India This Week

Congress UP Plans Under Brahmin Influence; Point, Counterpoint; Challenge in the Air

Downed by his abusive remarks against NCP Chief Sharad Pawar about a month back, Congress leader Satyavrata Chaturvedi seems to have started his upward journey once again. The outspoken leader’s revival bid is believed to be powered by his growing proximity to the party’s young power centre—Rahul Gandhi.

Sources say Chaturvedi has had three rounds of interactions with Rahul Gandhi. He was even invited to 12 Tughlaq Lane, residence of Rahul Gandhi, to make a presentation on how to turn things around in Uttar Pradesh.

Many in the party see these interactions as an indication of Chaturvedi’s increasing role in the politically crucial north Indian state.

A month back, Chaturvedi was sacked from the post of party spokesperson, after a TV news channel showed him using ‘uncivilised language’ against Pawar. Besides condemning Pawar’s failure to check rising prices, he even used a cuss word against the Maratha strongman. NCP members were furious on seeing the footage, forcing the Congress to take action against its spokesman.

The interactions of Chaturvedi—a prominent Brahmin face in the Congress—with Rahul Gandhi, however, have opened up a fresh avenue for him. Brahmins, who account for nearly 9 per cent of the population in Uttar Pradesh, are considered significant in Congress’ bid to regain lost ground in the state. The apex caste, many of whom are said to have backed CM Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the previous Assembly election in 2007, has started giving indications of reverting loyalty to the grand old party—which is currently busy trying to revive the rainbow coalition of Muslims, Brahmins and a section of Dalits which once kept it in power in Uttar Pradesh.

Chaturvedi had surprised many Congressmen when the party High Command appointed him general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh in 2004. He, however, soon engaged in a tug-of-war with the then UP Pradesh Congress Committee Chief Salman Khursheed. After a prolonged duel between the two, Chaturvedi had been taken off Uttar Pradesh. Now, he’s back.

First, the Congress used the 119th anniversary of BR Ambedkar to launch statewide rath yatras in Uttar Pradesh to target Mayawati’s regime in the state. Now it’s her turn to hit back. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is not going to take the Congress’ affront lying down, the UP Chief Minister reportedly told her party and government. BSP is now all set to launch protest rallies on the first anniversary of the UPA Government’s second regime. Sources in Lucknow say Mayawati has told partymen to turn Congress’ campaign into an opportunity to “expose Congress misrule”. UPA II completes one year in office on 22 May. Mayawati has entrusted her confidante and cabinet colleague Naseemuddin Siddiqui the task of mobilising party workers in district units for the campaign. The ten rath yatras that Rahul Gandhi had flagged off are now campaigning across the state against non-Congress, particularly Mayawati’s, regimes in the state. As a counter force, the BSP will hold rallies in areas that Congress yatras have already passed.

The war of succession between sons of M Karunanidhi—DMK patriarch and Tamil Nadu’s ailing Chief Minister—just took another interesting turn.

With an initial investment of Rs 50 crore, Union Minister MK Alagiri’s son Durai Dayanidhi Alagiri has launched a multi-system operator (MSO) cable network in Chennai. Called Jak Communications, it aims to challenge the near monopoly that Sumangaly Cable Vision (SCV) enjoys in Tamil Nadu. SCV is promoted by his uncles Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran, who are aligned with Alagiri’s younger brother and Tamil Nadu’s Deputy Chief Minister MK Stalin in the bitter war of succession. Alagiri had earlier launched Royal Cable Vision in Madurai, after his public spat with the Maran brothers. 

The new Indian Army chief, General VK Singh, is on his maiden tour to Jammu & Kashmir at a time that his organisation has come under severe criticism for killing a 70-year-old beggar and dubbing him a militant.

It was in north Kashmir last week that the Army claimed to have killed an elderly militant, from whom, they said, an AK-47 rifle had been recovered. Later, that person was identified as Habibullah Khan, a beggar who had left his home a day before. After receiving a complaint from Khan’s family, the district collector of Kupwara gave orders to exhume the body.

The incident has turned out to be a major embarrassment for the Army and Omar Abdullah government. Separatist groups have lost no time in cashing in on the incident and firing their guns at a statement that the Army chief gave two days after the incident. Opposing any move to withdraw or dilute the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA, from Jammu & Kashmir, General Singh said that any such move would adversely affect the functioning of the armed forces, and that its utility “cannot be disputed”. As General Singh arrives in the Kashmir Valley, the issue will be taken up with him by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

The Army chief may be right about the claimed utility of the AFSPA, but it is imperative that certain provisions be taken to ensure that those guilty of fake encounters such as that of the 70-year-old man don’t go unpunished. After all, it is because of the AFSPA that no case will be registered against the armymen involved in the killing. By now, the Government should have taken lessons from the misuse of the Act not only in Kashmir, but also in other insurgency-affected areas like Manipur.

On his part, the new Army chief can set an example by conducting a swift inquiry into the incident and fixing responsibility. Incidents like these alienate the people further and offer a deadly brew to separatist groups to poison the people’s mind against the Indian State. If the Centre is serious about its ‘healing touch’ policy, a balm should be applied now.

Less than a month from now, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government would have completed one year in office. This will be its first anniversary, but only technically. The UPA has been in power since 2004 and the second coming has more or less the same set of ministers in charge of key portfolios as the UPA that went into the 2009 election—the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Defence Minister and so on. Yet, the way the alliance has conducted itself in the current Budget session of Parliament makes it seem like a rookie government.

At the beginning of the session, in February, the Government listed more than 60 Bills for introduction and about half the number for passage in the current session. As the session draws to a close, only a handful of these Bills have been introduced, while both Houses have passed just one Bill. The Women’s Reservation Bill has been passed only in the Upper House and the drama that accompanied it has reduced the UPA’s comfortable majority into a wafer-thin one. The Government was forced to put off the introduction of the Nuclear Liability Bill at the last moment, and even passing the Finance Bill—on which the survival of the Government depends—is likely to come with its share of drama.

The Food Security Bill was cleared by the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) in March. But less than a month later, the EGoM met again to debate the finer points of the programme and revise it. The EGoM, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had obviously got it all wrong the first time, then. Lapses such as these have caused unnecessary delays in legislation as another session of Parliament comes to an end. 

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