Loksatta Is Flexing musles Over Electoral Reforms

As the Lok Satta party, with its crop of image-defying politicians, raises hopes for a new brand of politics, INN catches up with party leader Dr Jayaprakash Narayan on the party's hopes at the Karnataka polls and possibilities of a larger wave of political reforms in the country. 

The Lok Satta party headed by Jayaprakash Narayan is flexing its muscles in Bangalore as the state gets ready for elections in May. The party has so far named 15 candidates for MLA elections in the state; more are expected. Nine are contesting in Bangalore city itself, and the rest from other parts of Karnataka. Lok Satta has a reformist positioning in the Indian political sphere. It supports clean governance, setting up of a strong Lokpal, liberalising agriculture, closing of populist subsidies, FDI in retail, and so forth.

Jayaprakash Narayan, 57, the charismatic leader who is more widely known in Andhra Pradesh than Karnataka, is the sole MLA of the party anywhere in the country. He ran and won his seat in AP assembly elections from Kukatpally in Hyderabad. In AP, Tamilnadu and Maharashtra, there are a handful of local representatives (in municipal councils and panchayats) of the party.

Given the cynicism around the state of politics in India, many consider the chances of candidates with strong credentials and track records to enter legislatures to be very low. However, in the past few years, India, and urban India in particular has seen a surge of demand in the streets from a largely frustrated young citizenry. There has been an outpouring of protests around the country on several counts. From the huge wave of public support for a Lokpal bill for fighting rampant corruption to the most recent protests over the Delhi gang-rape incident, the yearning for change among large sections of the Indian populace has been evident.

Lok Satta has been at the forefront of many such change campaigns from a time when public angst had not even made itself so visible. In Bangalore for example, Lok Satta party volunteers were originally involved in sparking off Saaku, an anti-corruption movement in the city that peaked during the support campaign for Justice Santosh Hegde. During his tenure as Lokayukta, he had exposed the BJP government's ministers including former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa. Many volunteers who were part of the India Against Corruption (IAC) group that campaigned for the Lokpal bill in the city during Anna Hazare’s fast in New Delhi were also Lok Satta party cadres.

Better known as JP, Jayaprakash Narayan is no mean achiever in public life. He is a doctor by training, and a former IAS officer with a long track record of accomplishments. He is well known for his campaign and role in bringing electoral reforms to India in 2002 that made disclosures by candidates running for office mandatory.

Prior to founding Lok Satta as a political party, he founded it as a movement for better governance in Andhra Pradesh. Lok Satta's work on electricity reforms became visible as it took over and operated four power distribution stations in the state to demonstrate the efficacy of several reform measures they had advocated.

In Bengaluru today, Lok Satta party candidates, most of them reasonably well known in their neighbourhoods and the city, are running for MLAs. Jayaprakash Narayan or JP as he is called has been moved by the upsurge in Bangalore and says it has the most cosmopolitan electorate in the country. “Bangaloreans are more likely to transcend old loyalties and parochial power that mainline parties have,” he says.

As the campaigns in Bengaluru have begun to peak, INN caught up with JP for a detailed conversation. He spoke many things and seems passionate, thoughtful, clear and yet restrained. Excerpts of the Interview.

You have been the single MLA for Lok Satta in AP. What are your hopes for the next AP election (2014)?

Being a single MLA in the assembly is not such a bad thing. We have shown that it is still possible to influence significant public policy outcomes.

We feel 15-20 per cent of the electorate certainly wants change. But there are systemic compulsions in India because of which even if you have good support base, and strong credibility, conversion to votes is not easy.

We are considering issue-based alliances for the AP 2014 elections. If there is an iron clad guarantee on specific issues from a bigger political party in constituencies where we are strong, we may transfer our support to them.

These are issues on which we will seek issue-base alliances:

• Full decentralisation of power to local government at the ward and panchayat level.
• Services guarantee law, with compensation to citizens when there is delay or denial
• Radical change in the power sector
• Agricultural reforms – liberalisation of agriculture, not merely giving short term freebies, but long term benefits
• Anti-Corruption agenda – A Lokayukta for AP with real independent power
• Education and Health care reform.
• We currently have strong presence in 80 constituencies in AP, and there are around 20-25 people who have been working hard in these areas for the people. They may become the MLA candidates for LS in 2014.

What significant outcomes have you been able to influence as MLA, even as a lone representative in the AP assembly?

There are several concrete outcomes. There is a robust Societies Act in use in AP. The Congress party wanted to amend it in a way that would bring in far more controls. The amendment was unconstitutional according to me. I have stood against this and held it up for the past four years in the legislature and have got the rest of the opposition to stand against it as well. The Congress could have passed it by brute force and has not because of the opposition I have led.

Next is the Citizen Services Delivery Guarantee bill. While this is not enacted yet, there has been debate on the bill and the rules the government needs to put in place for it to function effectively. This has already resulted in real action on the ground, even without the bill being passed.

There is a now a Lokayukta bill pending in the AP assembly. This is also my party's work and we have pushed for it. It is not enacted yet, but we will continue to push for it.

In the 2010 elections in AP, Lok Satta had a well articulated vision with many reform points that the Congress party copied from us. Our party has a lot of credibility in the state in arguing its points and other parties have drawn from us whenever they want. That is also impact.

