When there is interest there would be conflict

The other day, former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was on live television, speaking on Lokpal Bill which was introduced in the Lok Sabha. He spoke in length on how the CBI should not be under the proposed body to check corruption.

What struck me was not the speech of Lalu but the conflict of interest he has on the issue. CBI investigated the case against him for fodder scam, put him in jail and he had to resign from Bihar chief Ministership and pass on the baton to his wife Rabri Devi. Since then, he has been an ally of the Congress, initially as part of the government for five years and now as a silent admirer who is trying all tricks in the trade to be back in the UPA fold after being spurned by Congress in the last Assembly and subsequently Lok Sabha polls from Bihar.

Lalu was clearly the beneficiary of the government control on CBI as no one knows the fate of CBI cases in fodder scam. While other accused were arrested and convicted, Lalu continued to be a Railway Minister in UPA-I. Same is the case of Mulayam Singh Yadav against whom a case of DA is pending and CBI has gone extremely slow in pursuing the case. A grateful Mulayam extended outside support to the UPA even though Congress is threatening to take away his Muslim vote bank in Uttar Pradesh and is the principal rival in the state

I am not into the merits of whether CBI should come under the proposed Lokpal or not. Let the MPs decide that. I am referring to the conflict of interest which a Member of Parliament has to divulge in writing after becoming a member of the House. They have to specify in which companies they have an interest and the lobbies they belong to. Let the jurists judge whether the outrage of Lalu comes under conflict of interest or not, but clearly he should have been the last person to speak on the issue.

Something of a similar nature regarding “conflict of interest” happened in Chandigarh after the results of the Municipal Corporation elections were declared. The verdict saw a hung house with the BJP-SAD alliance getting 12 seats, Congress 11, BSP 2 and one seat being bagged by an Independent in the 26-member elected body. What is ironical and an affront to the local self government is the fact that 9 members in this tiny house would be nominated members – all of whom would participate in voting and electing the Mayor and deciding which party would have a control on the civic body.

And who is supposed to make the nomination? The UT Administrator and Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil who has been a Congressman all his life and still wants to get back to central politics after being removed as the Home Minister and sent to Chandigarh to cool his heels following the Mumbai terror attack three years ago. Nominations he did make but only after the election result and assessing how many of his nominees would vote for his party. So the election of the Chandigarh Mayor and who will have a control on the House is a foregone conclusion. Obviously, Congress would rule the House for the third term in a row and no one is putting his or her money on the BJP. There is no betting or speculation on an issue, the result of which is known to everyone in advance.

Clearly, the “nominee system” in the civic body needs an urgent review. Whichever party has its person in the Administrator’s chair would control the civic body. What is the meaning of election then and what is the point in conducting such a farce if you know the end result. It could be a BJP appointed Administrator one day, a Congress appointed person some other day or any other party for that matter. The system has reduced the democratic process to a farce in the city and this is what needs to be rectified.

There was another “conflict of interest” which unfolded in Haryana. This time, the role of the Vidhan Sabha Speaker was under scanner. Five members of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) had defected to the Congress and helped the party form the government in 2009 after it managed to win only 40 seats in the House, six short of majority. Since then, the Speaker has been sitting on the issue and has not decided either for or against the petition of defection even though HJC President Kuldeep Bishnoi has made several representations.

Prime facie, the so called defection of HJC MLAs looks like a merger as more than two third members of the legislature party took a decision to this effect. The least the Speaker could have done was to decide the matter in favour of his party - Congress. He did not do even that and has put the party in a spot of bother. After Speaker’s procrastination for 24 months, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a series of directions to him and given a time-frame to expedite the matter.

Everyone in the country knows that the Speaker in any House is either from the ruling party or its trusted ally. But at least, the Speaker is expected to wear a “cloak of neutrality”. He should not make the conflict of interest obvious, like the Haryana Speaker. Now when the judiciary has intervened, some Congress MLAs are attacking the directions of the court and not the indiscretion of the Speaker. This was a case where even if the Speaker had decided in favour of the five MLAs, no one would have questioned the move as the provisions of the anti-defection law do not prima facie apply here.

Punjab which goes to polls on January 30, also had conflict of interest to contend with, but it was more bureaucratic than political. A serving IAS official, D S Guru, sought premature retirement to contest the polls as an Akali Dal candidate from Bhadaur Assembly segment a few hours before his name was officially announced. While he was serving in the government, his alleged bipartisan role drew the ire of the opposition parties in the state. Guru was not alone. P S Gill, who retired as Director General of Police in September is contesting again on an Akali ticket from Moga. The Opposition had alleged that the police was biased during his tenure and now when Gill has actually got the Akali ticket, the allegation does not seem to be too far fetched.

No one is suggesting that the bureaucrats and police officials should not contest polls; they have every right to do so. But a provision of a cooling period of say two years after retirement could be made so that the officials who hobnob with the political masters of the day are not as blatant in favour or against a party when they are serving and getting a salary from the public exchequer. Obviously when there is a conflict of interest with officials, as was the case with Guru and Gill, their supposedly neutral stand gets diluted and they end up supporting the ruling party. (25.12.2011)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/30301-when-there-is-interest-there-would-be-conflict.html

Rahul misses Punjab date

Clearly Gandhi scion's priority is UP, not Punjab

Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi may be touring Uttar Pradesh vigorously these days and occasionally in other parts of the country but he has so far missed a date with poll-bound Punjab.

I get the itinerary of Rahul in my mail from his office in New Delhi whenever he decides on a political sojourn which needs to be made public. The latest one was his itinerary in the districts of Shahjahanpur, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Auraiya and Kanpur Dehat between December 15 and 17. I keep waiting that may be Congress and its young leader would take Punjab more seriously, canvass for the party, appeal to the youth and give momentum to the party’s campaign. But none of the mails which I receive have any information about political meetings of Rahul in the food basket of the country. Almost all mails which I get from his office these days, list a series of meetings in some nondescript village or a mofussil town in Uttar Pradesh.

Will he or won’t he? This is the question Congress persons of the state are discussing in the run-up to the polls. Obviously, he may address a few run of the mill meetings here and there when the polls for Punjab are announced along with other senior leaders. But clearly, the priority area for the heir apparent of the Gandhi-Nehru family is UP and not Punjab.

When I was working for the news agency PTI, I had come to Amritsar from New Delhi, specifically to cover a press conference of Rahul a little over three years ago on November 18, 2008 in a school near the walled city. This was on how the Indian Youth Congress was being democratized and how new talent was being spotted and promoted in the party and how Congress was different from other parties. In this press conference, Rahul was flanked by former CEC M J Lyngdoh and former EC official K J Rao, the person behind the free and fair Bihar polls which brought Nitish Kumar to power in the state over six years ago.

Three years down the line, ask any Congress person in the state about democratization of youth Congress and they will list a series of “elected” youth Congress office-bearers in Punjab whose fathers or grandfathers were MLAs, MPs or Chief Ministers of the state. Obviously, these leaders know Congress politics well and would never come on record.

