EDITORIAL
Plaything for Pakistan
Farooq Abdullah has only
stated the obvious in saying that Musharraf would ditch
Kashmiris’. Though all in the valley have not seen
through the looking glass that is Pakistan. The writing
is there on the wall for all to see. Even as far back as
the early thirties of the last century when Sheikh
Abdullah was just emerging on the political horizons this
'selfish' intent of the founding father of Pakistan had
become evident in his ridiculing the tall man from
Kashmir. Before that the derision-laden 'hato' greeted
the Kashmiris in Lahore. It continued to be adhered to
even as late as Zia's reign when he derided them all as
'brahmins'. Jinnah's earlier derogation was followed by a
decisive break in the forties when the Muslim League
leader came on an extended visit to Kashmir. The break
came because Jinnah found that the leaders of Kashmir
were not ready to acknowledge his supremacy, nor were
they ready to follow his brand of politicking. That was
what forced Mujeeb another leader of a nationalist people
out of Pakistan. That break is getting reiterated all
along whether it is Aman Khan or Hashim Qureshi or
outright terrorists like Majid Dar.
There are any number of
other less well known 'Pak-returnees' who have
experienced the Pak hate at the first hand and are now
silent in the valley. Yet there are many Kashmiris who do
not see through the Pak plan or refuse to see its logical
implications because of diverse reasons. There are many
for whom Kashmiriyat, Pakistan. Islam are all high stakes
in the political gamble. They would as easily embrace
atheists if it suited their interests. It least matters
that their bedfellows at present are the stark
fundamentalists. They are the ones who when in the valley
would not miss any ‘chaharums’ of the
terrorists and speak the secular lingua when outside.
Then there are the fundamentalists who would align with
Sudan, Afghanistan or anything or anybody who stands for
that anachronistic idea of Islam. They are the ones who
are leading the processions for bin Laden and terrorists
in the valley as well as the rest of the country.
Unfortunately the politics in Kashmir has got
hopelessly-should we say, inextricably ? woven with both
the self-servers and the fundamentalists. There are many
in the ranks of ‘respectable’ political parties
who are openly flirting with the fundamentalist ideas
even using them for their political profit.
At times it actually
becomes difficult to sift this chaff from the grain of
political leadership in Kashmir. They all have a
dithering if not diabolical stance on Pak-Kashmir
collage. Given Bakhshi’s forty lakhs’ it is
difficult to say where the masses of Kashmir belong. But
that should not give room to any misgivings on Pak
perception of Kashmir. The Pakistan has always treated
the Kashmir issue as an object of the Pak state rather
than an issue of impartial empathy, they are fighting for
the ‘Pak land’ not the ‘rights of
Kashmiris’. Indeed, the so-called ‘rights’
for Kashmir are one mighty camouflage to shroud those
intents and purposes. Is there one single identity that
Pakistan has respected after independence within its
territories? It has no sympathy with the identity of
Kashmir; it cannot stand a day with the idea of
Kashmiris. If Kashmiris were to get into the Pak State,
Pakistan would be lining up forces the next day to curb
what the generals then would call ‘Indian
agents’ there. What a pity that one has to outline
this obvious thing for the Kashmiri masses whom people
traditionally regard one hell of a politically conscious
people? Probably, they need even a practical
demonstration by Pakistan to see its true colors, the
messiahic words by hundreds of perceptive people,
including Farooq, notwithstanding.
Probe Kathua
Ten years ago militancy
was beginning’ in the Valley of Kashmir. Over the
next five years it ‘spread’ to the hilly
districts of Jammu. Over the past two or three years,
instead of receding from the areas it had infested
earlier, it spread out to take the hitherto free Kathua
district in its vicious grip. A big question here is what
was the state administration that 'has been
fighting’ the terrorists for the last ten years
doing all this time. Was the spread to the peaceful
Kathua a simple advance over the time or a leniency on
the part of the state administrative machinery? That is
the issue that must be seriously looked into if this
state actually means to eradicate the terrorism in this
state. One hears one pontiff after another saying that
India is competent to deal with terrorism on its own.
There is nothing to doubt that capability of the nation.
Indeed, if a nation wants to live it has to show the
ability to live, the ability to fight the subverters. And
India has amply demonstrated that capacity. But what the
state and the nation are not showing in sufficient
measure is the will to fight terrorism out.
