Parties gear up for elections in redrawn constituencies,Indian Politics, News Analysis, India News Online

With the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) deciding on implementation of the report of the Delimitation Commission, the stage is set for future elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies to be fought as per redrawn consti¬tuencies. The report of the Delimitation Commission was submit¬ted to Parliament last month. However, the redrawn constituen¬cies will have to be notified by the President of India before the Election Commission decides to hold elections on the basis of the Delimitation Commission recommendations.

The first major election, which might be held as per redrawn constituencies, will be to the Karnataka Assembly, if the Presi¬dential Notification comes by the time the Election Commission decides on holding elections in the state, which is under Presi¬dent’s Rule and where the Assembly has been dissolved.

A senior Minister said there would be some amendments to the Act concerned in relation to states like Nagaland, Assam, Arun¬achal Pradesh, Manipur and Jharkhand because of certain problems.

“Whatever has been suggested by the Delimitation Commission has been accepted,” he said, adding that it being a statutory body, the job of the Government is mainly to put into operation its recommendations.

Asked specifically whether the Assembly elections in Karna¬taka, due to go to the polls by May end, would be held as per the redrawn constituencies, he said this depended upon what time the elections are notified by the Election Commission.

Though the delimitation exercise had made many politicians unhappy, the government veered round to the view that it has no alternative, but to implement the report of the Delimitation Commission.

The Commission, headed by Justice Kuldip Singh, has submit¬ted its report in respect of 25 states, covering 513 Lok Sabha constituencies out of 543.

Work has also been completed in redrawing 3,726 Assembly constituencies in 25 states. The BJP as well as the Left parties were in favour of an early notification to implement the Commis¬sion’s report under which the number of constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will increase at the cost of general seats.

Close Congress allies such as RJD and JMM have been unhappy with the report.

Congress welcomes delimitation exercise

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi, reacting to the CCPA decision, said the delimitation had not only been overdue, be¬cause of growing population and changes in demographic profile, it would also ensure proper representation to the scheduled castes and tribes.

Observers say that while the Assembly elections in some north-eastern states scheduled for next month, would take place in accordance with the existing constituency profiles, the Karna¬taka election, expected in April or May may be held as per the redrawn Assembly constituencies. The Congress leadership will have to take a political call whether the Government should issue the notification so early that it leads to holding of Assembly elections under the new regime.

The Assembly elections in several other states like Rajas¬than, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, slated for October or November, are set to be held under the new delimitation regime. The next Lok Sabha elections may also be held under the redrawn constituencies, if they take place later this year, or next year.

BJP presses for ending uncertainty

A delegation of NDA leaders consisting of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of the BJP and Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) met the Election Commission in New Delhi on Monday, Dec. 31, and reportedly called for ending the confusion and uncertainty on implementation of the Delimitation Commission recommendations in time for the next Lok Sabha elections. The delegation requested the Election Commission to ask the Government to clarify its intentions on the issue. The BJP wanted the issue to be clarified as eight states go to the polls in 2008 and Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, at present ruled by the BJP, are among the states that will be considerably impacted by the delim¬itation.

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SC/ST seats to go up

When the fresh delimitation of constituencies on the basis of the report of the Delimitation Commission, headed by Justice Kuldip Singh is notified, people belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes will be the major beneficiaries. Constituencies reserved for the scheduled castes will go up from 78 to 84 and for the scheduled tribes from 38 to 42. The number of general seats in the Lok Sabha would come down to 392 from the existing 402.

In case of State Assemblies, seats reserved for the sched¬uled castes would increase from 555 to 610 and those reserved for the scheduled tribes from 527 to 545.

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Fresh alignments on the cards

With a string of defeats in Assembly elections, the Congress is now facing the daunting task of winning the people’s support

in about ten states which will have elections this year.

Beginning with Meghalaya next month, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi will go to the polls over the next few months. What worries the party bosses is the absence of enough talent at various levels to handle tough situations. The party’s high-profile committee for future challenges is of the view that absence of genuine contests for party posts in organisational elections over the past 15 years has sapped the party of adequate cadre-power to meet difficult situations.

Over the past few sittings, the committee has identified the “malaise eating into the vitals” of the organisation. “Unless there is a genuine contest for party posts at different levels, infusion of new blood into the party is not possible,” a member who had participated in the deliberations said.