What Rahul could find more troublesome is the fact that in the ongoing internal elections of IYC being held in a “democratic manner”, the contenders are again the same sons of MLAs, former MLAs, former ministers and former party leaders. Moreover, the internal polls of the IYC reflect all the ills plaguing the parent party. Violence has broken out in Amritsar and Ferozepur during these polls and many youth Congress leaders have returned with broken skull, broken hand or ribs during scuffle with the rival factions. “Dynasty and patronage”, the two ills which Rahul himself identified and wanted to remove in his series of meetings earlier are back with a vengeance in the IYC politics of the state. The irony is that no one questions the efficacy of these elections and long term benefits for the parent party, if any. You simply cannot question the 41-year old leader, if you want to survive even for a day in Congress politics.

I followed Rahul in two more election meetings during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in Punjab. One was again at Amritsar where he shared the dais with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and another meeting in Ludhiana in support of AICC Spokesman Manish Tewari who was contesting from there. Then I covered a series of his meetings in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. In fact, in a majority of these, he spoke about the same issue. It seemed he was reading from a script even though he was not and it was difficult to find a punch-line after the first two meetings. Reporting from the ground had become too repetitive.

So has Rahul lost his charm and appeal seven and a half years after he formally joined politics by contesting the elections from Amethi in 2004? This is what some critics and well-wishers of Rahul, who engage in political discussion, ask me. I have no definite answer at this point of time and perhaps it is slightly premature to judge him.

But there are certain specific instances where I can say that he has been rather indifferent to the media or simply not concerned in sharing his thoughts on burning issues with the country. He spoke about his views on FDI in retail almost a month after the issue came in public domain. But this is only the latest instance of procrastination. There have been several such instances in the past where the country keenly waited for the version of the future leader but to no avail. In fact, the belated reaction of Rahul on FDI has come at a time when the issue has practically been abandoned after opposition protest.

Two and a half years ago, I remember getting an SMS that Rahul wanted to interact with mediapersons at his Tughlaq Road residence in New Delhi. Around 40 mediapersons reached the venue where Rahul talked on several issues. Pankaj Shankar, his media advisor and close aide Kanishka Singh were present. During the interaction itself, it was decided that the entire conversation would be off-record and nothing would come in print. Mediapersons agreed on the condition that Rahul would keep meeting them and share his thoughts on issues concerning the country. Next day, not a single line appeared in print anywhere but that was the last time perhaps he had an informal interaction with the media.

I went to Amethi to cover the visit of Rahul in his constituency several times in the hope that he could perhaps give an interview or interact with the journalists in a group. It never materialised. I would point out two specific instances of these visits. Rahul was visiting a village in Amethi to find out about the work being done by the self help group there. Only three or four journalists reached the venue and we were kept at an arms length by the security. When the meeting got over, I was standing on the sides of a village road along with Shakeel Akhtar, senior Journalist from Navbharat Times. Both of us gleefully thought that Rahul would answer a couple of questions and we would have our exclusive stories ready and keep our organisations happy. Rahul was at the wheels of a Green Quallis SUV. He simply refused Shakeel Akhtar’s and my request to answer 2-3 questions even though we had been covering him for a while and there was no possibility of cross questions in that village.

Then during his visit to a school near Sultanpur, the only road to the village was completely blocked by security personnel. A media contingent comprising of over two dozen journalists from Delhi and Lucknow kept waiting for around 4 hours on the road. He went to the function and came back and did not speak a word, simply waived his hand. It left everyone frustrated and agitated as the wait in the peak of summer had gone in vain.

The country definitely expects more from Rahul, who is supposed to be the PM in waiting and the future leader of the country. Speak your mind out. Let the country know about your ideas, views and what you are thinking. Let the people judge you on the basis of your intellect and not your dynasty. This will do you no harm. It will only help you. (18.12.2011)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/28565-rahul-misses-punjab-date.html

Which way will Punjab go?

Electoral mood cannot be gauged from one victory or a defeat

Elections are supposed to be a barometer of popular will. They definitely indicate what people are thinking and which way the wind is blowing. But over a period of time, I have found that one cannot associate long-term political trend with one election here and there. The mood of the entire state or region, leave apart the country, cannot be judged from one victory or one defeat.

Every election is unique. Mood of the people keeps changing from an election held in one constituency to the other, from one state to the other, from one issue to the other and from one month to the other.

Recently, I observed some bye-elections in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and the elections of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee in Punjab. I find it difficult to spot a pattern and predict the course of political events which are likely to take place in the next six months or a year.

Take for instance the Hisar Lok Sabha by-polls held in the backdrop of Anna Hazare’s anti-graft crusade and his call to vote against the Congress. The grand old party was defeated and various reasons were ascribed for the victory of the HJC-BJP candidate Kuldeep Bishnoi. It was thought that the tide was turning against the Congress due to Hazare at the national level and it indicated the things to come in the future. It was said that Congress had lost its momentum and was on the back-foot after the so called assault of civil society. When I went to Hisar and talked to a cross section of people and juxtaposed it with the facts, figures, prevailing sentiments and the respective strength and weakness of the candidates, it was easy to predict that Congress was a distant third. Hazare or no Hazare, Congress was defeated the moment it announced its candidate.

But six weeks later, Congress won Ratia Assembly seat after a gap of 29 years. It was undoubtedly a difficult seat but Congress wrested the seat from Indian National Lok Dal with remarkable ease and the theory ascribed for the Hisar defeat now went for a toss. After Ratia victory, Congress leaders and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda claimed that this indicated the outcome in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, elections which are slated next year.

Now, only an amateur would believe in the self-patting assertions of Hooda. Anyone who follows politics closely would say that it was a boast which has no ground at all, no reasons to substantiate and based entirely on a premise which has nothing to do with politics at the grassroots.

Let us move on to Himachal Pradesh. Elections were held at Renuka and Nalagarh constituencies at a time when Assembly elections for the state are almost a year away. Ideally, the outcome could have indicated which party, BJP or Congress, would form the next government in the Hill state. And what do you get. BJP won from Congress stronghold of Renuka while the Congress won from a seat (Nalagarh) where the BJP was traditionally strong. Both the seats fell vacant due to the death of sitting MLAs. Both Congress and BJP tried to cash in on the sympathy factor by fielding the son of the sitting Congress MLA from Renuka and the wife of the sitting BJP MLA from Nalagarh. Both the parties failed. Now can anyone stick his or her neck out and say which way the political wind is blowing in Himachal Pradesh, presently ruled by the BJP at this point of time.

I find only one common thread in Ratia, Renuka and Nalagarh. People did not vote for the family members of the deceased MLAs. You cannot count “sympathy” as the sole poll factor these days as voters look for other qualifications and leadership qualities in a candidate. But then, in Hisar Kuldeep Bishnoi won after his father Bhajan Lal died and in Adampur, Renuka Bishnoi won after the seat was vacated by her husband. So, sympathy may not have worked in Ratia, Renuka and Nalagarh but it indeed worked in a limited way in both the seats won by the Bishnoi family. The point is one cannot draw a theory after a poll outcome. A variety of factors, grassroots issues, delicate sub-regional and village level problems etc. contribute to the final outcome.