Tell voters what the Lok Satta party has done for Bangalore and Karnataka that legitimises its claim that it is ready to fight big electoral races such as MLA elections.

The Lok Satta party has already contributed to Bangalore, in three areas.

First, through Ashwin Mahesh, whose work on transportation and traffic control for Bangalore is remarkable, especially for its focus on strengthening public departments. He has also been leading the water management efforts, including lake revival.

Second, it has covered a lot of ground in waste segregation and management: N S Ramakanth and Meenakshi Bharath have been doing stellar work in this area. This is part of our focus on urban planning.

Third is the Saaku movement itself. Lok Satta volunteers were at the core of triggering off that movement in Bangalore earlier, with an initial focus on safeguarding the institution of the Lokayukta. The IAC happened immediately and naturally after that.

More broadly, Lok Satta members are at the core of virtually all the civil society-led changes in the city. That is a very good thing. Politics and development should be strongly connected, and the example of our Bangalore party unit is a very good one in this regard.

Some voters think that too often in elections, people run to make statements, satisfy their egos, etc., even though chances of winning are considered slim. This has happened to parliamentary races before. What will you say to Bangalore voters this month who worry that Lok Satta candidates 'might not win'? How should citizens think about 'winnability'?

You have hit the nail on the head. Winnability does seem to dominate during elections. And with our first past the post system (FPTP), winning for new candidates is a challenge. Our political parties – when you talk to individual politicians -- are themselves not so terrible. Many of them also want the right candidates to run, but they are concerned about winnability.

But when people worry about new candidates not being winnable – they should look at the following.

Congress has won in Karnataka, the state is still in a mess. BJP has also won, that is they are winnable too, and they have also not fixed the mess in the state. Likewise with JD(S). So it is not as if the winners of the past have been able to bring about serious reforms or bring down corruption.

Lok Satta candidates, even though they are fewer in number, offer a genuine alternative. Moreover, Bangalore city offers a unique opportunity. It has the most cosmopolitan electorate in the country. Voters in Bangalore are more likely to transcend old loyalties and parochial power that mainline parties have. Secondly, because of the way Karnataka politics has gone, there are now many factions and hence fragmentation of votes. There is an opportunity for Bangaloreans to vote with their heart for candidates with an excellent track record.

There is also a difference between unattached independent candidates who do not belong to parties and party-backed candidates. Parties can articulate an agenda, they have organisational memory which they can bring into the Assembly even if they have only one or a few seats in the legislature. Single independent candidates cannot do that.

Your manifesto makes a promise that implies that 12-hour three-phase power supply in rural Karnataka in possible. How?

It is possible. First we must separate rural electricity feeders from agriculture feeders. Secondly every consumer of electricity, even a farmer who gets free power has to be metered. Long back, when Lok Satta was an NGO, we took over four distribution stations and ran it for the AP government. We brought about an 18 per cent reduction in line losses from 27 per cent to 9 per cent. These are all audited figures, publicly available.

There are around 9.75 lakh transformers in the AP power system. 5-7 per cent of these usually fail each year and when taken down for maintenance, it takes several days for them to come back online. Lok Satta showed that we can spend a few hundred rupees to fix these transformers and bring them back online much sooner which helps in running the power system with less outages.

Separating agricultural power from the rest of rural power itself can ensure that 12 hour supply is possible. This provides a boost to SMEs in rural areas because otherwise they have to come to the cities. Making more rural power available will boost rural investment and employment, and cut back on migration to the cities.

Gujarat is the best example for all this. By taking this approach they have already managed 24-hour single-phase power in all of rural Gujarat. So it is possible to promise and deliver 12-hour single-phase power in rural Karnataka.

An opposing candidate from some mainstream party is going to promise very low-cost housing or some freebie to low-income citizens in his constituency. Are you going to compete with that? People are used to a patronage relationship with their MLAs, you know this.

Yes, Promises will be made. After all elections are all about public money. Lok Satta candidates will explain an alternative vision. Our option is to explain to people that short term freebies are not making problems go away.

Our plan also is go to educated voters and youth, and especially women to get their backing.

We are hearing this view from several people – that women are supporting new candidates who stand for change, more than men. Why do you think this is so?

This is an important question and it must be studied. I can only hazard a guess.

Ultimately men see these battles as power games. Patriarchy, caste, linguistic and regional affiliations are above all about power won over identity and parochial loyalties. Men who already have power as part of patriarchy become concerned about who will win. Once issues are boxed into identity politics, there is no coming out.

Women on the other hand do not have power; they tend to be concerned about survival, and what will happen to family, prices, schooling of their children, etc. So they tend to be more open to voting for change. Women and youth definitely helped us win the MLA seat from Kukatpally. So men are concerned about who, and women are concerned about what.

The first-past-the-post system voting system in India presents serious challenges to new parties. Comment on the chances in the Karnataka elections for your Bangalore MLA candidates.

Yes, FPTP for India is a huge challenge. But I have some good news to report here.

Look at India’s most influential states for parliamentary seats: UP, Bihar, Bengal, TN, Maharashtra and AP. Except AP (even there, Congress is shaking), in none of these states has the BJP or the Congress been able to win on their own. Together these states contribute 65 per cent of Lok Sabha's seats. This is because of the FPTP system; it has already caused serious problems for these parties.

