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