Coming to Punjab, it was the Shiromani Akali Dal which swept the SGPC polls held in September and won an unprecedented 157 out of 170 seats. But can any political pundit come out and predict with certainty that the outcome in the Assembly elections would be even close to what happened in SGPC. Also can anyone guarantee that all the voters who voted for SAD in SGPC polls, would vote for the same party in Assembly polls? It’s simply not possible to predict outcome of election on the basis of a given set of facts, figure and history. The electoral behaviour is dynamic and keeps changing week after week, region after region.

I have another example, an election which I covered as a journalist extensively. In Delhi, BJP won the municipal elections held in April 2007 by a decent margin. Leaders of the party were expecting that BJP would be voted to power in Assembly elections of 2008. More so as Congress was making a bid for power for the third time in a row and there was supposed to be an anti-incumbency factor. But what happened, Congress was again swept to power and those who were predicting a BJP victory on the basis of results of civic polls, simply had to eat a humble pie.

My point is that there is no mathematical theory or a rule to gauge the mood of the people and then predict electoral outcome. Issues and factors vary from one village to the other, from one constituency to the other in the same state, one profession to the other and one community to the other.

Punjab, which goes to polls in less than three months from now, has three regions – Malwa, Doaba and Majha. All have their own set of issues, problems, social composition and electoral trend. Only a close and detailed field analysis could gauze electoral mood and trend. It has to be juxtaposed with a host of factors and even after that predicting the poll outcome could still be a risky proposition even when 7-8 weeks are left for polling given that there is no visible wave in support or against any party at this point. (11.12.2011)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/26880-which-way-will-punjab-go.html

Cong in no hurry to declare Punjab candidates

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh:

Congress seems to be in no hurry to declare its candidates for the Punjab Assembly elections even though the party has come out with its list of nominees for most of the seats in Uttar Pradesh which goes to polls much later.

The Screening Committee of Congress for Punjab is expected to sit in New Delhi later this week for selection of candidates after the party invited applications for the 117 seats in the state. It has got around 1500 applications and the candidates will be selected from this list itself.

Screening Committee for the state comprises of two neutral members - Union Minister C P Joshi who hails from Rajasthan and is the Chairman and Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President J P Agarwal who is the Vice Chairman. AICC in-charge of the state Gulchain Singh Charak, PCC President Captain Amarinder Singh and CLP leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal are the other members of the committee which will screen out the non-serious applicants. It will hold 3-4 marathon meetings, to come to a conclusion about the candidates. Such a meeting is normally held at a ‘secret’ venue so that the aspirants do not indulge in a show of strength before the leaders to get party’s nomination.

After the Screening Committee selects a panel of names, not more than three for every constituency, it would be sent to the Central Election Committee of the party, headed by party President Sonia Gandhi. Merits and demerits of each candidate, recommended by the Screening Committee, would be spelt out by the C P Joshi led committee. The Central Election Committee has 14 members, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, amongst others, as a member and it will finally select the candidate after getting inputs from the Screening Committee.

Given that the process is lengthy and this is followed as a rule, the announcement of candidates could only be made at the earliest by the end of this year and that too if the party shows urgency. In the last week of December, most of the members of the Central Election Committee would be out of Delhi as Parliament would not be in session and also due to the Christmas and New Year break. This means that the first list of the party could come out only around the time of filing of nominations and candidates would get barely three weeks to prepare themselves and fight the polls.

Unlike Punjab, in UP, where the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi is taking personal interest, the process of Screening Committee and Central Election Committee meetings was concluded much earlier. In fact, the process started more than six months ago and candidates asked to campaign instead of keep waiting for the ticket at the last moment.

Ironically, the delay in declaration of candidates in Punjab comes even though the Antony Committee of the party had recommended in 2008 that candidates should be selected much in advance to give them sufficient time for preparations. The Antony Committee was formed in 2008 after the debacle of Congress in a series of elections beginning Punjab in 2007 polls and later in Karnataka assembly elections in 2008. It was tasked to find out the reasons of the slump of the party and recommend remedial measures.

The Committee had also recommended that the leader in-charge of the organisation in the states and general secretaries should not fight the polls but lead the party and supervise its campaign. This norm has been breached so often that it is not even being talked about in the party now. PCC chief Captain Amarinder Singh, who is also spearheading the poll campaign, will himself slug it out in Patiala even though the constituency is a pocket borough of the former Maharaja and his family. (Dec 7, 2011)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/26040-cong-in-no-hurry-to-declare-punjab-candidates.html

Akali, Cong dangal gets gripping by day

Observing Punjab in the run-up to Assembly elections is like watching an action packed Hollywood movie in 3-dimension. You do not know from where would the next stunt come and what it would be - but only if you are watching the movie for the first time. If you watch the same movie again, the surprise element is lost and you know the sequence of everything.

I find Punjab politics quite similar. Abuses are hurled at the slightest pretext. There is no respect for your opponent and it is a game of Kabaddi in the political arena where grappling the opponent by the neck is considered more important. If you show respect to your opponent in a game of Kabaddi or boxing and don’t grapple the person opposed to you or don’t punch him in the face, you had it. You lose the bout then and there. Perhaps politicians in Punjab take the games of Kabaddi and boxing really seriously and apply the principles in politics as well.

After firing one verbal missile after the other against his Akali opponents, Punjab Congress President and chief ministerial aspirant Captain Amarinder Singh has now gone back in history and questioned the very division of Punjab in 1966 on linguistic lines. He blames his arch rival and chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for demanding Punjabi suba which led to the division in the first place. He reminisces about a Punjab which extended from Gurgaon and Faridabad near Delhi to the Chinese border in Lahaul and Spiti. Of course the present day Punjab too was a part of this huge geographical entity.

I was not born when Punjab was divided and Haryana and Himachal Pradesh carved out. In fact a majority of the population in present day Punjab wasn’t and they just don’t care. I wonder why the Captain does not extend his logic to 1947 when the British bureaucrat Radcliffe divided Punjab between India and Pakistan. Hadn’t it been great if Lahore too were a part of Punjab and one could have travelled to Peshawar without any hitch in the Frontier Mail and the Punjab Mail and devoured Butter Chicken somewhere in the North West Frontier Province were it was apparently invented.

But then, you cannot blame the Akalis for the partition of the united Punjab of 1947. You cannot even blame the Congress led by Gandhi and the divide and rule policy of the British. Raking the issue cannot earn you even a single vote. But obviously you can blame Badal for all the ills, perceived or real, and hope to find some sympathetic ear and some votes. Never mind that Badal was just a small time politician when the Punjabi Suba agitation was launched and he won his first election on a Congress ticket in 1957 when the Akalis were in alliance with the Jawaharlal Nehru led party then.

Initially, I thought Congress had gone back to something which happened 45 years ago by mistake. But I was wrong. The allegation is still being repeated by the party in its meetings and the Captain is still making the same charges.

