New Delhi

May 4, 2004

HELPLESS IN RECTIFYING BIG FLAW IN POLLS

If you are not able to exercise your right in running of
democracy, you are among lakhs of the deprived citizens who find their names missing from the electoral rolls. The Election Commission accepts this major flaw in the rolls, particularly in the states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, but its officials say they are helpless to do anything. They have the choice to stop the elections and first rectify the lacunae but the process of correcting the rolls will take a minimum of
four months and that would amount to derailing the elections.

The best though wrong choice the Election Commission made was to push under the carpet all complaints about deletion of names of the eligible voters or missing names from the electoral rolls. Officials dread that the step may result in a slap on their face if someone having the voter's identity card moves the court. They know that this flaw in the election
would be made an issue in the election petitions but they are not worried about it since the petitions can be filed only after the elections and thus they will not derail the elections as can an order of the Supreme Court or any High Court to revise the rolls and suspend the elections till then.

The Election Commission is supposed to dispose off every complaint relating to the election it gets but it has chosen to keep pending all complaints of the missing names to deal with them after the polls. Officials point out that they get on an average 1000 complaints from across the country and the majority of them happen to be against the faulty electoral rolls. As such, the Election Commission wants to evolve a
new method in preparation of the rolls after the current Lok Sabha elections are over. And, so you have to wait until the next elections to exercise your fundamental right of vote if you missed it this time.

Its the Congress (the Gandhi Family) versus the BJP( Atal B.Vajpayee) The Congress candidates in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh going to polls on Tuesday desperately wanted the entire Gandhi family to campaign for them
to overcome the demoralisation that has set among the party workers from the defeat in the assembly elections in November. Congress President Sonia Gandhi did canvass in some of the constituencies but missing was her
daughter Priyanka who was supposed to undertake a whirlwind tour of the maximum number of constituencies. The control room set up in the AICC headquarters keep getting frentic inquiries from the states about the schedules of Priyanka and her brother Rahul, but there is only one answer
that they will let know the schedule whenever it is finalised. Maybe, the Congress managers who have tried to build up popularity of Priyanka and Rahul are reluctant about they losing the aura if the Assembly results are repeated in these states despite their campaigning.

That is, however, not the case with Delhi where the Congress won the Assembly election thumpingly and yet both Priyanka and Rahul are missing from the campaign even in the capital. The only promise that the Delhi PCC got was that they would be joining their mother in addressing the only
rally Sonia Gandhi is going to address this week. Organisers of Sonia Gandhi's public meeting on the Ramlila Grounds are, however, thrown into utter confusion by the sudden decision of 10 Janpath that she will address it on Thursday and not on Friday since she wants to campaign in Tamil Nadu on Friday. All arrangements, that includes bringing people in trucks and buses not only from distant places in Delhi but also from Haryana, had been made for the Friday rally and hence the organisers complain that transportation of the people a day earlier would be difficult and this may reflect in poor attendance.

Managers of Sonia Gandhi's schedule are not ready to entertain this difficulty despite the fact that the poor attendance at the Congress President's rally may have an adverse impact on the winning chances of the Congress candidates, particularly when the BJP had swept away all the
seven seats in the capital in the 1999 elections. A joke going on among the BJP workers is that Sonia Gandhi has changed the date of her public meeting in Delhi because she is too scared to face Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi going to campaign on Friday all over the capital for the BJP.

Congress candidate Sandeep Dikshit's campaign in East Delhi is being carried out less by him and more by his mother Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, "mausi" (sister of mother) and Gujarati wife Mona. While Sandeep is a reserved kind of person, it is outgoing wife Mona who has been going from house to house to ask for votes. Sandeep had fallen in love with Mona
while studying in Anand. He was supposed to give presentation of a project but he could not make it to the place when Mona took the responsibility to present the project and this instantly won Sandeep's heart. Sandeep says Mona is again doing the same in this election to compensate for his hesitation in meeting the voters at their door steps. He is limiting himself to address the corner public meetings while leaving it up to Mona to move from door to door. That way Sandeep has no derth of campaigners
for him as those campaigning for him are five of the six Delhi ministers besides the entire family, including Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit wanting her son to shift from the role of a NGO engaged in rural works to the role of a MP serving the urban poor.