In UP for example, Rahul Gandhi invested a substantial amount of time and strategy. See the results though. Samajwadi Party got 3.7 per cent more vote share and got 127 more seats in the last elections. Even though Congress got 3 per cent more vote share, it got only 6 more seats. In Maharashtra, Congress cannot come to power on its own either.

The FPTP system is hurting the national parties in the most influential states.

But leaders of parties should be alive to this problem, it cannot be that they do not understand all this…?

Parties have not taken a hard look at this problem till now. The reality is that leaders do not have time. They are mostly caught up in day-to-day running of the party and the problems that keep emerging. But this is changing now.

The Congress Party has set up a high-powered committee under Ambika Soni, with Veerappa Moily, Mani Shankar Aiyyar, and others to look at reviewing FPTP. There is discussion on this issue also within the BJP at a mid-level. Left parties are already on board to change the FPTP system.

What is interesting is that this does not require a constitutional amendment or even a change in the law. It is just a rule being used to run our elections. If the parties agree, the rule can be changed.

What would you like the FPTP system to change to? You have advocated proportional representation; does that also mean you will support multiple representatives per constituency?

As a winner-takes-all system, FPTP overweighs the views of the winner and ignores all others. This is true even if the winner himself gets only 15 per cent of the vote, as we saw in one recent case. A proportionate system would correct this, and give voice to a greater diversity of views. This is all the more important when, as in India today, we are seeing an increasing fracture of the vote among different parties. Ideally, an elected representative even in a single-member constituency should represent 50 per cent of the voters at least. That's clearly not the case today; in fact it is the exception.

A number of solutions, including multi-member constituencies, run-offs and other options can be considered. Once we accept that FPTP is hindering the broad representation of public opinion in elected houses, a lot of other things will become possible. It has taken many decades for parties to come to this realisation. Now we must act on this, and strengthen democracy by a new system with greater inclusion of voices and views. 

You mentioned Arvind Kejriwal. What happened between Aam Aadmi Party and Lok Satta that they could not come together?

There are genuine issues we have to iron out.

One is the whole approach AAP has about good and evil. An approach that says one side is always good and the other is always evil is not right in a democracy. I have always held that our political parties are not evil and they cannot be blamed for everything that is wrong in India. Yes, our parties have bungled, no doubt.

We have to recognise the historical process we have gone through as a nation. Federalism, states, peaceful transfer of power, and universal adult franchise have all come to stay in the country, and our political parties have seen through this. So it is not right for AAP to make this contest one about good and evil.

The good and evil approach also caused us to lose an opportunity earlier. Take the Lokpal bill. In 2011, the bill that went to Parliament was 80 per cent of the bill “we” wanted. But Hazare and IAC did plenty of grand-standing that it could either be 100 per cent or zero. Media also made it into a big deal. In such a negative climate for the government's bill, the path became clear for other parties to use the ruse of 'states rights' to kill the Lokayukta provision. So now, while the Lokpal bill has Lokpal provisions, mandatory Lokayuktas for all the states is gone from it. But 80 percent of corruption impacting people is at the state level, not central. We have lost the chance for getting that option through the central bill.

We all want an ethical india. But the fight against corruption alone can only be a minimum qualification for politics, it is not the maximum. There needs to be more. AAP, for instance, does not support our positions on FDI in retail, and also on power sector reforms.

Having said this, our differences need not be blown out of proportion in the media. In a democracy, there is always a need for a spirit of accommodation. We have not written off working together. 

SIDDARAMAIAH IS A 'MAN OF REAL POLITICS' IN KAR'KA

By Vijaya Anand / Bangalore

If HD Deve Gowda spends a sleepless night tonight, blame it on Siddaramaiah. Because it was after a bitter falling out with the former prime minister that Siddaramaiah walked out of the Janata Dal (Secular) in 2006 and decided to turn a Congressman. And when the opportunity came tantalisingly close for the two-time deputy chief minister to occupy the top job, Siddaramaiah ensured he won the battle of the secret ballot at the Congress office in Bangalore. In the election today, two in every three MLAs reportedly voted in his favour over Mallikarjun Kharge, the Dalit strongman from the Hyderabad-Karnataka region of the state.

Karnataka Farmers Reverse Grain Drain

By Anitha Reddy

Eshwarappa Banakar has been a farmer most of his adult life, but these days he has also turned banker - a banker of seeds, that is, and especially of millet strains.

Yet while his is Karnataka's first seed bank to be set up by an individual farmer, it is only one of the signs of the millet's creeping comeback in the agricultural sector of this southern Indian state.

The trend is partly due to the efforts of Sahaja Samrudha (Bountiful Nature), an organization working toward reviving the cultivation of traditional millets in Karnataka's dryland tracts. Banakar acquired his seeds from the group, which maintains a network of farmers and encourages on-farm conservation of traditional seed varieties.

Krishna Prasad, founder and director of Sahaja Samrudha, said: "The focus of the conservation is to prevent the extinction of these valuable crops, and this can be achieved only by reintroducing them into the farming systems where it has disappeared."

Millets are staples of the traditional Karnataka diet, and are served usually as roti or as millet rice. They are considered rich sources of minerals, amino acids, and fiber. Chamarajanagara district farmer Rajashekara Murthy said: "The nutritive value of the native ragi [finger millet] varieties is so high that one ragi ball suffices to sustain a worker for the entire day."

The cultivation of millets, however, has been on the decline for the past three decades.