It would indeed be interesting to find out how many voters are there in Punjab who remember what happened in 1966 and the Punjabi suba agitation before that. I don’t think more than a miniscule percentage and they might not even mean anything.

If Congress still remembers the Punjabi suba agitation of the 1960s and is trying to make it an issue unmindful of the fact that it can never press for a pre-1966 status even if a Congress government is in power and that too which is headed by a Punjabi, Manmohan Singh, the Akali Dal is not too far behind. It has its own set of verbal abuses against Congress and also exploits history to its advantage.

Youth Akali Dal president. Bikram Singh Majithia wants to rewind history back to 1984 and says that the only “contribution of the Congress party was the army assault on the holiest of our holy shrines, Sri Harmandar Sahib and persecution of the Sikh youth in the border areas.”

Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal is trying to emerge as the tallest Akali leader from Majha (Amritsar and neighbouring districts), unsuccessfully tried to raise an issue which has been exploited to the hilt by successive Akali leaders. It has been milked so much that it no longer yields any political dividend.

Given the shape the political battle is taking as dates for election approach, I won’t be surprised if someone goes back to 1947 and rakes up the issue of partition of British Punjab, undoubtedly one of the most tragic episodes of south Asian history. If going back in history serves any purpose, then why not remember Maharaja Ranjit Singh whose empire comprised parts of Afghanistan and not only west Punjab. Is there anyone who wants that those areas of Afghanistan which were part of the Maharaja’s empire be given back to Indian Punjab?

But then history is remembered selectively. You remember what you think could help you and forget what is inconvenient. You use history to target opponents and this surely is self destructive.

I studied history in Delhi University but not at a time when A K Ramanujan’s “300 Ramayana’s” was a part of the undergraduate syllabus. When I was a student, I read many Indian Council of Historical Research journals, papers presented at the Indian History Congress and books. Perhaps Ramanujan hadn’t penned his piece then. But then when I read it recently, I did not find it worthy of being used in syllabus of undergraduate students. May be, it could be a part of the papers in ICHR books or the IHC and not the text books. You cannot question the beliefs and conviction of a community through history.

When the Ram Janambhoomi movement had peaked, I remember noted historian R S Sharma giving a lecture in Delhi University. “Don’t misuse history. Let it be where it is. Don’t look for excuses and justifications in history. It will only be counterproductive,” the man in dhoti-kurta had said. He has been dubbed as a “Leftist” but words and parts of it are still in my memory.

So for Punjab’s sake don’t go back to 1984, 1966 and 1947. Look ahead. The youth want to go ahead and not in the past. (4.12.2011)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/25169-akali-congress-dangal-gets-gripping-by-day.html

Hooda faces acid test again

Adampur & Ratia by-polls

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

Two bye-elections in Haryana, the campaigning for which ended on Monday, is set to test the political prowess of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Congress. Though the outcome on December 4 would not affect either of the three parties and formations (Congress, INLD, HJC-BJP combine) in the state assembly, the long-term implications could be significant.

Ratia and Adampur by-polls on November 30 come close on the heels of the defeat of Congress in the Hisar Lok Sabha by-polls which saw the ruling party in Haryana face the ignominy of losing its security deposit. Now, if Congress loses both Ratia and Adampur, it will be a hatrick of defeats, something which the central party leadership would find difficult to fathom. To make the matters worse, chances of Congress winning any of the two seats is extremely slim given that the party has marginal presence in the poll-bound segments.

Ironically, all three seats – first Hisar and now Ratia and Adampur - had been held by the opposition in the state and Congress was in any case on a sticky wicket here. Hisar fell vacant after the death of Bhajan Lal, the legend of Haryana politics and his son Kuldeep Bishnoi stepped into the shoes of his father successfully by crushing the Congress and edging past INLD.

Ratia, a traditional seat of the opposition – first the Bansi Lal led Haryana Vikas Congress and later Om Prakash Chautala led INLD, fell vacant due to the death of INLD MLA Gyan Chand Odh. Congress has never won from here in the last almost 30 years but if it doesn’t do so now when the focus is on this non-Jat constituency, then certainly questions would be raised regarding the popularity of Hooda and Congress.

Similarly, Adampur has been a family stronghold of Bhajan Lal and the seat fell vacant after Bishnoi got elected from Hisar in the parliamentary by-poll. No one, even the staunchest Congress supporter is enthusiastic about the result which they say is a foregone conclusion. Renuka Bishnoi, the wife of Kuldeep is set to make her debut in the state assembly from this seat, even her opponents admit that.

It is a strange quirk of fate that Hooda had to battle out Hisar and now two by-elections – all of which have been traditional weak links of the Congress. Politically, if he manages even a single win now, it would be an achievement but if he loses all two seats, knives would be out for him in the faction ridden state unit.

Already a section of powerful Haryana leaders like AICC General Secretary Birender Singh and Union Minister Selja are running a campaign against him and three consecutive defeats would only make the matters worse for Hooda who has been in power for seven years now. Hisar defeat sharpened the differences between Hooda and his detractors and two more defeats will take it to a point of no return, observers felt here.

For the fledging alliance of Haryana Janhit Congress and BJP, even a win in Adampur would further cement the ties between the two and prepare them for the next round of Lok Sabha polls in 2014. The allies who are set to share 45 seats each in the next assembly polls and 8 (BJP) and 2 (HJC) in the Lok Sabha polls have successfully polarised anti-Jat votes in the state. In Ratia, it is the BJP nominee who has been pitched against INLD and Congress. If the votes polled by BJP and HJC in the last assembly polls are combined, the tally still falls short of the victorious candidate. But even if the party does not win and is able to get second position, it would indicate that the alliance has gone well with the non-Jat voters of the state and has the potential to upset all poll calculations.

For the INLD a win in Ratia is a must to keep its flock together. It has been out of power for almost seven years now and cannot afford to lose another by-election after Hisar. It has fielded Sarfi Devi, widow of the deceased MLA to cash in on the sympathy factor and retain the seat.

Given the political fallout and long term implications of the two by-polls, all top leaders are campaigning intensively, holding rallies and using all their political guile, something not seen in the run-of-the-mill by-polls. Who is who of Haryana politics is there to campaign along with some national leaders signifying the importance of these by-polls in political realignment. (November 29, 2011)

http://dailypioneer.com/nation/23994-hooda-faces-acid-test-again.html

Don’t mourn for Kishenji, Ishrat

When they chose to live by gun, let them die by gun

The death of Maoist leader Kishenji in an encounter, which has been dubbed as “fake” by his fellow colleagues, underground and overground, and the findings of SIT that Ishrat Jahan was killed in a fake encounter in Gujarat along with her terrorist colleagues by the Gujarat police, has once again put the focus back on so called extra judicial methods adopted by the law enforcing agencies to eliminate hardened criminals.

