Prestige of three former CMs at stake in Rajasthan

JAIPUR, Nov 25: Prestige of three former Chief Ministers, one of whom had even served as a Governor, is at stake in the Rajasthan assembly polls.

While two of them - Shiv Charan Mathur and Heera Lal Devpura - are sitting members of the assembly, the other, Jagannath Pahadia, who served as Governor of Bihar, is trying his re-entry into the house after more than a decade.

All the three former Chief Ministers are nominees of Congress which is trying to retain power in the desert state in the ensuing polls.

Mathur, who served as Chief Minister twice in 1981 and 1988, is seeking re-election from his traditional Mandalgarh seat in Bhilwara district from where he got elected in 1972, 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1998. He is facing formidable challenge this time from BJP’s Kirti Kumari, belonging to former royalty.

Muslim independent Mubarik Hussain and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate Vinod Kumar tailor are also causing problems for him in the constituency.

Pahadia, who held the rein of State Government when Congress returned back to power in 1980 after brief Janata Party rule, is trying to retain Weir seat, reserved for Scheduled Castes, won by his wife Shanti Pahadia for Congress in 1998 polls.

He faces Ganga Ram of BJP in the constituency where BSP candidate Hari Singh is causing problems for the former Chief Minister who served as Governor of Bihar in 1989 for about a year.

Another former Chief Minister Heera Lal Devpura, a sitting member of Rajasthan house, is seeking re-election from his traditional seat of Kumbhalgarh in Rajsamand district from where he had romped home six times since 1967.

Devpura, who served as Chief Minister briefly in 1985, is facing a tough fight from Surendra Singh Rathore of BJP besides Vijay Laxmi of NCP, Rameshwar Lal of Samajwadi Party and Govind Singh Shaktawat of Social justJce Forum (SJF). (PTI)

Campaigning enters last phase in Rajasthan

JAIPUR, Nov 25: A bit tired if not jaded, top-notch politicians and film stars have plunged into the last stretch of their whirlwind election tour of Rajasthan.

It is a tier-ed up arrangement — while the senior most leaders address campaign meetings in district headquarters, the relatively junior artistes of the political stage have taken to small towns.

Some, including Chief Ministerial candidates, are even making it to distant, tiny villages where election is like a festival after the harvest and Ramazan.

Adding glamour to the scene are a clutch of pro-BJP and pro-Shiv Sena Bollywood stars.

So far, the state has missed an overriding issue normally talked about during elections. Visible signs of elections too are missing with markets, streets and roads bereft of the usual campaign posters, buntings and flags.

While Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have tied down their campaign speeches to competitive rhetorics on the issues of corruption, governance and policy, the smaller stars on the political firmament are busy running down their rival candidates.

So far, the lead campaigner for the Congress, besides Ms Gandhi, has been Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot himself. He usually travels by road, stopping every few hours to address public meetings.

His speech focuses on the secular character of the Congress, the development works carried out by his Government, the good drought management and the negative and ineffective role the BJP played as an opposition.

Occasionally, Mr Gehlot also issues a reprimand for the BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate Vasundhara Raje Scindia, saying her choice of words for him reflects a lack of understanding about the decencies of Rajasthani culture.

Ms Scindia, on the other hand, is usually all fire and brimstone, calling herself a "tigeress" who knows how to defend her children (meaning, the electorate). She forcefully asserts that she would make Mr Gehlot bite the dust.

She accuses the Gehlot Government of mismanaging central aid for the drought-hit, increasing the state’s debt burden, burdening people with high power rates and doing little to curb atrocities on Dalits and women. According to her, there is all-round distress because of the Congress Government’s policies.

Also stepping into this continuous drama from time to time are senior leaders from other states. Among them was Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who while on a tour of communally sensitive ascend and the tribal areas adjoining Gujarat, asked voters to compare the prosperity of Gujarat with that of Rajasthan.

Laced with masculine bravado, his snappy-smart speeches repeated the allegation of pro-minority tilt in the Congress and Mr Gehlot.

Leaders of a number of smaller parties in the poll fray are also touring the districts, seeking to make a dent in the Congress and BJP vote base and struggling to make an impact in the state’s politics.

Away from the media spotlight, individual candidates are busy repairing their image among the electorate with extensive tours in their constituencies, reaching out to them with fresh promises. (UNI)

SC orders CBI probe into appointment of teachers in Haryana

NEW DELHI, Nov 25: The Supreme Court today ordered a CBI investigation into appointment of 3000 teachers by the Haryana Government after a petiton alleged that the actual select list of the teachers was given a go by and candidates selected by Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala were "substituted.

A bench comprising R C Lahoti and Justice Ashok Bhan asked CBI to complete the probe into the appointment of teachers made in year 2000 within six months and register a case if any offence is disclosed.

The order was passed by the bench on a petiton filed by IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, former Education dirDctor of the State, alleging that Chautala had threatened him with "dire consequences" if he did not "substitute" the actual selected list of candidates for appointment as teachers with the one supplied by the political leadership.

Keeping in view the allegations made against Kumar by the Haryana Government, the Court also asked CBI to probe the same. (PTI)

Man-elephant conflict in Orissa takes heavy toll

BHUBANESWAR, Nov 25: As many as 195 lives have been lost due to the man-elephant conflict in Orissa during the past five years.

This has been attributed to the fast depletion of forests, growing human habitation close to the elephant habitats, scarcity of food and destruction of elephant corridors.

