President’s rule or a new CM? How Kiran Reddy has outwitted Cong

Hyderabad: N Kiran Kumar Reddy, while stepping down as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, has played King Gordius. He has tied such a complicated knot that the Congress has to do an Alexander and cut it, lest the noose tighten around its own neck.

The resignation of Reddy and his insistence that he be discharged from the responsibilities of caretaker chief minister has trapped the Grand Old Party in a political maze.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh indicated that the Congress was seriously discussing the issue, but left the subject hanging without providing any conclusive observation.

The climax of the Congress soap opera always unfolds in the nick of time.

Kiran Reddy has put the Congress in a fix: PTI

Reddy's resignation, has quite inadvertently, opened up the proverbial Pandora's Box for the coveted position of the chief minister. Amid politics overcast by caste dynamics, the party has, over the last three years, almost eschewed the Reddy community and espoused Kapus instead.

Though Union Minister of State K Chiranjeevi and APCC President Botcha Satyanarayana are engaged in a neck-and-neck race for the top job, the Congress also has many questions staring at it.

By demitting the office Kiran Reddy hasn't abdicated his responsibility, as it is being made out to be. He has, however, dug up a moat around the Congress fort in the state, not allowing the party to wriggle out of a quagmire.

Can the Congress form a government on its own in the state? It doesn't have sufficient numbers to even prove a simple majority.

There are different interrelated scenarios that are complicating the situation. First of all, the Congress and the Union Government will have to have the President append his signature giving assent to the Andhra Pradesh Bifurcation Bill, 2013 that was passed by both Houses of Parliament.

Then the President has to take a call on notifying the appointed date for the bifurcation of the state to take effect. The bureaucratic gristmill is churning the various issues involved in the process of creating a separate state, which will take a minimum of three months.

Therefore, the appointed date could be around 1 June, by which time a new Assembly is supposed to be in place in Andhra Pradesh. In such a case, the elections must be held in the combined state in an as-is-where-is condition and only then the separation must be implemented, proportionately dividing the Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies.

However, Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao has insisted that the elections should be held in two states, else the desired political advantage could not be derived.

While some Seemaandhra Congress leaders solicited an endorsement from Congress president Sonia Gandhi to their standpoint that the polls for the Assembly be postponed by six months so that the party could be fortified in both regions, there has been an uproar against it.

Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu, the YSR Congress and even the TRS very strongly opposed the proposal. Even Election Commission of India sources indicate that the election would be conducted simultaneously for the Lok Sabha and the Assembly.

If the bifurcation is made effective earlier, the appointed date should be adjusted accordingly. This will enable the formation of two governments – one in Andhra Pradesh and one in Telangana.

As far as Telangana is concerned, it may just be a formality for the Congress to install the new Government, though it will have to thrash out a lot of politically diabolical situations within and with the TRS.

But it becomes a Herculean task for the party to have its chief minister in place in Andhra Pradesh to rule the residual period until the elections, for want of numbers. Ironically, no party has the numbers to have its own chief minister at the helm.

The advancement of the appointed date would certainly trigger trouble in the administrative bifurcation too.

Chandrababu Naidu asked as to why the government was not invoking Article 356 in Andhra Pradesh, as soon as the chief minister stepped down, when the same was implemented at a breakneck speed soon after the resignation of Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.

The Congress, which proposes to create two Pradesh Congress Committees in a week, is unable to make up its mind on who should be entrusted with the responsibilities of governance.

The ruling party will be courting trouble by laying a trap and walking into it, if President's Rule is imposed in the election time. It is important to have its man at the helm during elections, lest it be reduced to yet another player in the level-playing field.

Had Kiran Reddy not pressed the eject button, the Congress would not have faced this piquant situation. The Congress managers surely did not play the last ball of the match well. Irritating the captain is turning out to be a costly mistake.

LS poll: No tickets for incumbent legislators, says Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will not give tickets to any incumbent legislators for the Lok Sabha elections, former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said Wednesday.

"We will not give ticket to any legislator for the Lok Sabha elections," Kejriwal told the media.

Arvind Kejriwal. AFP

He, however, did not make it clear whether he was speaking about legislators of other parties or Independents, including from Delhi.