Kishenji could have violated the provisions of the Indian Penal Code hundreds of times, could have killed hundreds or could have contributed directly or indirectly to the killing of a thousand people but that it not being talked about. Had Kishenji lived for another 10 or 15 years say till the year 2025, can anyone imagine how many more innocent security personnel, tribals and farmers would have been killed by that time. What is being talked about is the alleged act of omission and commission by the security forces in the difficult terrain of Lalgarh and Jangal Mahal in West Bengal not about the background and the killing machine which Kishenji was.

I am not concerned about how he was killed, whether the encounter was genuine or not. My only concern is the “concern” expressed by a section of overt and covert Maoists. When you become a Maoist, go underground, hit the forests, take on the security forces head on and then kill people, you must know what fate awaits you in the end. This definitely is not the jails but the gallows. You lived by the gun all your life and died by the gun. When you did not follow any norms or law, why do you expect that the colleagues and friends of those whom you gunned down, would follow that.

Same is the case with Ishrat Jahan and her fellow LeT operatives. No other than the then Home Secretary G K Pillai says that she had terror links, intelligence inputs were given to the Gujarat government that there was a terror plot to kill chief minister Narendra Modi and that she was a LeT Operative. David Coleman Headley, the terror mastermind, also apparently told the NIA that she was a LeT suicide bomber. Even the LeT claimed her to be its member in its website. Should the Gujarat police have waited for her and her terrorist friends to accomplish her mission of killing the chief minister before doing anything?

I can understand hue and cry being made after the death of an innocent person by security forces. I can understand that those policemen who killed two innocent businessmen in Connaught Place more than a decade back be given due punishment and they have got it. But I fail to understand why a noise is being made at the killing of merchants of death.

The question is who benefits if LeT operatives and Maoist commanders are killed? Not the commandoes and policemen who put their lives at stake and will continue to get a salary of 10 to 15 thousand per month even after a prized terrorist were killed. Not the senior officers who will get their promotions in the stipulated time. It is the society which benefits. I am benefiting. You are benefiting. You enjoy your freedom only when such menace does not lurk around in the vicinity.

Having closely watched terrorism in Punjab ever since I was a school student and its end after a loss of thousands of people, the only question which comes to mind is who benefited when terrorism in this border state came to an end. Obviously the country, the society and the people were the beneficiaries. The security forces and Punjab Police did not benefit from this. People can move about without fear, do their business freely, can venture out at any time they want. Was it possible when terror was the buzzword in Punjab? The answer would obviously be a resounding no.

It was only when the policy of “bullet for bullet” was adopted in Punjab that the average life span of a terrorist was reduced to six months. Senior police officials who battled terrorism in Punjab recalled that when terrorists were put into jail, they converted the criminals and inmates lodged there into terror machines, indoctrinated and trained them. Even two hardened terrorists lodged in a jail were able to indoctrinate 100 lodged there. No judge was willing to convict them. They used to get bail at the first appearance in court itself. There was no witness, no evidence, nothing against them. How could you implement rule of law then?

Rule of law returned to Punjab only when unconventional methods like “bullet for bullet” were adopted. If you fire a bullet or have killed someone ever, be prepared to meet the same fate. This was the unwritten code of Punjab Police and it succeeded in wiping out terror from the face of Punjab. Perhaps this is the only example in the country where terror was completely uprooted.

Indian Penal Code came into being in 1860. Though there have been some amendments, the British version largely remains even now. When IPC was formulated, there were no terrorists around, there were no Maoists, there were no LeT and terror outfits. There were no suicide bombers then nor were there indoctrinated and motivated countries out to fight a covert war with their neighbour through all means. Also isn’t the IPC also meant to punish the guilty, including death to the mass murderers, even though the process could be extremely lengthy and complicated.

Why not simplify the process even now. Why not bring suitable amendment in IPC to fight new forms of terrorism and crime. If someone like Kishenji is caught, tried and given death penalty say within six months, no security force would care to fire a bullet and would instead catch the culprit. It is only when the security forces know that even if they catch a terrorist the menace of terror would not end as the terrorist would continue to enjoy the hospitality of the government (like Afzal Guru, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Kasab and others).

Let us go back to February this year. What did the Maoists do in Odisha? They simply abducted a Collector and got a dozen of their colleagues freed. The state catapulted even though those Maoists, who were freed, had killed scores of people and the security forces managed to arrest them after putting their life at stake. It could have been repeated in West Bengal. Keep Kishenji in jail and allow the Maoists to go for a kidnapping spree to get him released. Should the CRPF have done this?

Rewind the date to December 24, 1999 when Indian Airlines aircraft was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan via Lahore and Dubai. There was only one reason for this hijack and this was to get Maulana Azhar Masood released from a jail in Kashmir. It was not the government but the country which lost its face in the international community after the dreaded terrorist was released. The same Masood’s name figured in dozens of anti-India terrorist activities later on.

It was time when terrorists got due punishment they deserve, if not by the courts, then by law enforcing agencies. Ask questions and give severe punishment even if a single innocent life is lost. Don’t ask questions when peddlers of death meet the fate which they want for others. Don’t create a situation when the security personnel start thinking and contemplating what to do when they see the likes of Osama Bin Laden in front of them. Just allow them to pull the trigger. (November 27, 2011)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/23428-dont-mourn-for-kishenji-ishrat.html

Advani creates ripples

BJP leader LK Advani’s Jan Chetna Yatra is taking place in the region at a time when Punjab stares at assembly elections, UT of Chandigarh is in the middle of civic elections and both Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have assembly by-polls to contend with.

Out of the four geographical boundaries, BJP is in power in the hill state of Himachal and shares power with the Akali Dal as a junior partner in Punjab. It has not been near power in Chandigarh (which only has an elected civic body) for almost a decade while in Haryana, a new alliance has been formed with the Kuldeep Bishnoi led HJC which shows promise as it announced its intent and seriousness in state politics by romping home in the Hisar by polls, considered a watershed in national politics.

It would be premature to analyse the impact of Advani’s Yatra in the region as various political permutations and combinations would be at play in the polls. Moreover, the Yatra was not to highlight regional and state level issues but those concerns which impact all citizens.

But the fact that the Yatra exposed the fissures which the party is having with the Akali Dal is now being admitted by the state BJP leaders in Punjab. Advani was not accorded the type of welcome he deserved as the top leader of NDA. Moreover, BJP leaders felt that SAD deliberately disassociated itself from the Yatra and the ruling party could have handled the protests of the radical Sikh organizations against Advani more deftly.

In addition, instead of a NDA show of strength, it was mainly a BJP show in Punjab with Akali supporters generally keeping away as they had not received directions to come out whole heartedly in support. Nevertheless, the veteran of many a Yatra, Advani was full of vigour and with single minded focus continued his tirade against the UPA and black money stashed in foreign banks.

The Yatra coincided with fierce “verbal war” being fought between the Akalis and its main challenger, Congress. The lung power being exhibited sometimes assumes comic proportions with rival camps spinning creative words and phrases to counter each other. Not a single statement by either chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal or PCC chief Captain Amarinder Singh remains unchallenged in the surcharged political atmosphere.