One major reason for this has been the focus on the more profitable cash crops such as sugarcane, potato, sunflower, cotton, and other cereals like rice and wheat. Millets at one point were also branded as "cereal of the poor", a negative connotation that could have only contributed to its diminishing popularity in the rural areas and to the non-existent demand for it among urban people.

Murthy points a finger as well at the Public Distribution System (PDS), saying, "The introduction of rice - supplied at subsidized prices through the PDS - has replaced ragi as a main staple."

Banaker said: "I remember my childhood when we depended only on millets for our meals, but [we] later changed to growing commercial crops."

Conserving millets, though, is strategic in terms of their nutritional contribution and their role in local agro-ecosystems, says Sahaja Samrudha's Prasad. Experts say that millets, which are low-water consuming crops, make sense as crops for the small and marginal farmers in most of southern India's semi-arid zones.

"Indian agriculture is mainly dependent on rainfall, as 70% of our net cultivated area is under dryland agriculture," said agronomy professor N Deva Kumar of the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore. "In order to feed [our] increasing population, there is continued pressure on drylands to produce more."

Millets, Kumar said, are best suited for "low rainfall situations" and "are free from pest and disease attack". Thus, they will "play a major role in combating the situation of climate change, which results in increased temperature, reduced rainfall and reduced crop productivity."

Banakar, who has so far collected for his seed bank 25 varieties of sorghum, 30 of finger millet, and 10 of foxtail millet, besides a few varieties of kodo millet, proso millet, and pearl millet, realizes that now. The resident of Haveri district in this Indian state said that when his family was growing commercial crops, it incurred losses every time there was a drought or a flood.

Madegowda, a farmer who has taken to conserving about 26 varieties of finger millet on his farm in Mysore district, said, "It was the prevailing drought-like situation for a few years that finally woke me up to the fact that we can't get anywhere with only high-input cash crops.

"Drought, apart from bringing down yields, also dried up my crop, which created scarcity of fodder. Then I realized the value of ragi, which gives me food as well as fodder for my cattle. Purchasing fodder is very expensive from the market."

Koppal district farmer Shekammavani Huchhappa said millets can withstand not only drought but also heavy rain. Encouraged by Sahaja Samrudha, she has been growing the seven kinds of millets while following different modes of crop diversification.

Puttaraju, another farmer in Chamarajnagar district, also in Karnataka, cultivates a combination of different millets, pulses, and oilseeds even as he grows finger millet as a main crop. He said this ensures him of a harvest come rain or shine. The method, he said, will also increase returns from the land in terms of nutrient availability, water holding capacity, and soil fertility, in addition to helping with pest and disease control.

Mixed cropping of millet with other grains or legumes is an important practice in traditional cropping system and is receiving renewed interest along with the return of millets as crops in local farms.

CONGRESS STOP BACKING 'CORRUPT' LEADERS IN AP

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

When he is being grilled by the CBI this week, do not blame Pawan Kumar Bansal if for a moment he regrets not having been a minister in the Andhra Pradesh cabinet.

Because, if past record is anything to go by, the tainted former Union Railways minister would have happily continued in office if he was one of Kiran Kumar Reddy’s ministers. And the world wouldn’t have been one goat less !

The Celebrity Cricket League And Its Struggle For Relevance

It is that time of the year when top actors do not pray for a ball at the box-office. Instead they are focussed on how many times the ball clears the boundary or plays on the batsman’s mind across 22 yards.

But as season 3 of the pompously christened Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) draws to a close on Sunday evening with Telugu Warriors playing Karnataka Bulldozers in the finals in Bangalore, movie stars are unsure whether to pop the champagne or not. Having copied the Indian Premier League‘s formula of creating a cocktail of cricket and entertainment, many in the CCL wonder if it has only been a poor version of the IPL, even after three years.

On the face of it, the CCL seems like a success story. It has moved from four teams in 2011 to eight teams now and has succeeded in its efforts to be a pan-India tournament of movie stars playing cricket. To give them credit, the teams – Chennai Rhinos (winner in the first two editions), Telugu Warriors, Karnataka Bulldozers, Mumbai Heroes, Kerala Strikers, Bengal Tigers, Veer Marathi and Bhojpuri Dabanggs – take their cricket quite seriously. Many of the teams have former cricketers as mentors or coaches, like G R Vishwanath for Karnataka Bulldozers and get bowlers from first division league in their cities to bowl to their batsmen, to ensure quality net practise.

The quality of cricket is also not too bad. Many matches have seen some clean hitting and some of the fielders have taken blinders, helped by the level of fitness that stars or even struggling actors maintain to make themselves count in the highly competitive film business.

Big names have bought the teams. Like Boney and Sridevi Kapoor who own Bengal Tigers and Sohail Khan who bought Mumbai Heroes. Malayalam superstar Mohanlal and director Priyadarshan own the Kerala team while industrialist Ashok Kheny owns Karnataka Bulldozers. Salman Khan makes it a point to attend many CCL matches and sponsors have been dazzled enough to be associated with the idea.

At a personal level, many of the actors have a common story to share. How they abandoned their passion to play cricket for a career in films and how CCL has enabled them to do both. So they ensure they take time out for practice and travel and bonding with other team members. Of course, it helps that they are also adequately compensated for their efforts.