That will means being
clear in mind about what the terrorism is, investigating
how the terrorists are gaining foothold in places and
closing the open avenues. Above all it means flushing the
agents and assistants of the terrorists whether they be
in administration or elsewhere. Kathua here provides a
good ground to begin that exercise. A couple of years the
terrorists did not dare to venture in there because they
had neither safe houses nor route guides there. Those who
actually did stray in were caught by the people and
handed over to the police. Or they got drowned in the
Kathua canal. Today they have not only enough 'hiding
places' there, but ready and enough 'guides'. There are
reports that the terrorists are using the district as a
preferred route of infiltration. They have been
kidnapping people, browbeating them into obedience and
upping ther activities-'actions' as they call them. How
did it all come about ? Did the administration get
sleepy? Or did it look the other way while the terrorists
were ganging up men and materials ? Or did it actively
connive there? These are the thoughts troubling people.
They must also exercise the people wanting to uproot
terrorism.
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Laden
continues to be up and about
Men Matters & Memories
By M L
Kotru
It's
nearly eight weeks since terrorists
struck at the heart of America in New
York and Washington and the Americans
quickly cobbled up a coalition of sorts
to take the war back to where they
believe it all started- in the caves of
Afghanistan, with the Saudi billionaire,
Osama bin Laden incharge of the heartless
hordes that caused some 7,000 deaths with
those deadly terror attacks of September
11. George Walker Bush, the American
President promised to bring the guilty to
justice or carry justice to them; he
promised to smoke out Osama and his
Taliban hosts out of their caves into the
open to face their doom. Nearly two
months are gone, marked by extensive
bombing, almost round the clock, but
without getting at bin Laden or the
Taliban. Instead, Taliban seems have
shown remarkable resilience. They have
taken the hits with surprising
equanimity. They have stood their ground,
never mind the pounding Kandahar, Kabul,
Herat, Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif may
have received. And what's more they are
showing no signs of their will wilting.
They did not hesitate to publicly murder
a celebrated hero of the anti-Soviet
campaign of the 80s, Commander Abdul Haq,
a Pushtun, greatly respected by the
Afghans as a whole. And what did Haq try
to do ? He slipped into his country from
Peshawar to rally an anti-Taliban force.
In the event, he and his men were nabbed
and five, including Haq, ordered killed.
Earlier, before the strikes of September
11, they eliminated the most charismatic
anti-Taliban leader, Ahmed Shah Masood of
the Northern Alliance, the killers,
masquerading as TV journalists,
presenting themselves before Masood and
assasinating him in his own lair, as it
were.
The
American coalition, not the kind they
were able to notch up at the time of Gulf
War, when the entire Arab world stood by
the US and its Western Allies, has
continued to look shaky from the
beginning, Tony Blair perhaps the only
world leader to pledge- and deliver-
whole hearted support to the war in
Afghanistan. Traditional Arab friends
like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have reacted
cautiously this time over. The Saudis
went out of their way to tell Tony Blair
not to visit when he first announced his
intention to come calling. Blair is still
trying but some other Arab States have in
the meanwhile asked him and others to
leave them alone. For the present at
least. the closest American ally of the
day, Pakistan-whose friendship Washington
rediscovered in the aftermath of
September 11-18 finding it increasingly
hard to justify to its people the support
extended by Musharraf to Washington. So
much so that Musharraf has to lie to his
people telling them that only Pakistani
air space is being used- a lie that lay
exposed in the wreckage of a US
helicoptre fired upon from the Pakistani
base itself when it returned from an
operation across the border. Musharraf,
under pressure, has been pleading for a
short, swift, targeted war- a hope that
is unlikely to be realised. He urges that
Americans hold ther fire during the holy
month of Ramzan which Defence Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld says is unlikely.
''Muslim nations are known to have fought
among themselves on such holy
occasions,'' Rumsfeld said, echoing
similar thoughts expressed by Secretary
of State, Gen. Colin Powell, the Chief of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of
the Gulf War, when Bush Sr. was the
President.
Good ally
Pakistan has not even been able to
produce the ''moderate'' Taliban whom it
wanted to be considered as an alternative
to Mullah Mohammad Umar. Not that the
Americans approved of the idea. But then
the US. itself does not seem to be sure
about the messy situation it seems to
have landed itself in. Its less than
half-hearted support to the Northern
Alliance has earned it no gratitude from
the latter. On the contrary the
accidental bombing of an Alliance
village, causing over a dozen deaths, has
earned them hostility in the North. The
problem with the American operations has
been that apart from the impossible
Afghan terrain which they must contend
with it they haves singularly lacked
intelligence inputs at the ground level.