The AAP made its debut with 28 seats in the Delhi assembly elections. It ran the city government for 49 days with outside support of the Congress, but later the government resigned on the issue of Jan Lokpal bill.

The party is all set for the Lok Sabha polls and has announced a list of 20 candidates.

IANS

AGP keeps options open on joining hands with BJP

New Delhi: AGP president and former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today kept open his party's option of joining hands with BJP for Lok Sabha polls, saying a decision will be taken soon.

"I am not ruling it in or ruling it out. The party will take a a decision soon," he told PTI over phone when asked whether AGP will join BJP-led NDA.

AGP chief Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. Reuters

Mahanta said BJP has not yet formally approached AGP for an electoral alliance in Assam.

"So far there has been no discussion with any national party," he said. There are 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam.

Asked why did he not join the meeting of the third front on Tuesday in Delhi, Mahanta said due to a personal reason, he could not travel to the national capital.

On whether AGP will be part of the Third Front, the two-time Assam chief minister said the party's highest decision-making body will take the final call on forging alliance for the general elections.

AGP and BJP had an electoral alliance for the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in Assam in which BJP got four seats while AGP got just one.

However, the alliance did not last long and both the parties went their ways with AGP leaving NDA.

Currently BJP state president Sarbananda Sonowal is a former AGP Lok Sabha member and many of the state BJP leaders are former AGP members including Guwahati MP and a minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Bijoya Chakraborty.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has already addressed two public rallies in Assam—one in Guwahati and and the other in Silchar—after he was appointed BJP's prime ministerial candidate.

PTI

How the prospect of power has ended NaMo’s untouchability

Power, it seems, is the only true glue required to attract allies and hold Indian political formations together.

Consider the two statements widely accepted as the truth till some time ago: One is that a BJP led by Narendra Modi will not find allies because he is a hardline communalist. And the other is: alliances and fronts are formed by some kind of ideological affinity.

Both have turned out to be false.

Narendra Modi. PTI

The assumption that NaMo will never be able to find allies is dead. As the Narendra Modi bandwagon has gathered momentum over the last one year, not only has his political untouchability ended, but he has found former enemies lining up to shake hands.

The most recent potential entrant to the NDA is Ram Vilas Paswan of the LJP. The deal may still fall apart at the last minute, but that only proves that politicians are in alliances for power and nothing else. Moreover, NaMo has found allies in Tamil Nadu, in Maharashtra (beyond Shiv Sena), and is likely to find at least one in Andhra Pradesh (Telugu Desam) and Assam.

After the election, if it seems like NaMo is the best bet, some of those who have banded together under the flag called Something Front will make their moves. The BJD in Odisha, the YSR Congress in Andhra, the TRS in Telangana, and assorted Tamil parties will join in at some point – if they saw some power share in it. One can't rule out the entry of the PDP in Kashmir too.

The other proposition — that there are two major political formations in India, one called the UPA, and the other called NDA — also stands disproved.

The truth is the UPA and NDA exist only if power is a realistic prospect. Both are post-poll constructs, driven by arithmetic rather than ideology. The core UPA is just three parties (Congress, NCP and IUML), and the core NDA is also a group of three (BJP, Shiv Sena and Akali Dal). The rest are revolving door partners.

The UPA has lost one ally after another (Trinamool, DMK, MIM, JD-S) as its grip on power melted away. The RLD joined it in 2012 only because Ajit Singh wanted power for a few months before fading away. There is little prospect that Singh will have much bargaining power left after the next elections.

So what does one make of the 11-party front announced by Prakash Karat yesterday (25 February)?

The only explanation is that when it gets lonesome in an election, it is good to meet at the Karat Club and hallucinate over your importance. The only real members of the Karat Club are those who have always been with him — the minuscule leftist parties like RSP and Forward Bloc. The rest are there for the lunch, if only to look at the menu – whether it is Mulayam Singh or Nitish Kumar or J Jayalalithaa of AIADMK. If you have delusions of power on a thin seat-count, it is good to congregate with the other parties of similar size and pretend you can become PM if all else fails. For the record, most of the big parties only sent second-rung nominees, and two did not even come to collect the lunch coupon (BJD and AGP).

