that Ms Banerjee’s fears are not unfounded. The Trinamul Congress which won 19 seats could have won six more had the BJP not eaten into the anti-Left vote. The Left Front whose score came down from 35 to 15 Lok Sabha seats would have also lost Coochbehar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Balurghat, Midnapore and Burdwan had the BJP not come to their rescue. So, is it correct that the sole purpose of the BJP in contesting the polls is to help the Left Front? “It is utter rubbish. The BJP and the CPI(M) are ideological adversaries. We cannot even think of helping the communists,” said BJP national spokesperson and co-incharge of Bengal Siddhartha Nath Singh.
Then why did the BJP field candidates in 290 of the 294 Assembly constituencies? “We realised that Left Front would be voted out of power. At a time when the Left is on its way out it is natural that the right should try to occupy the space especially when a large section of voters is also disillusioned with the Trinamul Congress. Our objective is two-fold: to open our account in the Assembly and to increase our vote share,” he added.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley told a gathering in Mandirtala in Howrah that BJP would produce an impressive result this time. “A sizeable number of our candidates will win,” he predicted.
To canvas vote for party candidates, the entire galaxy of BJP leaders descended on Bengal. L.K. Advani, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Hema Malini extensively campaigned for the BJP.
“The reason these stalwarts campaigned in Bengal was their belief that the BJP would notch up impressive results in this election,” Mr Singh added.
The BJP leaders had earlier planned to attack only Left Front and spare Trinamul Congress. However, later they changed the strategy and started targeting their one-time ally with equal force. Ms Banerjee also returned the fire. The BJP leaders claim that in nearly 36 seats (mainly in North Bengal, Nadia, Birbhum and Kolkata and suburbs), their party will give both Left Front and Trinamul Congress a run for their money. The BJP may not win more than a couple of seats but it can adversely affect Trinamul Congress’ poll prospects in a number of constituencies. Little wonder, Ms Banerjee has targeted the BJP with such vehemence in this election.

Source: News in deccanchronicle.com 8th May 2011

Target Delhi in BJP’s Bengal plans

Mohua Chatterjee TNN
Kolkata: It is not without reason that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, focused on main rival CPM, suddenly turned her guns on BJP — a non-entity in the state’s politics so far — during the second phase of campaigning. She has clearly sensed BJP’s serious ambition to emerge as a player in the state, for the first time. That BJP’s gains can only eat into the state’s non-Left votebank, is the greatest concern for Mamata.
 Every constituency has an unprecedented and visible BJP presence. Whether it manages to bag votes or not, the party seems to have decided to ensure that the voters know the names of its candidates. The abundance of posters, banners, flags, wall writings are evidence that BJP has invested aggressively in the state.
The party contested all 294 seats in the 2001 polls, but cut a sorry figure. In 2006, contesting in alliance with Trinamool, BJP got just 40 seats to fight. This time, leaving five seats to local allies in North Bengal the party is working to double its 4% vote share in the state.
Seeking to make the best of the pro-change wave in Bengal, BJP decided to invest in a big way here for the first time. Party chief Nitin
Gadkari is convinced, say party insiders, that there should be no half-hearted effort like in the past, in making a dent that could come in handy in the long run.
Not surprising therefore that the party deployed its top guns — Lal Krishna Advani, Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Gadkari himself — to campaign hard in a state where it has no foothold.
There may be little gain in terms of seats this time, but the larger gameplan is to emerge as a new player in the state’s otherwise bipolar politics, where Congress still keeps its own little space, as CPM and Trinamool vie for the lion’s share of votes. BJP’s target for 2014 Lok Sabha is to ensure that Trinamool is pushed back
into the NDA.
While BJP is ideologically opposed to the communists, it realises the party’s entry into Bengal is possible only by wooing non-Left voters in the state.
BJP is playing at taking vote share up from 4% to 8%, which looks achievable this time, claims party leader Siddharth Nath Singh, who is also the co-in-charge of polls in the state, working at it since last September.
According to the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha and the party’s dependable poll strategist, Arun Jaitley, “We are getting 5,000 to 7,000 people at rallies for the first time in Bengal. If we can take the voteshare to 8% now, we try to take it to 12% in the Lok Sabha.” With 8% vote share, BJP hopes to influence results in 25 seats and with 12%, it could make an impact in 50 seats.
With an eye at beating Congress in the LS polls, over corruption and other issues, if BJP can influence 50 assembly segments, the chances of wooing back Mamata to the NDA fold goes up, feels the party leadership.
With this plan in mind that BJP changed tack midway, to train its guns on Mamata, rather than hitting out at the Left, tie up with small parties or their factions and ensure that none of its campaigners take the hard Hindutva line as that will not work in Bengal, where voters are not communally divided. BJP is selling itself on the development plank in the state.

Source: The Times of India, 5th May 2011 P-5

Tea, cigarettes and Bengal's ennui

Chandan Mitra | The Pioneer, 1st May 2011

Nothing has changed in West Bengal in three decades, but the suburban and rural Bengali seems as contented as ever. Maybe that's why Mamata Banerjee is poised to win.

I have campaigned in elections before but never as extensively as I am currently doing in West Bengal. People ask me what’s the point of spending so much time and energy in an election in which the BJP has little at stake. Arguably, we aren’t fighting to wrest Writers’ Building from the Left; that’s Ms Mamata Banerjee’s calling. But over the last six months or so, since the young and energetic Rahul Sinha was vested with the reins of the State party and Mr Nitin Gadkari appointed me Prabhari or central observer, it seems we have succeeded in making the BJP matter in the State. It is not widely known that the BJP’s predecessor, the Jana Sangh, was founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee here in Bengal. On its own, however, the BJP won only a by-election to the Assembly some years ago. This time, the poll is sharply polarised with the stormy petrel (forgive the cliché!) of Bengal politics having mounted a feisty blitzkrieg to dislodge the CPI(M)-led Left Front from power after an incredible 34 years.