Party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who had taken part in most of the sessions, reportedly remarked during a discussion that the entry of new faces was needed for the survival of the party. Some of the committee members felt that the long spell of “nomination raj”, with party elections being concluded on the basis of consensus, had practically depleted the organisation of fresh inflow of talent.

Keeping in view the importance of assembly elections, the top party leadership has undertaken an exercise to put together an effective team for each of these battles.

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Setback for BSP, RJD in byelections

Riding on the sympathy factor, Neeraj Shekhar, son of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, was returned to the Lok Sabha in Uttar Pradesh last week in an emphatic victory over Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in a byelection. Neeraj Shekhar who contest¬ed on the ticket of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party defeat¬ed BSP’s Vinay Shankar Tiwari by over 1.31 lakh votes. Chan¬drashekhar had represented Ballia in the Lok Sabha eight times till he died last year. This is BSP’s first defeat in the state since Mayawati came to power last year.

Significantly, Neeraj Shekhar led in all the five Assembly segments of the Ballia Lok Sabha seat. Three of these segments are held at present by the BSP in the State Assembly.

The other 14 candidates in the fray including those put up by the BJP and the Congress lost their deposits.

Observers say Mayawati and her ministerial colleagues had made the byelection a prestige issue, but BSP candidate Tiwari got less than the votes polled by Kapil Dev Yadav, the BSP can¬didate against Chandrashekhar in 2004.

In neighbouring Bihar, the Janata Dal (United) scored a decisive win in Bikramganj Lok Sabha byelection,dashing Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav’s hope of recovering the lost political ground in the state since losing control of the state to JDU two years ago. JDU candidate Meena Singh won by a margin of over 31,000 votes, despite extensive campaigning by RJD lead¬ers who were backed by the UPA and the Left.

Significantly, the JDU and BJP have managed to win all byelections in the state since they came to power two years ago.

In West Bengal, the ruling CPI(M) won the byelection from Balagarh by a margin of a little over 8000 votes, less than half the margin in the last election. Observers say that while the CPI(M) retained the Assembly seat, it is concerned at the margin of victory coming down. A reduction of nearly 10,000 votes in a constituency, that is almost entirely rural, shows a strong anti-CPI(M) current in public mood.

Worse is the fact that the CPI(M) has to thank the disunity in the opposition ranks for its victory in the byelection. If the Trinamul Congress entered into an alliance with the BJP, it would have resulted in the defeat of the CPI(M) candidate. The CPI(M) vote-share came down from 51.85 per cent in 2006 to 45.87 per cent in the byelection, and this indicates trouble for the party in the next elections, which are however, due only after more than three years.

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States reorganisation ?

There are reports that the Congress may favour the setting up of the Second States Reorganisation Commission to look into the demands for creating new states. While this would help in getting the support of groups fighting for creation of new states, it has also the potential of opening the Pandora’s Box and lead to demand for formation of more and more states to satisfy regional aspirations. The Congress move, if acted upon by the Manmohan Singh Government is bound to intensify the pend¬ing demands for separate states in different parts of the coun¬try, apart from Telengana, where it has become a hot issue.

“The Congress leadership is actively considering the setting up of a second SRC soon to look into the demand for creating a separate Telengana state. The second SRC could also study demands for new states from some other parts of the country,” a senior Congress leader said. The move is meant to take the sting out of the TRS political plank, now also backed by the BJP, ahead of the next Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh.

It remains to be seen whether the UPA regime will actually fix a time-frame for the SRC to make its proposals ahead of the polls. Incidentally, the move for a second SRC was briefly men¬tioned during the recent Congress Working Committee meeting.

A formal move on a second SRC would also activate the pend¬ing demands for separate states in regions like Vidarbha, Bun¬delkhand and Western Uttar Pradesh (Harit Pradesh). BSP leader Mayawati has favoured the trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh.

The CPI(M), having faced a violent agitation for Gorkhaland in West Bengal, has been opposed to the idea of carving out separate states while the CPI has of late softened its stand on the demand for a Telengana state. The NCP also remains lukewarm to the demand for Vidarbha statehood even though the party, unlike the Congress, has no major influence in the region.