Over a period of one month, the matches in Season 3 have also been played in different cities – from Siliguri, Hyderabad and Ranchi to Dubai, Pune and Kochi, to reach out to the doting fans. If CCL catches up among the television-viewing audience, it will also enable many of the regional movie stars gain a more national profile.

The flip side however, has been the question mark over the glam quotient in the teams, Barring a couple of big names, who are invariably the team’s captain and vice-captain, most teams invariably consist of unknown faces who are in the team more for their cricketing talent than their standing as actors. One of the exceptions is Mumbai Heroes that has a rule that at least five players should have acted in ten films or more. But look at the playing elevens of many other sides and you would wonder if star power is indeed wielding the willow.

Another concern is the ego battles within the film industry. The presence of a superstar-captain in any team keeps his rivals on 70mm away from padding up for the industry team. Three, every star actor has injury worries at the back of his mind and if he has crores riding on him, taking an unnecessary risk for the sake of a single would seem stupid.

While team owners who spend anywhere between 3 to 4 crore rupees every year to run a team and also host matches in their backyard are able to recover a significant part of it through sponsorships, those who look at the business side of CCL have still not been able to crack what is it that the audience wants. For instance, would people be more happy with a Nagarjuna bowling to a Mammootty or an Aamir Khan facing a Vijay? Would they like actresses taking to the field as well instead of being mere cheerleaders? Or do they just want their state team to win, irrespective of the number of unrecognisable `actors’ who are part of the side.

CCL administrators concede that unlike IPL, the spectators at their matches are mostly the complimentary passes type. And that it is unlikely that they are there to watch serious cricket. A school of thought therefore is to rope in bigger names from the next edition even if the quality of cricket suffers a bit in the bargain.

Over a dozen television channels in different languages have been covering the matches live. But the quality of packaging, graphics and commentary leaves a lot to be desired.

This evening, Karnataka Bulldozers will hope to be third time lucky, having lost in the finals to Chennai Rhinos in both 2011 and 2012. And when they return to their regular life in front of the cameras  it wouldn’t be a surprise if a hero after giving a shot, asks his director : “Howzatt?!”

Indian Women: Landless In Village, Homeless In The City

By Newscop | INNLIVE

SPOTLIGHT Irrespective of why and how they start living in the open, for women on the streets each day is a challenge – whether it is in cooking a meal by the roadside, finding a place to bathe or fending off sexual predators. Survival in the absence of any tangible assets like a home, land or cattle is a huge challenge, but the ordeal can get really unbearable for women, especially single women who are either unmarried, abandoned or widowed.

'Batting For The Third Front, On The Backfoot'

Two architects of the Third Front in 1996-98, Chandrababu Naidu and HD Deve Gowda, are mere regional players today and more focussed on becoming players of consequence in their backyard.

Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s body language changes the moment you mention the United Front. He breaks into a half smile and his gait turns more lively as he tells you — with a degree of pride — how he refused the offer to be India’s prime minister not once, but twice within a year, between 1996 and 1997. Naidu instead chose to be the convenor of the United Front, a ragtag coalition of non-Congress, non-BJP parties that cobbled together a rickety government supported by the Congress and the CPM from the outside.

In effect, there was nothing united about the group, despite the front they tried to put up.

Naidu’s comrade-in-arms during the birth of the United Front was HD Deve Gowda. Out of the blue, the chief minister of Karnataka was pitchforked into the top job in the country after Jyoti Basu’s party did not allow the West Bengal CM to move to New Delhi.

It wasn’t easy to lead such a group where every regional chieftain liked to flex his or her muscles but Gowda managed by trying to keep the Congress MPs happy so that they ensured party president Sitaram Kesri did not pull the plug. But even though he took Hindi tuition in the hope that his stay at 7, Race Course Road will be long, he behaved more like the prime minister of Karnataka, and did not let his successor in Bangalore, JH Patel, work in peace. Gowda’s tendency to keep his eyes shut most of the time meant he was a photographer’s delight as newspapers went to town projecting him as the PM who sleeps at public functions.

Chandrababu Naidu's Padyatra Across Andhra Pradesh

Finally, when Sitaram Kesri decided to declare Gowda’s innings, the prime minister went out all guns blazing, his political oratory stunning just about everyone. His farewell speech in the Lok Sabha was full of vitriol against Kesri as he vowed to rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

While it seemed the end of the road for Gowda, for Naidu, the time spent dabbling in national politics was an opportunity to wipe off the unsavoury reputation he had gained after having dethroned his father-in- law NT Rama Rao in a palace coup in August 1995.

Today, as there is once again talk of the possibility of a Third Front emerging, both these players are in silent mode. Both Chandrababu Naidu and Deve Gowda are no more than regional players who do not have the capacity to play political football in the maidans of Delhi.

Naidu is facing what can easily be described as the biggest challenge in his political career. A third defeat in a row in the Assembly polls next year is something he just cannot afford because that will put a huge question mark over his ability to lead the Telugu Desam (TDP). The TDP is no longer a formidable presence at the national level since the number of MPs it has sent to the Lok Sabha in 2004 and 2009 did not cross single digits.

Which is why the 62-year-old Naidu is not enthusiastic about Mulayam Singh Yadav’s talk of cobbling together a Third Front. He knows that unless he is able to capture Andhra Pradesh — both at the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls — he will be a political persona non grata in Delhi. He is aware that if his political rival YS Jaganmohan Reddy does better than him, Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav would lose no time in co-opting Jagan into the Third Front fold, leaving Naidu out in the cold. Which is why Naidu would much rather prefer to speak after the elections.