With a population of 1,840 elephants in the forests of orissa, it has become a major concern for the people and wildlife officials to strike a balance between the ongoing man-elephant conflict which has claimed the lives of 98 elephants.

Though such conflicts were reported from almost all the 16 elephant habitation in orissa, the problem has assumed an alarming proportion in the Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Sambalpur and Dhenkanal districts.

Herds of elephants from the nearby Chandaka elephant sanctuary straying into human habitation has increased over the years. It has become a major headache for the Government even in the state capital.

Wildlife officials claimed that a majority of the man-elephant conflicts leading to loss of human lives was reported from the forests of Keonjhar district, where the elephant habitation and corridors had been destroyed due to large-scale mining.

The Government has issued a mass appeal in the media advising the people residing close to the elephant habitats to take all precautionary measures to save their lives.

The State Government has urged the people to keep themselves away from the elephant herd, restrict the movement of the children, women and elderly in the villages during the evening and deploy guards to keep a strict vigil on the movement of the herd.

It had also advised people on various ways to scare the elephants from their locality and allow them to have a smooth return to their abode without causing any harm to the herd.

The Government even cautioned the people not to venture into the elephant habitat for collection of forest produce and asked the villagers to avoid cultivating paddy and growing sugar cane and banana close to the elephant habitats.

According to Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) secretary Biswajit Mohanty the problem lies with the loss of major elephant corridors in the state.

Mr Mohanty said the ongoing man-elephant conflict would be solved to a great extent if the Government took steps to restore the corridors for the free movement of the elephants.

Major elephant corridors including Chandaka-Daljoda-Kapilas, Kuldiha-Simlipal and Bihar-Bonai had been exposed to mining, urbanisation and large scale human interference leading to increasing man-elephant conflict.

A senior wildlife official said a survey was undertaken to identify the elephant corridors in the state yet no attempt has been made to conserve these corridors to avoid the conflict.

The Chandaka elephant sanctuary spread over an area of 190 Sq Km close to the state capital has posed a major threat to the surrounding habitation including the state capital.

The State Government had spent crores of rupees to construct trenches all around the sanctuary over the past two decades. A senior wildlife official, said trench fencing is ridiculous as the roaming elephant would never like to confine itself to a particular habitat round the year.

He said the carrying capacity of the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary could be a maximum of 25 to 30 elephants but their population inside the sanctuary had gone upto 90, posing a serious problem to the habitat.

This apart, the corridor for the elephants of Chandaka Sanctuary that helped them to move to other sancturies, had been blocked by human habitation forcing the elephants to enter into the nearby human habitation even during the day time.

Wildlife officials said it was high time that the Government went for translocation of the elephants of the Chandaka Sanctuary to avoid the man-elephant conflict.

Instead of wasting money on trenches, the State Government should tranquilise some elephents or capture them and release them in other dense forests where human interference is sparse and the elephants would get sufficient habitat to roam.

The elephant population inside the Chandaka Sanctuary should be brought down to 30 and the rest of the elephants from the sanctuary should be translocated in Badarama, Satkosia, Simlipal and Kapilas Sanctuaries.

The State Government’s proposal to declare at least three elephant concentration forests such as simlipal, Satkosia and Kalasuni as elephant sanctuaries, was still pending before the Centre.

Of the total 1,840 elephants recorded in the last census, a majority of them were found in simlipal forest alone while other areas such as Hadagarh, Kuldiha, Satkosia, Ushakothi and Baisipal forest were considered major elephant reserves in the state. (UNI)

Self-less service drives auto driver candidate

NEW DELHI, Nov 25: If courage and conviction alone can carry a candidate through in an election, Delhi’s first woman auto driver Sunita Chaudhury should be an outright winner.

The 25-year-old National Panther’s Party candidate aspiring to become the MLA from Mehrauli housing the historic Qutab Minar, is a social worker and a self-appointed trauma service volunteer besides being a politician.

When she was only 13, her parents married her off to a man from Haryana. "My life since then was like living in a hell. I was harassed for dowry," says Chaudhury, who belongs to Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

She says one night she was carried off to a nearby jungle by her husband’s relatives who wanted to kill her. "I somehow escaped and ran for my life."

Chaudhury, who did not go back to her husband, divorced him later. During their marriage, she also had to see the death of her two-month-old baby.

Life in Delhi’s Mehrauli, which she made her home after her disastrous marriage, has made her a social worker first and foremost. "I came to Delhi with the determination that I will henceforth live a life helping the poor," she says.

In fact, Chaudhuri did more than that. She formed a one-person trauma service, picking up accident victims from the road whenever she saw one and rushing them to the hospital. "I beat up auto drivers when they refused to carry the victims," recalls Chaudhuri, who says she may have rescued dozens of accident victims. "It was distressing when once I heard from the doctors that a man I carried to the hospital had died."

Chaudhury says after working for the ‘Samaj Sevika’, a women’s social welfare organisation in Mehrauli, for several years, she decided that it was time she had a proper platform for helping people. "I immediately accepted it when the Panther’s Party offered me a ticket from Mehrauli. I have seen what life means to poor people. I can understand the problems of the people," she says.

If she is elected, she says, one of her first jobs will be to upgrade the primary health centre in her constituency and equip it with an ambulance and beds for in-patients because poor people can’t afford expensive private hospitals.

Does she take passengers in her auto on metre charges or follow what her fellow auto drivers so brazenly do? "I have to pay Rs 250 per day as rent to the owner of my auto. But I never cheat," says Chaudhury, who may have liked her election symbol to be auto. "But it is bicycle, she says." (UNI)

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