In this backdrop, February could well turn out to be a watershed in Indian politics and would set the tone for the larger political battle for power in Delhi in the summer of 2014. If the Akali-BJP alliance overcomes the odds and manages to retain power, it would be a setback which Congress is never going to forget. More so, when Manmohan Singh, considered a “son of the soil” is the Prime Minister of the country and a Punjabi icon who has made it big, really big, outside the state, something which every Punjabi aspires for.

But if Congress romps home, it would indicate that issues like Jan Lokpal, Anna Hazare, black money stashed abroad, corruption in high places, runaway inflation etc only have a marginal impact on the people when they go out to exercise their franchise. Elections for Uttar Pradesh Assembly would also be held around the same time as that of Punjab, may be a month later. It too, along with Punjab, would be a crucial landmark for both the Congress and BJP as the largest state in political terms would send a message which is not going to be lost.

By polls of Ratia and Adampur in Haryana too are coming at a time when the Bhupinder Singh Hooda led Congress government is yet to emerge from the aftershocks of the Hisar defeat. The ruling party’s candidate had lost his security deposit, an embarrassment which no explanation from the party can justify. While the outcome at Adampur in the November 30 bye-election is a foregone conclusion, being a stronghold of the Bishnoi family, it would be at Ratia where both BJP and Congress would be tested. Being an INLD stronghold, performance of the BJP-HJC alliance and Congress would be keenly watched here. BJP is contesting Ratia for the first time after an alliance with HJC was stitched and party in-charge of the state Harsh Vardhan says that lost ground has been covered and they were looking for an impressive outing in the electoral arena.

In UT of Chandigarh, changes brought about in reservation of seats have upset the poll calculations of both ruling Congress and the main opposition BJP in the civic body. Ten years of anti-incumbency has forced Congress on the back foot but the challenge of BJP is seemingly not strong enough. The party is yet to find a leader of the stature of Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal who runs the Congress show here. As it would be primarily an urban milieu in which voting will take place, the outcome would surely be keenly watched as it would indicate which party has influence on the urban voters of the country, a segment which is growing rapidly.

Himachal’s assembly election will be held almost a year from now. So the by polls might not matter much. But it will surely point to the trend and whether the ruling BJP is able to hold on to its strength or not. So both Congress and BJP are set to put into place all their political might to give the right message to the electorate of the hill state.

As Advani continues with his Yatra, political parties of Punjab perhaps have learnt the most from his numerous yatras in the past. Be it the SAD, Congress or the PPP – all are trying various hues of the Yatra in the state in the run-up to the February battle. Only the result would indicate which Yatra has been able to convince the voters and which remained merely a travel on the dusty roads, lanes and bylanes of Punjab. (November 20, 2011)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/21781-advani-creates-ripples.html

Narco-terrorism sapping vibrant Punjab

Punjab is in the grip of a deadly virus, a scourge which has wide ranging implications for the future – drug and substance abuse. The problem has reached such alarming proportions that the younger generation faces a bleak future. No one knows how it will manifest 10 years from now.

An entire generation bore the brunt of terrorism in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Thousands lost their lives. Even as the Punjabis overcame their grief and fought terror head on, the deadly drug menace gripped the state, threatening the generation which followed that of the terror victims. People living in the border areas of the state bore the brunt of terrorism, now they are face to face with the narco terror, slowly killing people.

I am not comparing the two situations. But the plight of an average Punjabi mother or wife living in the rural areas of the border districts is the same. Mothers lost their sons and wives lost their husbands during the height of terrorism in the entire 1980s and first half of the 1990s. Now, mothers are losing their sons and wife their husbands to drugs. Earlier, the cult of violence was visible with gun toting men moving around, now drug abuse too is visible with the youth dying a slow, meaningless and painful death.

Drug abuse is no longer a secret in Punjab. Everybody in the state knows someone who has either died because of it or is a drug addict. Every person in the state knows someone who is into substance abuse and has done irreparable damage to himself. There are families where all the male members are addict and they work only to get their quota of the intoxicant, not to take care of their families.

In border districts and cities like Amritsar, petty crime like chain or bag snatchings, waylaying the pedestrians and robbing them are committed only to get some money to get the quota of drugs. These drug addicts and couriers are also in the bigger crime and it has sort of become a part of the parallel economy in these areas.

An Inspector General, earlier posted in the Border Zone, helplessly told me that the problem has reached a magnitude where only a war like intensive effort would help neutralise it and that too it will take several years if started right now.

“We had cut the supply line of drugs. We tried surveillance and enforcement, resulting in the smugglers getting arrested and the addicts starved for drugs. Village elders pleaded that people will die if they do not get their quota. I saw people suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms which even led to deaths,” said the police official. So no one wants the supply lines cut. “If people take drugs, they will die in say 3-5 years. If it is stopped forthwith, some of them could die in a month,” he said, pointing to the need of setting up rehabilitation centres on a war footing and why the village elders do not want the supply lines cut without any plan to rehabilitate the addicts.

Another enforcement official saw a correlation between massive amounts of drugs seized in the months of September and October this year and the Punjab assembly elections. He did not want to divulge but indicated that some candidates for the assembly elections could be hoarding drugs to supply them during the elections and the seizures could only be the tip of iceberg. “The entire border belt from Ferozpur to Pathankot has witnessed hectic activity on the part of the smugglers recently. They are becoming innovative from throwing the drugs from Pakistan to their Indian couriers waiting near the fenced border to using the shallow water in the rivers to cross the border and deliver the drugs,” he said.

In fact, not a single day passes when the Punjab Police or the BSF does not recover a huge quantity of poppy, opium, synthetic drugs and what not. The amount of drugs floating in Punjab is mind boggling so much so that police officials say that it was futile guessing it. The source of these drugs could be smuggling from Afghanistan via Pakistan, the inaccessible hills areas of Himachal Pradesh, some quantity from Nepal and also pilferage from the state controlled poppy farms in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Leave alone the known intoxicants and drugs, when I came here six moths ago, only then I came to know that Correction Fluid, used to rectify typing mistakes, is used as a drug by some. Pain killers and tablets to mitigate stomach ache is taken to get a high. A politician from the Doaba belt told me that mothers in the area pleaded with him to get chemist shops closed in the area as they were selling cough syrups, pain killers etc to the addicts and such shops were of no use to the community.

In fact a Punjab Government survey sometime ago had revealed that 66 per cent of the school-going students in the state consume gutkha or tobacco; every third male and every tenth female student has taken drugs on one pretext or the other and seven out of 10 college-going students abuse one or the other drug.

An affidavit in the Punjab and Haryana High Court admitted that the vibrancy of Punjab is virtually a myth and many even sell their blood to procure their daily doze of deadly drugs, even beg on the streets for money to continue their addiction. It used the word “drug hurricane” to describe the situation which has gripped the state. Multiple drug dependence is the latest bane in which the addicts get into several drugs at a time or simultaneously.

It is not surprising that Punjab has lost its sporting talent and no new sportspersons are coming on the national stage from the state. Instead, Haryana has marched ahead and most of the sportspersons from the northern region are not from Punjab as was the case a few years ago.