Naidu is also wiser from experience. In 2009, convinced that the TDP was making a comeback in Hyderabad, he spent a lot of time in the familiar company of Prakash Karat, AB Bardhan and Mulayam Singh Yadav, announcing that the Third Front will form the next government in Delhi. The results showed him his place. Not only did he have to remain content as the Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh, his tally in the Lok Sabha did nothing to significantly alter the arithmetic of the Lower House of Parliament.

In most constituencies of the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, Naidu’s TDP will be pitted against the YSR Congress and opinion polls indicate that despite Jagan being behind bars, his party has an edge. Naidu is walking the extra mile, literally, to cover the distance.

On 2 October 2012, he embarked on a padyatra from Anantapur district in the Rayalaseema region and and will end his walkathon in the end of April in north coastal Andhra Pradesh. But the jury is still out on whether his personal connect will translate into votes for his party. Naidu’s main problem is himself, as nine years of being in the Opposition has made him turn his back on most things he espoused as chief minister.

This crisis of credibility coupled with his standing in Telangana, where he is not seen as someone who is fully in favour of statehood to the region, has eroded his party’s strength in the state.
When he was CM, Naidu had ambitiously floated Vision 2020, with a long-term objective of what Andhra Pradesh will be in 2020. He firmly believed he would rule the state till then. Indeed, if 2004 and YS Rajasekhara Reddy had not happened, Naidu would have certainly entertained thoughts of moving to Delhi, propelled by a Narendra Modi-like PR and social media machinery, talking of a modern India. Instead, Naidu is on the road, embracing the real world, while junking the virtual.

In Comparison, Deve Gowda seems to be in semi-retirement mode. His party, the Janata Dal(Secular) is run by his son HD Kumaraswamy, who is also the face of the party in Karnataka. Despite having produced a PM, the party has nothing to crow about beyond Karnataka’s borders. Political analyst SA Hemantha Kumar describes Gowda’s party as “a national political party in form but a regional party in content”.

To be fair to Gowda, the 79-year-old leader has ensured his farmer constituency in Karnataka stays with him. Even for the Assembly election on 5 May, he has been trying to build an emotional pitch around Cauvery waters. In a state whose politics has always been dominated by the Vokkaligas and Lingayats, he has remained the tallest Vokkaliga leader, with no one in the Congress who can match him. Not even a retired-hurt SM Krishna.

But just like in the case of Naidu, Gowda faces a huge trust deficit that has kept his party away from the throne. Kumaraswamy dumped the Congress to join hands with BS Yeddyurappa to become chief minister in 2006 but when the turn came to hand over the reign to the BJP after 20 months, he did not keep his word.

File Photo

Though Deve Gowda said his son’s alliance with the BJP did not have his blessings, very few bought his talk. He is one of the most shrewd minds in Indian politics, who will go the extra mile if he smells political advantage.

The Multicornered contest in the Assembly election offers Gowda his best chance to make a comeback in Karnataka politics. Marginalised in the 2008 Assembly polls, this time the JD(S)would hope to gain from the anti-BJP sentiment in the state. Given that his pockets of influence are limited, Gowda knows while he cannot be king, he can certainly be kingmaker.

The grapevine in Bangalore suggests Kumaraswamy has a line open with the BJP and the two could join hands if both put together get the numbers to form the government. Alternately, Gowda could offer the hand of friendship to the Congress as well, in case the party finds itself short of numbers.

His training as a civil engineer allows Deve Gowda the luxury to build castles in the air. So even while he plans a good showing in the Vidhana Soudha, many believe Gowda is also thinking of Race Course Road. He thinks neither the Congress nor the BJP will get enough numbers to form the next government in Delhi. And in a fluid situation, Gowda can be expected to throw his hat into the ring. “He could present a quid pro quo deal to pitch himself for the top job with either party in return for supporting either of them in Bangalore. He is keeping his options open. He is keen to play a dominant role at the Centre,” says Hemantha Kumar.

Most pundits have been trying to guess who could be the Deve Gowda of 2014, in the event of a hung Parliament. Deve Gowda would like no one else to play that role. And if Naidu does manage a decent showing next year, the two principal characters in those fading images of 1996-98 could make a comeback. Just a bit more grey.

IS 'WINNING KARNATAKA' GREAT FOR MLAS' WEALTH?

By C R Shettiar / Bangalore

The Great Indian Election Bazaar is about to get underway in Karnataka. Promises will be made, cash, food, liquor distributed, colossal non-achievements will transmogrify into stellar achievements at public meetings and rallies, odes to democracy will be sung by some perennially blind and horrendously out of tune [with reality] political commentators and We The Sheeple will stroll out to the nearest polling booth on 5th May to participate in this farce most foul.

The 'Real Story' Behind The 'Fake' Hubli Terror Conspiracy

Seventeen Muslim youths, some medical and engineering students, were recently acquitted by a Hubli court of terror charges. But how did they get accused in the first place?

Conspiracy cases always make for multiple narratives and the so-called Hubli conspiracy case typifies this axiom. After seven long years, the case was thrown out last month by a trial court in Hubli and all the 17 accused were acquitted.

Death By Honesty: Was IAS Officer Ravi Blackmailed For Exposing Corruption Or Forced To Commit 'Suicide'?

