Tag Archives: Bahujan Samaj Party

India’s Never Ending Quota Politics

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With the upcoming Assembly Elections, the vote bank politics is seen coming to the fore once again. Congress has been on terms to offer a Muslim quota (4.5 percent Sub-quota) within the 27 percent reservation for OBCs in central government jobs in the five election-bound states, particularly UP. All the political parties seem to have positioned themselves to reap electoral dividends.

On Tuesday the Election Commission (EC) issued a show-cause notice to Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid and his wife, Louise Khurshid, the Congress candidate from Farrukhabad in UP. The show cause notice was served as the law minister was campaigning for Louise and promised a 9 percent sub-quota for backward Muslims if Congress got voted to power in Uttar Pradesh. Khurshid retaliated to this by saying that he was merely repeating a pledge in his party’s election manifesto for the 2009 general election. He also said that his statement was not a poll violation of any sorts.
SP Chief Mulayam Singh who had initially refused to back the sub-quota apparently fearing the backlash from OBCs, later said that he would back 18 percent quota for Muslims. But it was noted that this would not be possible as experts said the quota cannot exceed 50 percent of the total OBC Muslim population and hence is currently 9 percent.

The BJP who has nothing to lose is seeking to use the quota politics to create a drift among OBC voters in the state who are inclined to support the SP and the Congress.

The potential of the quota promise with a view to sway Muslim opinion has forced Mulayam and other political leaders to promise a higher quantum of quota for Muslims. Looking for an opportunity to re-embrace a portion of OBC votes, BJP fielded one of the most prominent backward leaders in its fold, Uma Bharati, in order to launch an offensive against Congress quota promise. In a press conference Uma was quoted saying “Congress party’s decision to give 9% reservation to the minority community is a purely politically move, which has been announced in view of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh”, as reported by ZeeNews.com.

Uma also added that “Congress’ divisive policies were responsible for the partition of the country some 60 years back and the ruling party (BSP) is once again trying to divide the country on the basis of religion. This is a bad politics that Congress is indulging in for increasing its vote banks.” Based on this the EC on Wednesday put the implementation of the new quota regime on a virtual hold till the process of elections in these states is completed (till March 9).

Meanwhile the BSP, the SP and the Congress are noted to have increased the number of Muslim candidates for the assembly elections. The BSP and the SP have named 75-80 candidates, while Congress leaders said the party will field Muslim candidates in around 70 constituencies in the final list, as reported by livemint.com.

Will Maya Come Back To Unveil Her Statues?

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January 11 is set as the deadline by the Election Commission to drape the statues of Mayawati and the elephants (the BSP’s election symbol) in Uttar Pradesh and it raises many eye brows on the issue whether Mayawati and her elephants would come back to power and continue their reign in the state?

As per Opinion Poll by Star News-Nielsen for Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party will be the front runner in the 2012 while BSP will suffer a major setback. Congress was seen to be improving a lot in several areas despite spate of scam and corruption cases against its ministers. The report also suggests that Mayawati’s plan of dividing UP in 4 different states found a lot of support in public, especially in the areas of Purvanchal, but according to Star News, it is not going to translate into votes for the party. The poll predicts that BSP will get 120 seats (-86), SP 135 seats (+38), Congress 68 (+46) and BJP 65 (+14).

After addressing massive election rallies in U.P, Congress claimed that AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi with his ongoing campaign would secure majority in the upcoming assembly elections. On Mayawati’s recent sacking of ministers, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said “She thought of removing them only days before elections. Such gimmicks do not work. It is clear that like her council of ministers has crumbled, her five-year rule is also crumbling and she is not going to come back to power.”

Much drama was seen when the exercise of draping the massive statues began as the officials ran out of sheets to cover the giant statues and as they also ran out of ideas on how to effectively go about the task.

As per reports a confusion prevailed between two agencies — the UP Rajkiya Nirman Nigam (UPRNN), which has constructed the parks and erected the statues and the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), which has been entrusted with the upkeep of the memorials, parks and statues. The statues which UPRNN had covered on Sunday were unveiled again by the LDA staff by evening. Similar confusion delayed the work in Noida as well.

When the statues were not draped even after the orders from the EC, UP Congress President Rita Bahuguna Joshi said, “The officials are deliberately not covering the statues to give as much political mileage as possible to the BSP.” Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan said, “Even two days after the EC’s orders, the state administration is hesitating to cover the statues. Obviously, these officials either fear Mayawati or are delaying the work deliberately,” reported DNA.