I am sure the policy makers, politicians running the state and those in the Opposition, and the bureaucrats know much more than I do on the prevalence of drug abuse in the state. It was time they acted rather then let Punjab fritter away its youth and talent to the menace. (13 November, 2011)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/19967-narco-terrorism-sapping-vibrant-punjab.html

Yatras for Sangat, izzat...votes

With Assembly election knocking at the doors of political parties, the season of political yatras has commenced in Punjab. Every party in the state is in yatra mode to reach out to the people with polls barely three months away.

Congress and the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) might have got a bit late in their canvassing through the yatras. But it was the Shiromani Akali Dal which began the mass contact programme in the state with the much touted Sangat Darshan a few months ago. A concept, the copyright of which is with the SAD, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal visits a village or a small town for the Sangat Darshan which is actually a public relations exercise to consolidate party’s core vote bank. He disburses funds, listens to the grievances of the people, summons officials and gets the work of people done on the spot. He also spent a few nights in the villages, obviously to connect to the common villagers and show that government has reached their doorstep.

Simultaneously, his son and Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal brought in the Kabaddi World Cup, a popular sport in this part of the country. Though the participating international teams might predominantly have expatriate Sikhs and Punjabis as team members, the extravaganza has caught the imagination of the people just ahead of the assembly polls. You could mainly find the surname “Singh” in teams of United States, Italy or Australia and they might have come here to visit their home state, rather than play Kabaddi, but the gatherings have been a perfect platform for Sukhbir to showcase to the people what the SAD-BJP government has done in the state in the last almost five years. Kabaddi has indeed turned into a political strategy in a state where flexing muscles is a part of political expression.

Congress cannot obviously sit and applaud. The party has launched its own “Punjab Bachao Yatra” to counter the Akalis and come back to power in the state. The “yatra” is in the form of rallies and public meetings in different parts of Punjab where the PCC chief and chief ministerial aspirant Captain Amarinder Singh, AICC in-charge of the state Gulchain Singh Charak and Leader of Opposition Rajinder Kaur Bhattal are the “star” campaigners. Local leaders, MLAs and MPs of the party have been taking part in the Yatra where Congress is challenging the Akalis with threats and even abuses. The Captain has successfully prevented Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Punjab to inaugurate the Khalsa Heritage Centre and this surely is a political feather in the cap of the Maharaja.

Then there is the Jan Chetna Yatra of BJP veteran LK Advani. Though, it is an all-India Yatra, Advani will spend 3 days in Punjab. The timing is crucial as it coincides with the intensive campaign which other parties have launched in the state. BJP has been struggling with its urban support base in recent months and the party leaders believe that the Yatra would help consolidate its support in the state and unite the warring leaders.

Another Yatri in the poll season of Punjab is Manpreet Badal, the nephew of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal who was expelled from the party last year and subsequently formed Peoples Party of Punjab. Manpreet has “Izzat Bachao Yatra” to bank on and has adopted the same modus operandi like the Congress. He is attacking the Badals day in and day out and there is nothing to choose between his PPP and the Congress. His Yatra might not draw the kind of support he is expecting but the Third Front nevertheless seems to be a reality with the formation of the Sanjha Morcha which comprises the Left parties. Bahujan Samaj Party is set to join this platform and this could upset the existing poll calculations of both the SAD-BJP combine and the Congress with around 31 per cent of the voters belonging to the dalit category.

If these Yatras were not enough, Baba Ramdev too has started his “Swabhiman Yatra” in the poll bound Punjab. He may not be aspiring for a political position as of now, but his sustained anti-Congress diatribe has rattled Punjab Congress. Reviving the plank of black money, money stashed in foreign banks and the “treachery” of the ruling party at the Centre, Baba’s yoga camp and the Swabhiman Yatra will only benefit the SAD-BJP combine. He hailed Kabaddi as a sport to get rid of drugs and also appreciated the Badals for organising the event. The Baba in fact got into a loin cloth, entered into the Kabaddi arena and participated in a game in Moga. With photos splashed all across, the message is not lost. All his activities in the run-up to the polls is intended to benefit the ruling alliance in the state by default.

Anna Hazare too has plans for Punjab. This is one untested political commodity which the Congress fears but cannot admit openly. The septuagenarian anti-graft crusader has threatened to hold a day long fast in Punjab and campaign against the Congress if the Jan Lokpal Bill is not passed in the Winter Session of Parliament. No one knows whether the crowd and the television cameras which Anna can generate will translate into votes. But he will grab the eyeballs and this is what has sent Congress on the backfoot. It is no longer a secret that Congress loathes him. You talk to any leader, big or small, from the party and they only have negative platitudes for Anna and his team.

Captain Amarinder Singh lobbied hard to prevent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from coming to Punjab to inaugurate an “Akali project” to prevent his rivals from benefiting in the assembly polls. He wrote letters to the PM and brought the issue in a meeting with party President Sonia Gandhi. I am not sure whether he would lobby for the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Winter Session, lest Team Anna campaigns against Congress and affects his prospects of coming to power in the state.

The long and short of this is that Punjab is headed for a photo finish. I have not seen any survey, pre poll forecasts or psephology in play in the state in recent weeks. No one is sticking his or her neck out and say what will happen when people go out and press the buttons of the EVMs in February.

So what will be the poll issues? My guess is that it would be cocktail of local and national issues – the governance or lack of it (as the Congress and PPP alleges), rapid development of the state (as the Akali Dal claims), Jan Lok Pal Bill (as Team Anna would like us to believe), black money stashed abroad (Baba Ramdev) or corruption (Jan Chetna Yatra of Advani). Then obviously price rise, inflation, petrol price hike (middle class Punjabis love driving and they feel the pinch).

This cocktail is set to keep the pot boiling till the election result settles it. (November 6, 2011)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/18223-yatras-for-sangat-izzat-votes.html

Chhath — honouring the bounties of nature

Amitabh Shukla

After the pomp and show of Diwali where celebration is the key and materialism rules the roost, comes the festival of Chhath in which the devotees connect with the Supreme Being through tough rituals, strong belief and solemnity. The festival and the vrat honours and remembers the natural forces which have been sustaining the human body, mind and the spirit since the dawn of civilisation. This is the only festival of the country in which prayers are offered not only to the rising sun but also the setting sun. The symbolism is inherent – never forget one who is down and out.

Unlike other festivals, there may not be any structured myth or tale associated with Chhath as it evolved naturally over centuries. It is a festival of prayer and propitiation observed with extreme solemnity. Spirituality is inherent in the numerous observations rather than celebration. It is the inner self and its purification which is the core of the festival. People observing the vrat, fast without food and water for 36 hours. The idea is to purify their body and spirit in the process. Only after all the numerous rituals are complete is the person permitted to have his food which reinforces their belief in nature and its numerous bounties.

Thanksgiving and seeking the blessings from the forces of nature - Sun God, mother earth and the river (water) is the core of the festival. The people believe that the wish of a devotee who has followed all the prescribed rituals is always fulfilled.