It is one thing to have access to
satellite photography, which, even as it
may help pinpoint some of the more
visible targets, is most unlikely to tell
you what is happening inside those caves
and caverns President Bush spoke of. The
Pakistanis, whose creation the Taliban
is, and whose Inter Service Intelligence
wing has masterminded the intricate
Taliban network has been less than
forthcoming with vital ground
intelligence. I am not suggesting that
Musharraf is responsible for holding back
information. The truth is that by merely
replacing the ISI, chief Gen. Mahmood,
with a more moderate General, the
Pakistani military dictator has not
eliminated the fundamentalist hardcore
that constitutes the back-bone of the
ISI. The other truth is that ISI
operatives are still very active with the
Taliban and hand-in-glove, as it were,
with Osama bin Laden.
The open
involvement of Islamist
terrorists-remember the dozen or so
Pakistani Harkatul Mujahideen men killed
in US bombing in Kabul last week or those
killed in the Clinton missile attack in
Khost 1999-provides the deniability cover
for the ISI in carrying out its war by
proxy in Kashmir. For Pakistan sheltering
and sponsoring other Islamist strikes
against the US and Israeli targets is not
a heavy price to pay for exploiting the
Islamists' zeal and commitment to further
Pakistan's own objectives. The
arrangement between the ISI and Osama bin
Laden has been to carry out spectacular
terrorist operations in India on behalf
of ISI and it has in the past become very
appealing for Islamabad.
This type
of evolving relationship is not unique to
Pakistan but, as many experts have
pointed out, it is a precursor of things
to come as the confrontation between the
US-led West and Islam continues to
escalate. International terrorism will
become the strategic weapon of choice of
more and more States that find themselves
beseiged by the Westernisation and
grassroots counter-clash they cannot
endure. Osama bin Laden, the Egyptian
Ayman at Zawahiri, Taseer Abdullah,
Mohammad Hamza and Ahmad al-Islambuli
from the hardcore of the terrorist empire
with Mullah Umar and his ISI advisers
very much at the centre of things. For
the record, bin Laden acknowledges Umar
as his leader, Amir ul Momineen leader of
all the Muslims, but it's Osama who calls
the shots. Osama is also considering his
legacy. He has established a command
structure that would be able to function
if he were killed. At the head of this
list comes his 18-year-old son Muhammad
bin Laden, who rarely leaves his father's
side.
This clear
disgression is intended to serve as a
backdrop to the working of the terrorist
empire operating out of Afghanistan. Its
importance becomes relevant when we see
that in its second month the US-led
campaign against. Osam bin Laden
continues to be up and about. Mullah
Umar's government is still in control and
its strength has not been materially
dented. Not so far. Efforts made in Rome,
Peshawar and Turkey to find out a new
system of governance for Afghanistan,
assuming that Mullah Umar will be put on
the run in the near future, have come to
a nought so far. Pakistan, with its own
game-plan and a canny eye fixed on
Kashmir, has been pleading for a friendly
government in Kabul, something that has
not found acceptance among other
neighbouring countries of Afghanistan.
And with the imminence of snow in the
mountain ranges of the country, it
appears that the Americans may be in for
a much longer haul than many may have
imagined. Induction of ground troops
would inevitably mean and outflow of
bodybags from Afghanistan something which
the Americans or the British may not like
to see happening in the long run. Popular
sentiment, which favoured harsh
retaliatory action in the wake of
September 11, may wane in the coming
weeks and months and George Bush, who in
fairness to him, has always argued that
the war against terrorism is going to be
a long one, may find himself under
attack. No American wants another
Vietnam. That's the truth.
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POTO
and the USA PATRIOT Act ...............
Yours Randomly,
Dr. R.
L. Bhat
Out here
in the land called India you would call
it a silly word play and laugh at it
looking, for a patting glance of
appreciation all around. You
‘prove’ that securing India is
itself a silly game; that no laws are
needed, no rifles either. And if that
binge of liberal intellectualism takes a
higher flight you may even come to say
that India is not needed either, and look
to other mentors this time in grammar and
language to applaud your clever pun.
After you have proved that, you would add
further ‘points’ to confirm
your stand and say that there are
minorities there, that there are TV
channels there, that there are reporters
around, who all need to be
‘protected’ against any remote,
theoretical, hypothetical, even
imaginary, inconvenience that may be
caused by any provision of a law that
seeks to accomplish prevention of
terrorism. You would cite cases and laws,
cite examples from society and ethics and
buttress your case, with invocations in
and out of context, that any attempt to
prevent open attack on this society is
not what the lord God has ordained.