The Election Commission says the decision to cover up the statues is to ensure free and fair elections, but many have expressed skepticism over whether it will achieve its purpose. Actor Anupam Kher tweeted, “A covered Mayawati statue will get more attention than an uncovered one. People will say – Oh that is Mayawati’s statue covered.” Author Chetan Bhagat was quoted saying in NDTV, “Either you don’t let them erect statues first place, or let them be. Poor people need blankets more than the statues need drapes. Doesn’t draping the elephant statues in Lucknow bring even more attention to them?”

The question really is, if Mayawati rises back to power then the statues could be unveiled as a mark to her re-entry as the ruling power but what happens if BSP doesn’t see the sunlight and fails to come to power? Would the statues never be unveiled until she rises back to power again?

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Politics in India, a Safe Haven for Criminals

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati tops the list of chief ministers with the maximum assets in the five election-bound states. Her assets are worth 87.27 crore and 35 percent of her ministers have criminal cases pending against them as per the report from National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) based on the affidavits submitted before the Election Commission.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister

The data reported that RTI responses from five states showed Mayawati has the highest assets worth 87.27 crore. Chief Minister of Manipur Okram Ibobi Singh has the lowest assets at 6 lakh. Around one-third of a total of 100 ministers in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur have self-declared pending criminal charges.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was noted to have assets worth 9 crore while Goa Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat has assets worth Rs 3.2 crore. Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri has assets worth Rs 1.69 crore.

28 percent of MLA’s which means that, out of 690 legislators analyzed, 190 have criminal cases against them. 89 of them had serious charges against them. Prakash Badal is the only one who has a criminal case amongst the 5 Chief Ministers and faces charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The report also suggests that Uttar Pradesh has the maximum percentage of ministers (35 percent) with pending criminal cases. Dhirendra Pratap Singh of BSP in Uttar Pradesh was seen having the highest number of criminal cases – 29, followed by Sushil Kumar also of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh with 14 cases pending against him. The charges were related to murder or attempt to murder.

Another finding from the report suggests that except for Okram Ibobi Singh, everyone else has declared their PAN information. It was noted that 35 percent of the total analyzed MLA’s are crorepatis. Punjab has the maximum crorepati MLA’s at 67 percent, followed by Goa at 55 percent, Uttar Pradesh 32 percent, Uttarakhand at 16 percent and Manipur at 2 percent.

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War of Words

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The Indian politicians are constantly seen having a verbal war with one another. The attacks made by them are sometimes hilarious rather amusing. A remark passed by one becomes the food for thought for another. The war of words never ends! Be it BSP’s elephant not eating fodder but cash as said Rahul Gandhi or the sarcasm showered by Digvijay at Team Anna. A few instances of the attacks made by the politicians recently are:

Rahul vs Mayawati: The recent election campaigns in Uttar Pradesh saw Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi making serious allegations at Mayawati, saying that her government misuses the Central Government aid and that the money goes into the pockets of the BSP workers. He said “When Hindustan is moving forward, Uttar Pradesh is going backwards.” In a rally in U.P, Gandhi was quoted saying “There is an elephant sitting in Lucknow and this elephant is eating your money. This time UP has decided to throw away this elephant.” On many occasions Rahul raised the corruption issue in Mayawati’s rule and with regard to the food security bill, he said that there were welfare schemes like the MNREGA but the funds were appropriated by the ministers. He said he wasn’t sure if the U.P Government would provide food to all or just BSP leaders, ministers and criminals. To this statement Mayawati retorted saying “The Congress is getting nightmares about BSP’s election symbol elephant driving them away.”

Karunanidhi Vs Jayalalithaa: The two very well known for their rivalry and counter attacks at each other were in news again in the recent past over Jaya’s decision to convert a library into hospital. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s announcement to convert Anna Centenary Library building into a hospital was slammed by DMK president M Karunanidhi and he said “the AIADMK government was destroying all symbols of Tamil culture.” He alleged that Jayalalithaa’s latest announcement was driven by vendetta, “which shows her rage (against DMK).”

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‘Dalit PM From Congress In Near Future’

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The day is not far off when a Dalit would be nominated as Prime Minister by Congress, a senior party leader said on Sunday.