The issue of creating smaller states has been a matter of debate within the Congress leadership even though the party, in its election manifesto for the last AP Assembly poll, had fa¬voured such a course to address the demand for Telengana state¬hood. While the CMP of the UPA-Left had skirted a commitment on the SRC, it had set up a sub-committee under the chairmanship of Pranab Mukherjee to look into the Telengana issue. However, the sub-committee could not make any concrete proposal on the matter due to lack of consensus. This has now led the Congress to mull the option of SRC.

The first State Reorganisation Commission, set up by the Nehru cabinet in 1954 under Justice Faizal Ali, led to the crea¬tion of several new states on linguistic basis. One of its mem¬bers, K M Panicker, had submitted a dissenting note, seeking the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh. This was not accepted by the then Union cabinet.

The last time new states were created was in 2000 when the NDA regime okayed the creation of Uttaranchal (now Uttarkhand), Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Congress to go after Mayawati

With Mayawati’s BSP cutting into Congress votes in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh in the Assembly elections held last month, the Congress is reportedly planning to undertake a series of agitational programmes against the policies of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.

Starting with a rally at Jhansi on January 17, to be ad¬dressed by AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, the Congress is working out a strategy to undertake agitational programmes against the state government’s policies regarding the acquisition of farmers’ land for the Taj Expressway and the Ganga Expressway projects.

In the run-up to the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh last year, the Congress had refrained from criticising the BSP and rather targeted the then Samajwadi Party regime for its failures on the developmental front and for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s dinner meeting with Maya¬wati at the latter’s residence in New Delhi in June - following which the Chief Minister agreed to support the UPA’s presidential nominee - was the high point in the relationship between the two parties.

The two have, however, drifted apart since then as there is growing realisation in the two camps about their conflicting political interests, with both parties competing for the Dalit vote bank.

According to Congress leaders, the Jhansi rally will focus on the failure of the Mayawati government to bring any relief to farmers in the Bundelkhand region, which has witnessed drought and a high incidence of suicides by farmers.

Claiming that the Congress was playing the role of a con¬structive opposition party, AICC general secretary in charge of UP Digvijay Singh says: “There is severe drought in Bundelkhand for the last three years; villages after villages are getting deserted due to migration. But the state government has been of no help. It is not able to spend the money it has got from the Centre under the Rural Employment Guarantee Programme.”

Asked about its “Enemy No.1”, in UP, State Congress chief Rita Bahuguna said, “We treat both Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav at par. If the SP regime was bad, the BSP is worse. She had come to power promising to settle two issues in the state - law and order and corruption. Both have escalated noticeably during her regime.”

In another move, the Congress hit at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, asking her to stop the blamegame over the Jan. 1 terrorist attack on the Rampur CRPF camp. AICC spokesperson Jayanti Natrajan said instead of indulging in the blamegame, Mayawati should concentrate on security and governance issues in Uttar Pradesh, which the Congress said has become a soft target and a vulnerable region for terror attacks. Mayawati had blamed the central paramilitary force for negligence and failure in beefing up security despite her government alerting the CRPF about the possibility of such an attack.

The AICC spokesperson said, “the blamegame indulged in by the State Government will not facilitate joint efforts to tackle effectively the attacks.” She pointed out that the State Govern¬ment has the basic and fundamental responsibility to handle law and order and to ensure effective anti-terrorism measures. Jayan¬ti Natrajan put the primary onus for combating terrorism on the State Government, pointing out that the country does not have a federal law proposed by the Centre to tackle such crimes.

Jayanti Natrajan said, “Mayawati appears to be preoccupied with traveling around the country to build up her party. In the process, she should not lose her focus on the primary and press¬ing importance of the governance of a large and sensitive state like Uttar Pradesh.”

Karunakaran back in Congress

As part of the exercise to tone up the party, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has cleared the return to the fold of old Congressmen, beginning with senior Kerala leader K. Karunakaran. The Kerala leader met Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh separately on Sunday, Dec. 30.

Congress general secretary Mohsina Kidwai, who was present during Karunakaran’s meeting with Sonia Gandhi said there was unanimity in the party over his return. Karunakaran pledged to work for strengthening the Congress, though his son K. Murlidhar¬an has said that he would remain Nationalist Congress Party state president and would not associate himself with his father’s political line.

Karunakaran returned to the Congress after a gap of two and a half years since he parted ways in the wake of infighting in the state unit.

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