Shourie dares: RSS must rebuild BJP, Rajnath is Alice in Blunderland

Days after the expulsion of Jaswant Singh highlighted the crisis in the BJP, the party’s beleagured leadership came under an unprecedented, no-holds-barred attack launched by its senior leader Arun Shourie today.

Urging the RSS to step in and revamp the party, including replacing the entire top brass with fresh blood from states, Shourie hit out at party president Rajnath Singh calling him an “Alice in Blunderland.”

In an unusually candid interview to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk The Talk today, Shourie said: “The BJP today is like a kati patang (kite without a string). Unless it’s got hold of swiftly...I don’t see people within the party who now have such authority....

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Beating the heat: Gujarat polling to start an hour early

The Election Commission has put in place an elaborate plan to beat the scorching summer heat, allowing voting to commence one hour earlier than normal in the morning and making medical arrangements to tackle emergencies for its polling officers.

Polling for the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state on Thursday will start at 7 am instead of 8 am, and end at 5 pm, State Chief Electoral Officer Anita Karwal said on Wednesday.

She said the 182 teams of medical and paramedical personnel would fan out across all the constituencies to treat polling officials in case they are hit by the heatwave.

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Samajwadi Party deals Kalam trump card

To give its political decision of supporting the UPA the stamp of “national-interest” legitimacy, the Samajwadi Party today armed itself with a ringing endorsement of the Indo-US nuclear deal from former President A P J Abdul Kalam.

The SP’s Kalam announcement came hours after it got its allies in the UNPA to climb down from their strident opposition to the deal to saying they were ready for a “national debate.”

While these allies — TDP, INLD, AGP and the Jharkhand Vikas Party — stay opposed to the deal, they watched in awkward silence as SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said: “I can assure you that the UNPA will not take any step that will go against the national interest. The UNPA will also not do anything that will strengthen the communal forces (BJP) in the country.”

All the UNPA members, except the SP, have been associated with the NDA and all supported Kalam for a second term as President as well.

When Kalam had approved the deal, the BJP had distanced itself calling it his “personal opinion.”

“We had gone to seek the advice of former President Abdul Kalam, who is also a respected scientist, on the clarifications to our apprehensions provided by the PMO yesterday,” said Mulayam after his meeting with Kalam.

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In Parched Bundelhand boy help for stealig water

Bundelkhand last made news over Rahul Gandhi’s midnight visit to Dalit Home, provoking Chief Minister Mayawati and the BJP to question his motives. But as Lucknow and Delhi debate Dalit politics, Bundelhand is seeing clashes and thefts over some thing far more basic water.

On Saturaday morning, 15 year old Daya Shankar and there fellow villagers were arrested for allegedly trying to capture a tanker to their village Mudhari in Mahoba district. Besides other charges, all four were booked under section 353 of the IPC for obstructing government work. Three armed policemen are since on duty to ensure that tanker water is distributed fairly in Mudhari.

However, as villagers say, a tanker is a drop in the drought for their cattle and them. Where Mudhari has 14 hand pumps, only 10 are functional. Each time they are used for more than half an hour, the supply dries up as the water level falls to low.

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Kerala violence reaches Delhi: Sangh, CPM clash

In a violent fallout to clashes between cadres of the CPM and Sangh in Kerala, RSS-BJP activists today targeted the CPM head quarters in New Delhi, leading to clashes and stone pelting which left at least 10 CPM members, 12 from the RSS and eight policemen injured. The Rapid Action Force had to be called in and police had to use teargas to scatter the crowds.

Fifteen people, including six BJP councillors and two former MLAs, were later arrested and charged with rioting, obstructing a public servant on duty and holding a demonstration without prior permission.

Trouble began this morning when over Sangh activists marched up to A K Gopalan Bhawan - the CPM headquar ters in Gole Market - where a meeting of the party central committee was on. "At around 11 am, when we took a break for tea, we realised that a few RSS protestors were forcing their way into our office. The police were unable to stop them. When we tried to reason with them, they started pelting stones," said Hari Singh Kang, a CPM central committee member who was among the injured.

The BJP and RSS members, on the other hand, claimed they were leading a peaceful protest over seven deaths in Kannur in Kerala. They alleged that the CPM began the stone-pelting.

"We were in a peaceful protest and before we knew it, Left party members were pelting stones at us from the first floor of their office. I tried to stop our party workers from retaliating when a big stone hit me in the head," said Moolchand Chawla of the BJP. "They provoked us into retaliating but we remained peaceful," he said.


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Enemy No. 1 is BJP, Left working on third front: CPM

"It has gone to the IAEA. It will come back to the (UPALeft) committee which we have set up. When that comes we will see. It is not going forward anywhere," he said.

The draft political resolution, which provides CPM the larger direction framework for the next three years, states "the party differentiates between the BJP and Congress, considering the latter as a bourgeois party, though it often vacillates when communal forces take the offensive.

The party will continue to adopt tactics for isolating and defeating BJP. It will not enter into any alliance or united front with the Congress."

Karat said the party will maintain relations with all "non-Congress secular par ties" for a united struggle and joint action on common issues.

"We still want a secular government at the Centre.

But we also want a government which does not follow such economic policies. How we can achieve that, we will have to wait and see," he said when he was asked about CPM plans for the next Lok Sabha elections.

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Image and Article source: Indian Express
Article taken from the issue: 21 Jan 2008