If you are
the die-hard liberalist, that is, who
rule this nation and its notions as if by
remote control. Then, you would be happy
at that performance at piffling India,
Indians and their concerns and would also
believe that you are not included in
there - neither in the threat perception
nor in the high definition of Indians as
bumbling fools at large. And be happy and
snug there. The common men and women of
this country may never know what
‘silly word-play’ you were
referring to. So much the better for you.
For soon you the liberal intellectual of
India would be haranguing the Indian
government and law-makers for not
enacting ‘comprehensive
legislation’ as they have in the
lands in the occident like USA! Sure the
people of India would soon come to know
this open bandal baazi of
the ‘rights activists’ of
this land, but by then irreparable damage
may have been caused to the nation. Yet
does anyone care there? Anyone of those
liberal opinion makers who disparage POTO
as the very evil incarnate but forget to
speak of the USA PATRIOT Act 2001.
The two
Acts against terrorism came, about the
same time last week. But, with crucial
differences. The American Congress
brought the act with overwhelming support
to the president’s table in a record
time while the Indian opinion masters are
still inspecting POTO, with a hand lens,
to read injustices and threats to
liberty, media and minorities into it.
Accordingly, the American Act is clear,
comprehensive and direct. Even the title
is chosen to state unambiguously that
American patriotism is being anti-
terrorist: Uniting and Strengthening of
America (USA) by Providing
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT), Act
2001. There is no confusion there, no
doubts on the need for a harsh law to
protect the nation, and no confounding of
the terrorist threat with peripheral
excuses and extraneous considerations.
The state is clear that terrorism is to
be fought out. No it is not world
terrorism; they do not care two hoots
about the world there. It is plain
annihilation of America’s enemies
and that is that.
Accordingly
this USA PATRIOT Act 2001 is a hefty 131
page document filled with bold writing
that effectively contains about ten POTOs
between its covers; it is more
comprehensive than the Indian Ordinance,
more stringent, more
‘crippling’ as the critics here
would have said (if it had been an act
enforced in India). The act gives the
state and its officers in police and
secret services, both national and
international, extensive powers of
surveillance, eavesdropping, intrusion
interference and what not. It covers
common offenses, the electronic offences,
financial and others. One clause
specifies that if any part of the act
‘is construed as invalid’ under
any law, maximum benefit of construction
shall be given so that the law is not
invalidated on that count, and if any
provision is found ‘utterly
invalid’ then only that bit shall be
questioned without affecting rest of the
statute in any way. And then the Act goes
on to list everything on the face of this
earth and gives its enforcement agencies,
or people fighting terrorism against
America, limitless powers over it if,
when and where needed by them.
The
greatest criticism of POTO (Prevention of
Terrorism Ordinance) here has been over
the clause requiring all Indian people to
divulge any information they happen to
have about terrorists. That is the
starting point of the PATRIOT Act. It
goes on to impose much greater duties
upon the people and media and any, other
person who may happen to have the
information. It takes surveillance to
heights that no Indian ordinance-drafter
may ever dream of. It roundly dismisses
any and everv excuse that the terrorists
and their harbourers may invent. Without,
of course, any rightists nagging it. Some
people have said, that ‘it may lead
to rights abuses’ but that rejection
has been much muted much hesitant.
Because they there know that their
country is above everything, any
inconvenience any minor bother any small
discomfort. Of course, they cannot
envisage anybody using the excuse of
rights to carry on anti-national
activities of any sort. Such travesties
are only expected in India and must be
protected, too!
Nationalism
is not a plaything there. It is a living
creed. Nobody can, nobody must, say nor
do anything against the nation. Any hint
of anti-nationalism is a mighty offence
there. A mullah calling for jihad against
America would have been hanged without a
trial a la Taliban’s treatment of
Haq. And no questions would be asked.
That is why they call their
anti-terrorist act USA PATRIOT Act. And,
would enforce it. Ruthlessly, you may be
sure. And there would be violations in
that. Mighty violations. Already the
foreign nationals are being hauled up to
show their American credentials.
Everybody who even thought of a mubarak-bad
on the 1 1 September is behind the
bars. And rightly so. Anti-nationals have
no right to live in any nation, whether
it is India or USA. And USA means it.