“Congress has made 4 CMs in different states in past. Day is not far when it will give a dalit PM, not for votes but for dalit empowerment,” party leader Anil Shastri posted in popular microblogging site Twitter.

'Dalit PM From Congress In Near Future'

The statement comes in the wake of Mayawati‘s claim that Congress could appoint Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar or Union Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde as Prime Minister ahead of the UP Assembly elections.

Earlier, AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh, who is in-charge of party affairs in Uttar Pradesh, had dismissed Mayawati’s claim saying that Manmohan Singh would remain as the Prime Minister.

Shastri, in an another tweet, said, “Mayawati can’t be the only dalit aspiring to be PM. There are many more qualified and capable leaders in the Congress.”

On the debate over RTI, the Congress leader said there was a concerted effort from people within the government to dilute the Act.

“There seems to be a concerted effort by people in govt to dilute and weaken the RTI which should be resisted by all right thinking people,” he said.

Shastri has expressed his views in the backdrop of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh‘s statement that a ‘critical look’ must be taken at the RTI Act.

Mayawati Will be a Better PM than Rahul: Ramdev

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Yoga Guru, Baba Ramdev blessed UP chief Minister and the BSP leader, Mayawati by complimenting that she would be a better prime minister than Rahul Gandhi. She is already facing great attacks from the opposition for corruption misgovernance and this appreciation from the yoga Guru must have surely got others goose bumps.

Mayawati Will be a Better PM than Rahul: Ramdev

Ramdev is on the roads of U.P to gather support from people for his campaign against corruption. When the question was raised if he is afraid of Mayawati, Ramdev said, “Behenji (Mayawati) appears to be ‘hard’ but is ‘soft’ from inside.” He also added that UP CM has more political and administrative skills to be the PM of India and Rahul is still a rising politician.

Ramdev says not against anyone in particular but all he wants is a corruption free country. He also said, Rahul should win the confidence of the Indian public by bringing back the black money stored in foreign countries and not act according to the people who flatter about him. If he accomplishes these tasks, he would be a worthy PM. “Though Manmohan Singh is personally very honest, he has been made helpless by the groups of corrupt people around him,” the yoga guru said. “If such a situation is allowed to prevail, it appears that the next session of the parliament would have to be convened at the Tihar Jail, he added.

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Corruption Takes Politicians On Quota Path

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Bangalore: The quota politics has set its foot in Uttar Pradesh again. With UP elections not far away, Chief Minister Mayavati has shot off three letters in three days to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seeking job reservation for Muslims, weaker upper class and Jats. The latest caste ploy of the UP CM has revived debates on whether caste based reservations have become a mere vote bank for our politicians. Is this an effort to renew caste and communal equations as a primary vote wagon to drive the vested interests of our underperforming corrupt leaders?

Caste Politics

Politicians are left with nothing to show on the development front, and the recent corruption scandals have stung all the parties. The Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are in the dock over corruption charges against the centre and state respectively. The BJP finds itself in trouble over corruption in Uttarkhand and Karnataka. All the political parties are now employing ultra ‘innovative’ tactics to woo the voters.

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The Congress-led UPA Government is already planning a bill for Muslim quota. While Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi is aggressively wooing Muslims, another Congress MP P L Punia from Barabanki is trying to win over dalits. The UP Congress President Bahugana Joshi has been given the task of pleasing the upper caste. Meanwhile, the BJP has decided to hold frequent meetings with various castes and community leaders. Rajnath Singh is supposed to be wooing the Thakurs, as Vinay Katiyar is consolidating the OBC base. BSP has formed different bhaichara committees to woo Muslims, upper castes, OBCs and most backward classes. The Samajwadi Party (SP) is struggling to regain the Muslim base in UP.

Divide and Rule in disguise

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The most potent weapon of all parties is the quota system, to exploit the diverse caste and communal colours of our country. The parties are trying to bring anyone and everyone under the quota system, based on vague facts. It is here that regional parties like BSP and DMK seek to pit the lower caste against the higher caste and national parties like BJP and Congress create disunity between Majority and Minorities. Is this not divide and rule in disguise? The country struggling to go beyond the caste system and the disunity it has brought is seeing a caste revival through the dirty agendas of its politicians. How many more Pakistans and Bangladeshs are to be created out of India!

 

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