The BJP may be a bit player but it seems to have alarmed the two Behemoths to a significant extent. While the universal ‘Didi’, doesn’t let a single meeting pass without fervently appealing to people not to vote for the BJP, the CPI(M), despite chuckling at the thought of saffron forces cutting into her anti-Left vote, is doing everything to prevent it from reaching out to the electorate by placing obstacles in the way of holding public meetings. Particularly since the Cooch Behar to Kolkata Naba Jagaran Rathyatra the BJP undertook in the first fortnight of February, the party’s popularity graph seems to have surged remarkably despite the sharp polarisation.

Yatras and elections are powerful instruments for a political party to spread its organisational tentacles and the BJP seems to have effectively used these to disseminate its message. I was impressed by the sincerity of the rank-and-file, their conviction that something big is about to happen, and the responsiveness of the crowds that attend BJP rallies. Maybe most of them won’t vote for it in the end, but at least they are listening; so when the BJP returns next time it would be talking to people who are partially convinced.

Two weeks of intensive campaigning (I have another week to go) enabled me to observe many facets of my home State, which I abandoned with finality way back in 1987 when I joined The Times of India in Delhi after quitting The Statesman, Calcutta. I migrated originally in 1972 for my college education but my second, three-year stint in Calcutta in the mid-1980s left me so disgusted with the state of affairs (12 hours-a-day power cuts, telephones that were decoration pieces, traffic that was in total disarray and hope dying with every passing day) that I left determined never to return. Things are marginally better now on those counts but I still find the middle class Bengali frightfully unambitious, content to wallow in self-pity without doing anything about it. So I went about looking for reasons for this collective ennui.

Three days of flying around the State in a helicopter offered some clues. It’s difficult to find a State as verdant as Bengal; no wonder Dwijendra Lal Roy penned “Dhana-dhanye pushpey bhara…” successor to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's “Sujalam, suphalam malayaj shitalam, shashya-shyamalam mataram”. On a flight to Sandeshkhali in the Sunderbans, crisscrossed by mighty distributaries of Ganga, co-passenger Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda gazed at the vast expanse of water and commented: “Itna pani hai, eersha hoti hai (There’s so much water, I feel jealous)”.

Devastated by Cyclone Aila, on the islands in the Sunderbans the harried residents eke out a miserable existence since the fertile soil has turned saline and unproductive. Climate change is wreaking havoc here but the people haven’t woken up to it and merely blame official indifference for their misfortune. But it is the stoic acceptance of whatever fate has ordained that amazed me. The ill-fed, ill-clad men and women — skins glistening in the harsh sun, moisture forcing droplets of sweat to drape their bodies — haven’t forgotten how to smile.

As my Xylo traversed narrow by-lanes of interior villages of my home district of Hooghly I recognised the same contentment on people’s faces. Flocks of goats and mother hens chaperoning their brood crowded the road, slowing my car to walking speed. Old women emerged from their dishevelled thatched huts, annoyed at tranquillity being broken by a big vehicle, to shepherd their chickens, ducks and goats back into their pens. But almost every hut had a party flag uncertainly fluttering; in the backwaters of Hooghly it was mostly the CPI(M)’s hammer-sickle-star, but the towns were awash with Trinamool’s two flowers and the occasional BJP lotus.

Bengal lives, breathes and dreams politics. My travel coordinator Mr Swapan Pal, Hooghly district BJP general secretary, insisted I sip a cuppa of “atulaniya (matchless)” tea at Bannerjee Cabin, a street corner restaurant in my hometown. I had visited the town centre many times in my childhood, watched movies at Kairi and Rupali Talkies, but never noticed the inscription on the silver-gray clock tower, which I discovered had been erected to commemorate King Edward VII in 1911, the very year Lord Curzon announced the shifting of the Capital from Calcutta to Delhi.

Past 10 pm, Banerjee Cabin was bustling with argumentative muffosil Bengalis, animatedly debating the news of the day and its impact on voters, namely, Mr Anil Basu, CPI(M)’s former MP from neighbouring Arambagh, using expletives against Didi. Life goes on as usual in suburban Bengal; nobody has even heard of Anbumani Ramadoss and the ban on smoking in public places. The tea house is smoke-filled, although Charminar has been replaced by more refined brands. Instead of the usual order of “ek cup cha ar ekta false”, meaning one tea and an empty cup for it to be shared, tea shops now serve in Liliputian plastic containers; I was lucky to get a decent-sized kullad!

Tea and cigarettes are integral to Bengal’s culture and I found nothing had changed. Whenever I reached a meeting venue, somebody came around with an aluminium kettle and a sheaf of miniature plastic cups even on the dais. Ms Sushma Swaraj asked me if this was customary, for in north India it’s bad manners to sip anything except water on the rostrum. I said here it was perfectly fine and nobody would mind even if somebody smoked!

All said and done, Bengal is a happy place. Much as migrant Bengalis like me feel frustrated, disgruntled and dejected, I found rural and suburban Bengal contented. That may well be the reason why the CPI(M) could uninterruptedly reign for more than three decades. For all their ideological disputes and theoretical commitment to Revolution, the Bengali resists change. Maybe they have now realised they are getting left behind. But my guess is that Ms Banerjee promises status quo, which is why she’ll win. Mr Budhadeb Bhattacharjee wanted change, which is why he may lose even his membership of the State Assembly! This is not a value judgement though.