Extraterritorial loyalties are not
allowed here. Nor, any extra-national
considerations. That is the big
difference between POTO and USA PATRIOT
Act. The difference of a nation and a
non-nation? Mull over that, would you ?
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MEN
AND MATTERS
ISI’s
anti-RAW plan has failed
From B L Kak
India’s
Research and Analysis wing (RAW) and its
Pakistani competitor, the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), are in the news once again.
There is no denying that the RAW is not-and
perhaps will not be-as successful as the ISI is,
and will be in future too.
Significantly,
however, the ISI has for the first time, in
recent years, failed to sell anti-RAW stuff in
Pakistan after the Bahawalpur church massacre on
October 28. True, the average Pakistani has been
taught over the years that the RAW’s
intentions vis-à-vis Pakistan are
"dangerous and mischievous". But the
stand taken by the Pakistani media this time has
led to inconvenient moments for the ruling
establishment in Pakistan, particularly the ISI.
If the Pakistani
establishment sought to divert the people’s
attention by pointing fingers at the
"involvement" of the RAW in the
Bahawalpur church massacre, the Pakistani media
created history of sorts by demonstrating
unwillingness to buy the anti-RAW line this time.
At the same time,
a section of the Pakistani media did endorse the
verdict of Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Lt.
Gen. Moinuddin Haider: "Involvement of RAW
in the dastardly act cannot be ruled out given
its track record". Government-controlled
Pakistan Television (PTV) appeared to have been
forced to interview several prominent Pakistanis.
Each one of them, happily for the ISI and the
Interior Ministry, pointed fingers at the Indian
intelligence agencies.
Pakistan’s Online
news agency went a step further by directly
charging India with making attempts to create a
gulf between Muslims and Christians in Pakistan
through acts of terrorism. This allegation was
voiced at a time when the Western media tried to
impress that the Bahawalpur carnage was the
handiwork of pro-Taliban elements so that
Christians in Europe could be kept away from
protest rallies deploring attacks on Afghanistan.
The massacre in
the Pakistani church, coming as it did at a time
when the United States is fighting a war against
Afghanistan opposed by many Pakistanis, has
triggered fresh concern about the deteriorating
law and order situation in that country. There
are suspicions that the killings might have been
carried out by pro-Taliban supporters in
Pakistan, though no group has yet claimed
responsibility.
Pakistan’s
Christian leaders, however, believe that the
killings are linked to the US military action in
Afghanistan. It should be recalled that Christian
leaders has demanded security cover for
themselves and their churches just before the US
launched its military action in Afghanistan.
Conflicts between religious minorities and
Muslims in Pakistan are not entirely unknown.
However, what
compounds the problem is that these are the worst
killings against Christians in the nation’s
history. This was the first time in
Pakistan’s history that so many Christians
were killed in an attack on a church. In 1988, a
Catholic nun of the same church was killed and
later police arrested her servant for the murder.
While some
instances of Hindu-Muslim clashes are also known
to have taken place across the border, Pakistan
is known mainly for sectarian killings between
Sunni and Shia Muslims, or between different
sects of the Sunnis. It was only after 1977, when
Gen. Zia-ul-Haq introduced a blasphemy law to
please the religious parties supporting his
martial law, that sentiments on grounds of
blasphemy against Christians and other minorities
in Pakistan became serious. The law has been
misused by Muslim landlords in Pakistan’s
countryside to grab land from Christians by
framing them in blasphemy cases, especially in
the Punjab province.
The last time
Pakistan’s Christisans attracted newspaper
headlines was in 1998 when a Christian family of
nine was killed in the northern city of Nowshera.
The killings were linked to the apparent belief
of some local people that the head of the family
was practising spiritual healing. The charge was
rejected by leading Pakistani Bishop Samuel
Ezrayah, who led a protest rally of hundreds of
Christians in Lahore.
The Bishop
linked the killings to religious discrimination
and fundamentalist attitude towards Christianity.
Christians have also campaigned against electoral
laws which have limited who they and other
religious minorities can vote for. However,
appeal courts in Pakistan have generally freed
Christians convicted under the blasphemy law.
In one case
though, a Christian youth, Manzoor Masih, was
arrested under the blasphemy law but was shot
dead while on bail. All these instances only go
to highlight the inherent fragility of
Pakistan’s religious tolerance.