The Third Front will energise itself only if neither BJP nor Congress do well in the next elections. It will crumble the minute one of them does well.

The power law in India is simple: only one front exists at any one time - the one that gets a shot at power. Every other front withers away.

Congress campaign committee to hold maiden meet on Thursday

New Delhi: Top Congress leaders will brainstorm on Thursday to finalise the strategy for an aggressive campaign by Rahul Gandhi for the next Lok Sabha polls.

As Sonia Gandhi chairs the maiden meeting of its high-level Campaign Committee on Thursday, party sources indicated that that meeting could be an occasion to decide the party's campaign theme.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi. PTI

Rahul Gandhi, who is the co-chairman of the Committee, is expected to go on a blitzkrieg campaign this Lok Sabha polls and there is a view that he should be addressing rally in at least 300 parliamentary constituencies.

The meeting comes close on the heels of the informal gathering of the Congress Working Committee which was called by the party vice-president to deliberate on the campaign theme and suggestions for poll manifesto.

The 50-member Campaign Committee set up a few days back has Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with several Union ministers like AK Antony, Sushilkumar Shinde, P Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Salman Khurshid,Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh.

No chief minister, PCC chief or CLP leader, however, figures in the committee.

On 15 January, too, some senior leaders had met to dicuss the party's campaign theme.

A decision was taken in the meeting then to link the party's election campaign with the issues that will be incorporated in the party manifesto through direct feedback from people.

It was decided then that during the campaign, Congress will be telling people that their suggestions were taken note of by the party and included in the manifesto and if the party-headed government comes to power, all those promises will be implemented in earnest, party sources had said.

PTI

No political alliance before polls, says Odisha BJP

Bhubaneswar: A day after BJP's senior leader Chandan Mitra holding discussion with chiefs of two small political parties in Odisha for an alliance ahead of polls, the party's state leadership today categorically rejected the move.

"We will not go for any kind of alliance with any political party in Odisha," BJP state president KV Singhdeo announced after rejecting any possibility of forging alliance or front before the elections.

Representational image. AFP

Stating that the BJP's state leadership is all set to welcome any leader to join BJP, Singhdeo said they are strongly opposed to any kind of alliance.

Mitra during his one-day visit to Odisha yesterday, had met Ama Odisha president Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and Utkal Bharat party chief Kharavel Swain. "We have just started discussion on the possible alliance," Mitra had said.

While Mitra entered into discussion with leaders of the small parties, the state unit of BJP has no such plans.

Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha MP and leader of Odisha Janmorcha (OJM) Pyarimohan Mohapatra said he was optimistic about an allaince with the national party. "I have spoken to BJP's central leaders and they are keen for it. If they (central leader of BJP) suggest, I may start talks with the state leaders," Mohapatra said.

As the situation regarding a possible front remained unclear, sources said, Mitra was likely to visit Odisha again and make the state leader understand the significance of an allainace before the elections.

PTI

Third front working at Congress’ behest: Shahnawaz Hussain

New Delhi: BJP today accused the third front of working at the behest of Congress and took pot shots saying it comprises parties which would come third in elections in their states.

BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain also made fun of friend-turned-foe Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whom he did not name, and said his "frustration" over his "flop operation" to split RJD was visible on his face.

BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain. PTI

"All those who are going to be third in their respective states are making third front... They are also past and present allies with Congress and working at its behest. They will never be first. Narendra Modi will come first," Hussain told reporters.

He said third front is full of "jealous and frustrated" leaders whose ideology is not common. "At night, all of them dream of becoming prime minister and in day they come together for a meeting to realise their ambitions. People of India will break their dreams," Hussain said.

Charging that these parties are Congress allies, he said there is no party among them which had not aligned with Congress in either UPA 1 or UPA 2. Nitish Kumar, whose party JD(U) split with BJP after an alliance of almost 15 years, is also running his government with Congress support in Bihar, he said.

"A leader from Bihar had come. His frustration over the way he flopped and got exposed in his operation was visible on his face," the BJP leader said in a veiled attack on Kumar.

Hussain said Congress knows that it cannot win and third front has come together on the prodding of the ruling party to "mislead" people.

"You should find out if the meeting of third front was sponsored by Congress," he said.

PTI