By Rahil Nora Chopra
BJP president Amit Shah is leant to be working on a plan to form third fronts in various states to avoid a direct fight between BJP and opposition alliance. His first success probably is the launch of Shivpal Singh Yadav party in Uttar Pradesh. The regional parties are now taking about state level alliances in place of national alliances and this gives Amit Shah a lot more elbow room to work out strategies to split the anti-BJP votes. In Gujarat, Shankar Singh Vaghela may join hands with NCP or float his own party in the near future. Recently Tariq Anwar resigned from NCP after party chief Sharad Pawar gave a statement in favour of Narendra Modi. Meanwhile, Mayawati has aligned with Ajit Jogi’s party in Chhattisgarh and declared that there will be no alliance with Congress for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Amit Shah is similarly working on plans to get a third front formed in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as well.
FARMERS DELHI RALLY LED BY TIKAIT’S SON
Mahindra Singh Tikait, founder of Bharatiya Kisan Union, had organised a massive protest of farmers at Delhi’s Boat Club in October 1988. Thirty years later, it was his elder son Naresh Tikait, who led another massive rally to Delhi on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, against the alleged apathy of the government towards the farming community. The Kisan Kranti Yatra began on September 23 from Tikait Ghat in Hardwar and reached Delhi on October 2, but the protesters were stopped along the Delhi – UP border and police used teargas shells and water cannons to disperse them. The rally participants included farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. According to Naresh, the farmers have not been paid sugarcane dues and the government has failed to implement the Swaminathan Committee recommendations.
NITISH’S HOPES AND BJP’S DILEMMA
Though there has been much speculation over RLSP leader Upendra Kushwaha hopping over to the RJD-Congress alliance from the NDA, the man himself is keeping everyone, including Amit Shah, guessing. It seems Kushwaha and Nitish Kumar can’t be on the same side because of caste based complications. Nonetheless, the latter is waiting for the results of the upcoming polls to three state assemblies to take a final call. Nitish, meanwhile, came to Delhi to meet BJP president Amit Shah to convince him for a patch-up. According to sources, Nitish-Paswan family patch-up has been achieved, but negotiations with BJP are not progressing at the desired pace because BJP does not want to give more than 12 seats to Nitish as it fears Nitish may jump to other side in the event of BJP failing to muster a majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
TMC, BJP STEP UP FIGHT
With Lok Sabha elections approaching, TMC and BJP have stepped up their fight. BJP observed a state-wide bandh over the death of two students in a clash with police in North Dinajpur district. Pro-BJP students been agitating against the appointment of an Urdu teacher in Daribhita Senior Secondary school in the district in which two students died after police and the agitators started fighting each other. The students demand that they need Science and Maths teacher in place of the Urdu teacher. The BJP bandh saw the agitators setting fire to several buses and there were clashes on the street. State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh declared the bandh a success while party MP Roopa Ganguly blamed the Mamata government for using police force against the peaceful agitators. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who was in Italy on the day of the bandh, has blamed the BJP for the death of two students and instructed the police to recover the cost of damages caused during the bandh from the organisers.
BUREAUCRATS FIND NEW WAY TO POWER
With the assembly election coming close in Rajasthan, a large number of retired IAS, IPS officers are seeking tickets from political parties, especially BJP and Congress. Currently, there are three ministers who are former IAS and bureaucrats. They include central ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal, C R Chaudhary and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who was a colonel in the army. MP Harish Meena from Dausa was an IPS officer. During the recent Gaurav Yatra of Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje, former IAS officer Shivji Ram joined BJP and a few more former IAS officers are trying tickets from Congress. Several retired officers have already joined Congress, notable among them being Habib Khan Gauran, Ram Dev Singh, Madan Gopal, Afshaq Hussain, Lalchand Aswal, BP Meena, and Har Sahay Meena. In the same way more than a dozen retired officers have applied for tickets from BJP. There is an undercurrent of opposition developing against tickets being given to the rank outsiders in preference to party workers who have toiled to strengthen their respective parties all these years. (IPA)
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