And coming at this
critical juncture when the Pak President and
military ruler, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, is already
battling extremism of another kind, religious
extremism of his nature is bound to lead to
further problems for him. And these are problems
that he would find difficult to brush aside by
merely pinning the blame on India, as is being
done in the wake of the Bahawalpur church attack.
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Shying
away from polls
By Nityanand Roy
The controversy
about the expiry of the term of the UP Assembly
is hotting up with a large number of MLAs
belonging to the opposition parties having
resigned. In fact, the process of en masse
resignation was kicked off by the Samajwadi Party
last month and now the members belonging to the
Congress, the BSP and others too have followed
suit. What is more significant is the
announcement made by Chief Minister Rajnath Singh
that the BJP members would not draw their
salaries and allowances after Octobers 17.
The crucial date
is October 17. It was on this day five years ago
that the last Assembly was duly constituted
following the polls. The opposition parties have
been demanding that the fresh Assembly polls
should be held and their argument being that the
last Assembly has completed its five-years term.
But the Chief Minister, and for that matter the
ruling BJP, has taken the line that the term
would be deemed to be complete only in March next
year, and not on October 17 this year. The
argument advanced in support of their view is
that the first meeting of the new Assembly was
held in March 1997.
The BJP is
apparently solely banking on the provision of
Article 172 of the Constitution. It says that the
term of Assembly shall be counted from that date
on which the first meeting was held after the
elections. It was under very peculiar
circumstances that the first meeting of the
outgoing Assembly could not be held soon after
the completion of the 1996 elections. The UP
electorate had returned a hung Assembly, with no
clear mandate. It was in the midst of such
political uncertainty that an extraordinary step
was taken by the Centre. Instead of allowing the
new members of the Assembly to work out a
combination for setting up a government, the
Centre had stepped in, and the State was placed
under President’s rule, though the Assembly
was not dissolved. It was kept in suspended
animation.
The Centre’s
decision was highly controversial, and the then
Governor too was brutally flayed for his role. As
a result of this highly debatable decision that
the first meeting of the Assembly too was delayed
by about six months. The legal pundits in the
government had perhaps belatedly realised the
folly and woke up to the constitutional
requirement that the meeting of the Assembly
could not be delayed for more than six months.
President’s rule was revoked, and a new
post-election combination was forged between the
BJP and the BSP to form the State Government. The
first meeting of the Assembly was held in March
1997, even though the Assembly had been duly
constituted six months before by the Election
Commission.
But the opposition
parties do not accept the logic that the term of
the present Assembly should be deemed to be
complete in March next year. They demand that for
all practical purposes, the MLAs are elected for
five years. The Assembly came into being on
October 17, five years ago. The requirement is
complete. The opposition parties also argue that
the MLAs would have no moral right to draw
salaries and allowances after October 17. It is
in pursuance of this line that they decided to
put pressure on the Government for the
dissolution of the Assembly and started resigning
from September 11. Now nearly all the opposition
members have quit. The BJP too perhaps felt the
moral pressure, and the Chief Minister went half
way to meet the situation by deciding that the
BJP members would not take their salaries and
allowances after October 17. The Chief Minister
has thus conceded the logic of the opposition,
though he sticks to his stands that the Assembly
would not be dissolved now, and that fresh
elections will come only six months later. For
their purpose, the term of the mandate they gave,
in whatsoever uncertain manner, is now over. Even
otherwise, the Constitutions permits early
dissolution of the Assembly, and the Chief
Minister can do it now, even if his stand on the
date of expiry of the term is regarded as correct
in legale terms. Mr. Rajnath Singh is a man of
some political stature and can take the political
plunge. In any case, he will have to face the
electorate; if not now, six months later. So why
give the impression that he wants to stick to
power beyond his legitimate right?
One can sympathies
with Mr. Singh’s political considerations.
He feels that he should get some more time to
improve the image of the BJP to be able to face
the next elections. His problem is that he came
on the scene a bit too late, and the BJP central
leadership wasted time in experimenting with
others who proved unworthy of chief ministership.
But he should not resort to doubtful means to
gain time and make up for the political loss. He
should not let people think that Rajnath Singh is
shying away from elections.
Unfortunately, the
EC jumped into the controversy a few months ago,
and made an unsolicited pronouncement that the
term of the Assembly would be over in march next
year. It is basically for the Chief Minister and
his Government to decide as to when the Assembly
is to be dissolved and then make the necessary
recommendation to the EC. The EC’s rather
premature decision has left the impression of
showing partiality for the ruling party in the
State. INAV
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