The alleged suicide of IAS officer D.K. Ravi in Karnataka’s Kolar district has put the spotlight on the vulnerability of those civil servants who decide to take on corruption. 

The circle of civil servants in Delhi is abuzz with the phenomenon called a “midnight knock” which comes in the form of news about a transfer followed by the orders the next morning. 

Transfers have been the most potent weapon in the hands of the political bosses to make civil servants fall in line. 

'Bhatkal' And Its Struggle With History And Radical Islam

Flush with funds from overseas and rich community leaders, Bhatkal is now home to some of the finest and most opulent mosques and religious institutions, including Jamia Islamia Bhatkal, the campus of which boasts of an imposing set of buildings: a mosque and the Qur'an Museum nearby, where you may see copies of the Qur'an in 55 languages.

Magnificent heritage buildings owned by rich Muslims of Bhatkal showcase the prosperity as much as the influence of Central Asian architecture here.

Despite RTE, Govt Schools Struggle With Poor Facilities, Unskilled Teachers And High Dropouts

By NEWSCOP | INNLIVE

The Times of India reported that 27,000 of the 75,489 schools in Karnataka had three or fewer classrooms. Quoting provisional figures for 2015-16 released by the District Information System for Education (DISE), the report said that this was because of the government policy of determining the number of classrooms through the number of teachers in each school.

The DISE has revealed in its report that while 10,592 schools in Karnataka had three classrooms, 14,064 had two classrooms, 2,083 had one classroom and 164 schools had no classrooms at all. The DISE data is collated by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NEUPA), Delhi, established by the HRD ministry.

Bhaskar Rao: The Cop With One Head And Too Many Hats

By Khaja Pasha / Bangalore

Bureaucracy begets comedy as a general rule. The latest example is Bhaskar Rao, a police officer in Karnataka. As reported on Aug. 27, Rao, an inspector general of police (IG) responsible for the internal security of the state, is also filling the role of training chief. This forces him to write letters to himself to seek approval for personnel training programmes.

After Telangana, Demands For 'Rayalaseema' Get Louder

By Ramesh Reddy / INN Bureau

With Telangana being awarded statehood, the demands for separate states in all corners of India have been stoked. While the Congress might have been prepared for most of them, they were probably not expecting trouble from a new quarter of a freshly-split Andhra Pradesh. While the UPA might not have been completely unfamiliar with a demand of this nature, the government was probably not expecting demands of a separate Rayalaseema state to get louder so soon.

Narendra Modiji, What Are Sources Of funds of Large Entrepreneurial Class As Gujarat Faces Banking Deficit?

By Aakaar Patel | Ahmedabad

For Gujarat that boasts of a large entrepreneurial class, this is surprising to know that the state makes little use of the banking system. According to the 2011 census, only 57.9% of the households in Gujarat access banking services. This is lower than the national average of 58.7%, says banking statistics sourced from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

The per capita outstanding bank credit in Gujarat is lower than the all-India average. Delhi and Maharashtra top the states in terms of per capita bank credit, writes Mahesh Vyas, MD and chief economist, Centre at Monitoring Indian Economy.

For A Post-Colonial Congress

Can the century-old party reinvent itself at Jaipur and meet the challenges at its door?

The Congress’s three-day brainstorming conclave – chintan shivir – in Jaipur from today couldn’t have been better timed. The political crisis in Jharkhand presents new possibilities. Meanwhile, nine other states go to the polls in 2013: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland and Mizoram. The outcome in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Delhi and BJP-governed Karnataka could provide early clues to the 2014 general elections. 
    
A bruising budget session meanwhile looms. Finance minister P Chidambaram will have to defer around Rs 50,000 crore of Plan expenditure to beyond April 1, 2013 in order to keep the fiscal deficit below 5.5% of GDP. Instructions to cut or defer expenses have already gone out to every Union ministry. But the Congress’s real problem is not economics; it is politics. The precise timing of the 16th Lok Sabha elections will be decided by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati without whose support the UPA government would fall. 
    
At the Jaipur chintan shivir, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi confronts three problems but has solutions to only two. The first problem is the choice of the UPA’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014. If the Congress wins more than 170 seats, the answer is Rahul Gandhi. If it doesn’t, the answer becomes more complicated. The focus will turn to finding an interim CEO for the party to replace Manmohan Singh who will be 82 years old in September 2014. 
    
Singh was leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha between 1998 and 2004 before being elevated to the prime ministership. Sonia may have to pick one from among her senior ministers for a similar role if the Congress can’t form a government in 2014 and it is necessary to sequester Rahul from long-term electoral damage. The chintan shivir will give us a good idea who that CEO could be: the reliable if colourless defence minister A K Antony, the ambitious and controversial P Chidambaram, or a dark horse like the external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
    
Sonia’s second problem is rebuilding the party organisation in the states from the grassroots. Of the key state assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2013, the Congress is likely to do badly in all except Karnataka where B S Yeddyurappa’s breakaway Karnataka Janata Party and the Janata Dal (S) could create a hung assembly. The BJP faces a rout and the Congress, though lacking a charismatic local leader, may be able to stitch together a coalition government. 
    
Sonia’s third problem is public perception. The UPA is widely regarded as corrupt. It is held responsible for inflation. It has presided over an economic slowdown. And it has encouraged the worst excesses of crony capitalism. The game-changer Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme will provide balm but is not the surgery the Congress needs to redeem public trust. 
    