Like other festivals, different devotees seek different meaning from the festival and have their own interpretation. For many, it is Chhathi Maiyya whom they honour, giving a feminine touch to the worship of sun God. But the basic premise that nature is all powerful and human beings a small part of this nature, is never lost. It also reminds of the days when human civilization was confined to the river banks and sustained itself only through the forces of nature.

The strict discipline during the festival means that people go for a strict salt less vegetarian diet cooked in earthen vessels a day after Diwali. The devotees sleep on floor and wear unstiched clothes. In the evening, in the midst of the setting sun, holy water and milk is poured in the river or a water body (argya) and blessings of the God sought for the entire family. The devotees stand in knee deep water performing this ritual.

Interestingly, there is hardly any mythology behind the Chhat puja and there are no religious books which define how the puja has to be carried out. This has been traditionally carried over through the centuries by word of mouth and imitations, passing from one generation to the other without losing its essential meaning.

A unique element of Chhat is its universality among all castes and communities among Hindus of Bihar and eastern UP. People living in those areas have taken this festival to wherever they live, in India or abroad.

The offerings to the gods makes it clear that twice in the year, at the time of harvesting season (chait and kartik) people thank their creator for providing them ample food. The offerings include, thekua made of wheat floor, all seasonal vegetables, gram, coconut, lemon, sugar cane and milk. The offerings are made in new baskets made of green bamboo.

Every activity and offering is natural, derived from the five elements of nature – earth, fire, sky, water and air – the five pillars of life. Chhat also is a symbolism of Hindu philosophy which says that a person is made of these five elements and then dissolves himself in those five elements after his life cycle comes to an end. (1.11.11)

Prime Minister as mascot in poll-bound Punjab

The ongoing political crossfire between Shiromani Akali Dal and the Congress has found an unlikely victim - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The PM’s acceptance of an invitation from the SAD to lay the foundation stone of the Mohali airport and to inaugurate the Khalsa Heritage Centre, has seen raised eyebrows in Punjab Congress which feels that the move could help their arch rivals gain political mileage at a time when assembly elections are a little over three months away.

In their meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi at 10, Janpath in New Delhi a few days ago, PCC President Captain Amarinder Singh and Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal apparently raised the issue. As they could not have raised it with the PM directly, they wanted Gandhi’s intervention so that the Prime Minister does not turn up for the event and according to them, give electoral mileage to SAD. Gandhi’s response remains a matter of conjecture but the fact that the matter was selectively leaked to a section of the media by the Congress leaders themselves meant that they wanted the issue to have an impact in Punjab.

It did impact Punjab politics. SAD, fighting anti-incumbency after almost five years of rule and trying to mitigate it with a series of announcements and allurement to the voters, jumped at the first given opportunity and dubbed the Congress game-plan as regressive and against the state. “He is the Prime Minister of the entire country and not of the Congress,” said an Akali leader.

While Congress obviously does not want SAD to get any advantage whatsoever in the tough battle ahead, the ruling party in Punjab wants to announce as many schemes, do as many inaugurations and give whatever it can to the state government employees before the model code of conduct comes into force. Extending invitation to the Prime Minister to inaugurate two projects fitted in the political game-plan of the Akalis perfectly. They know that the visit of the PM to his home state (though technically Singh is a resident of Assam and pays house rent to retain a Guwahati address) would raise hype and benefit them politically. More so when one of the project - the Sikh Heritage Centre at Anandpur Sahib –has religious connotations to some extent and the Gurudwara based politics of the Akalis would get a fillip if inaugurated by a Sikh Prime Minister.

The critics may say that Manmohan Singh is a Prime Minister without mass following and is not comfortable in election rallies and meetings, but he does have an appeal in Punjab and this appeal cuts across party lines and sectarian politics of region and caste. He is considered a “son of the soil” who has made it really big, an aspiration which most Punjabis and Sikhs have as reflected in their desperate attempt to migrate abroad. The Akalis may criticise the Congress and central government everyday for whatever they perceive as good or bad but they never criticise the Prime Minister, come what may. They know for sure that being critical of Singh is not good politics in Punjab and could have adverse electoral fallout. So, whenever, the Akalis mention the name of Singh, it is with awe and certain amount of reverence.

In fact, even for the Congress, the PM remains a great vote catcher in Punjab, a face on which they can bank on here. When I was reporting on the Lok Sabha election of 2009 from Punjab for the Press Trust of India, where I was working then, it was a revelation to find that the posters and banners with the picture of the PM in the publicity material of the Congress were taller than that of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi. In some of these publicity materials, only the photos of the PM along with the local candidate were there along with the symbol of hand. Clearly, the candidates in the state knew the pulse of the people that it was Singh who was more important in the state than the two members of the Gandhi family.

When Singh, addressed an election rally in Amritsar along with Rahul Gandhi in the 2009 polls, I remember it was pin drop silence and all ears were glued for him as he spoke in Punjabi and touched both national and local issues. Gandhi hardly had that kind of impact in the city of Golden Temple. It is a different matter that Congress lost election from the seat to Navjot Singh Sidhu of the BJP even though the relatively unknown party candidate gave a tough fight to the inimitable “Guru”.

So the slugfest between Congress and the SAD on Manmohan Singh is not surprising. In a tough election where no one for sure knows the mind of the electorate even as polls are barely 100 days away, even a small gain and a miniscule swing could turn out to be decisive. None of the two principal parties want to squander this gain and allow the rival to have an advantage.

Though Punjab has never returned an incumbent government and it has been Akalis one time and Congress next time and vice versa, the situation is not that simple this time round. Even Congress knows that it is not a cakewalk and the traditional theory may not count much. The psephologists here too are not sure which way the wind is blowing even as election is knocking at their doors.

Several non-Congress governments have been repeated in states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Gujarat and Orissa while Congress governments too have been repeated in Delhi, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. In fact, among the major states, governments have changed only in Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan in the last three years or so. To put it simply, a government retaining power in Punjab is not a distinct possibility and Congress cannot take it for granted that the Akalis would be voted out of power simply because of a historical trend in the state to this effect.

Both Akalis and Congress have been hitting each other below the belt in the run-up to the elections with colourful slang and language, something which cannot be found in any other state. A senior journalist aptly pointed out that in Punjab politics is more brawn than brain, more so when a close election is being fought.

Though the official dates for the two high profile inauguration have not been decided yet, it is now a million dollar question whether the PM would finally approve the dates given the fact that his party functionaries themselves are critical of a seemingly apolitical inauguration.

A section of the Akali leaders are hoping that the PM would not campaign in the Assembly polls in February given his “national and international commitments” while Congress leaders are already planning to prepare a schedule of campaigning for Singh and they want him to be projected as the “star” campaigner.

It is now upto the Prime Minister to take a call. He will have to walk a political tightrope either way in the state, headed for one of the most interesting battle of the ballot. (October 30, 2011)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/16537-prime-minister-as-mascot-in-poll-bound-punjab.html