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ELECTIONS IN THE PUNJAB

Punjab chief Minister Amrinder Singh is not a candidate in the Lok Sabha elections and yet the rival Akali Dal's entire campaign is built on his misrule in the state. A surrogate advertisement appearing in the Punjab newspapers on Tuesday in the name of Satpal Singh Chann tries to influence
the Sikh psyche by citing "A legacy of betrayal against Sikhs" by the royal House of Patiala to which Amrinder belongs. And those betrayals are traced back from 1745 when Baba Ala Singh was bestowed the title of Raja by Ahmed Shah Abdali, described as "the largest spiller of Sikh blood in history." Instead of finding any fault with the Amrinder Singh's
government, his betrayal of the Sikhs is attributed to violation of "sanctity of Sri Darbara Sahib by sending police into the Golden Temple complex." Here is a list of the betrayals of the royal family of Patiala given in the advertisement: Raja Amar Singh in 1765 joined hands with
Ahmed Shah Abdali to save own kingdon and squashed the Sikh uprisings by killing thousands of Sikhs; Raja Sahib Singh (1788 AD) who always sided with the British in obstructing the fight for freedom of the Panth; Maharaja Karam Singh (1845) who received money, land and titles for fighting on side of the British during the first Anglo-Sikh war, Maharaja Bhupindra Singh (1921) who hobnobbed with the fascist forces of Mussolini and Hitler in hope of gaining the Indian kingdom; and Maharaja Yadvindra Singh (1947) who never supported the Sikh leaders during the merger of
Punjab or consequent statehood after Indian freedom.

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ASKING FOR VOTES IN THE NAME OF "RAJPUT PRIDE"

Raja Bhaiya, Pratapgarh MLA languishing in jail under POTA, has become the focus of the campaign by both Samajwadi Party and Bhartiya Janata Party in this lok Sabha election and the votes are being asked in his name for the sake of "Rajput pride." Since Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar
Singh, hiself a Rajput, has been campaigning in Uttar Pradesh citing the case of Raja Bhaiya to accuse both BSP and BJP for his detention during the Mayawati Government, the BJP rushed Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh to campaign in the state for two days giving his commitment to the Rajputs everywhere that the first he will make the Vajpayee government do after the elections was to ensure that Raja Bhaiya and his father are immediately released from jail and POTA charges are withdrawn against them. The reality is that neither Jaswant Singh nor Samajwadi Party has to do anything as the Uttar Pradesh POTA review committee has already recommended release of Raja Bhaiya.

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A "FAMILY" WITH A DIFFERENCE IN UP - MANY EGGS IN MANY BASKETS

In Hardoi Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh, it is just one family of late MP Parmal Lal contesting the election with the labels of different parties. The late MP's daugher Anita Verma is contesting on the BJP symbol while his daughter-in-law Usha Verma is the Samajwadi Party candidate and
his distant relative Shiv Prasad Verma is in the fray on the BSP ticket. Congress candidate Chand Ram, a former Union Minister, is no relation but he also takes pride in claiming to be part of the great family of the district as he says he was once fielded by late Parmal Lal. The locals, however, do not accept Chand Ram's claim as they point out that he is not
a blood relation and had ditched the constituency by shifting to Haryana after Parmal Lal blessed him to get elected to the Lok Sabha. The real fight may turn out to be between the sister-in-laws -- Anita and Usha. In any case, whosoever wins, the seat is going to remain in the family.

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LALOO'S STRATEGIES IN BIHAR

Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav's charge that Samajwadi Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh has deliberately fielded candidates in Bihar and other states only to help the BJP appears true at least on the Kishanganj constituency from where Union Textiles Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain is seeking re-election. Veteran md Taslimuddin is Laloo's candidate while Mulayam's party has fielded Abdul Jalil Mastan. Campaigners of the Union Minister admit that much of his fate depends on the votes that Mastan secure. The more votes Mastan manage to poll, the brithter will be the prospects of Shahnawaz who is the only Muslim MP elected on the BJP ticket in the 1999 elections. Posters of crying Ansari begging for his and his family's lives during the Gujarat riots dot all six Assembly segments of this constituency and locals say this has greatly polarised the minority voters who were so far a bit liberal towards the BJP, more so because one among them had risen to the top as a Union Minister. Minority voters account for 68 per cent of the total electorate and hence it is to be seen whether Shahnawaz is able to survive the Modi factor injected by the RJD candidate to revive the memories of the post-Godhra riots.