In 1947 Mahatma Gandhi, freedom achieved, wanted to disband the Congress and form new political organisations to contest free elections. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel agreed. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru did not. Nehru’s view prevailed. In 1969, Indira Gandhi split the Congress to sideline the syndicate of regional satraps led by K Kamaraj and S Nijalingappa. The organisational and state-level decline of the Congress began in 1969 though Indira’s 1971 election victory and the euphoria over the Bangladesh war disguised it for nearly a decade. 
    
Nehru inherited a colonial administration. After Independence, it continued to serve the government in power. Colonial laws had been written to often protect British injustice, not deliver justice to Indians. Many remain cast in stone 150 years later, delaying and denying justice to ordinary Indians. Yet, Nehru did not impose chief ministers on states. The party’s local organisation was given a relatively free hand to choose regional leaders. Indira reversed that policy. She imposed state chief ministers, suspended intra-Congress elections, dismissed opposition state governments under Article 356 and undermined the judiciary. 
    
The important lesson for Sonia to absorb at the chintan shivir in Jaipur is to not follow her mother-in-law’s autocratic policies and hew instead to Nehru’s liberal, transparent leadership. Nehru made many errors: Jammu & Kashmir, China and even sowing the seeds of dynasty by appointing members of his family to high office – from Indira to sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. The last thing the battered Congress needs is to emulate Nehru’s few missteps and ignore the many excellent examples of governance he set. 
    
In 1998, Sonia took charge of a party fraying at the edges. Fifteen years later, having become the longest-serving president in Congress history, the party’s edges have frayed further. In 1999, the Congress won 114 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lowest in its history. To avoid falling below that in 2014, Sonia has to solve the leadership problem, strengthen the organisation at the grassroots in the states and restore public confidence. 
    
With its vast army of workers and an overflowing party treasury, the Congress remains a formidable force. It has been underestimated before – in 1980 and again in 2004 – when it was supposed to lose the general elections but didn’t. It can resolve its first two problems – leadership and reorganising the states – with the right strategies. The third – public perception – may prove more intractable. On that could rest its fate in 2014. 

COALGATE: WHY TRYING TO SHIELD THE ISSUE?

By Kajol Singh / New Delhi

Two topmost law officers of the country—Attorney General GE Vahanvati and his former deputy Harin Raval—lied before the Supreme Court that they had not gone through the CBI’s status report on Coalgate.

Elections Level 2: Money talks, democracy walks

By Sobha Naidu

With the first round of balloting accounting for 124 of the 543 seats over, the shrill campaign rhetoric, that had even turned personal, subsided considerably Friday with the attention shifting to spending of government funds and spiriting away of black money abroad.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked the people of Uttar Pradesh to find what the state government had done with central funds. Her son and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi did the same in Karnataka, while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani promised to get back all the black money stashed abroad, a major campaign plank of the party.

Speaking in Domariaganj, Uttar Pradesh, Sonia Gandhi said: "The state government (run by the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati) is not using properly the funds being released by the central government. So, you must ask the state government where it has spent the central funds meant for carrying out developmental schemes in the state...

"If you give our party a second term, we would be in a position to take our development schemes on a larger scale to help people across the country."

Echoing his mother in Gulbarga, north Karnataka, a state run by the BJP, Rahul Gandhi said, "Thousands of crores of rupees have been given to Karnataka by the central government but the money has not reached the intended beneficiaries.

"Yesterday (Thursday) I was in Andhra Pradesh (which borders Karnataka). There is a Congress government and central funds have been properly utilised." While in Andhra Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi prayed at the famous Lord Venkateshwara temple at Tirupati at midnight.

Having addressed over 40 campaign rallies so far, Rahul Gandhi is gradually emerging as one of the principal campaigners for the Congress. His scheduled visit to Madhya Pradesh's Maoist-affected Balaghat district had to be called off after an intelligence warning that his life could be in danger, said party sources.

Netas' Sons, Daughters Contesting Above 50 Seat In India

By M H Ahssan | INNLIVE

ELECTIONS 2014 At least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by 'sons and daughters' of politicians. From President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit to Rahul and Varun Gandhi, at least 50 parliamentary constituencies will be contested by ‘sons and daughters’ of politicians of various parties during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Of these, a majority of candidates have been fielded from the ruling Congress party.

Abhijit Mukherjee, a sitting MP, is contesting on a Congress ticket from his present Jangipur (West Bengal) constituency while Rahul Gandhi and Varun Gandhi are fighting from Amethi and Pilibhit constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, respectively.

Meet The Fastest Disappearing Community In India - 'Siddhis' Of Indians And Pakistanis Of African Origin

By Swara Bose 
Group Special Correspondent

When people think of Africans in Indian history, Malik Ambar tends to be the first name to come to mind. Brought to Ahmadnagar as a warrior-slave in the 16th century, he rose to be the general of the Deccan sultanate’s army—and eventually its regent.


Yet, Ambar was only the most successful of thousands of Africans brought to India by Arab and Portuguese slavers across the Arabian Sea. Thousands of others came as mercenaries and merchants. Today, the Sidis—as people of African origin living in India for centuries call themselves—are a fast disappearing community. Separated by appearance, if not by culture, they are largely misunderstood.