internationalopinion - Volume 8 Number 44 Week Ending Nov

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Congress Sold Tickets to Candidates for Election, Alva is Fired for Her Outburst

DN Verma

Politics being unprincipled, strange, dirty, unpredictable and unethical is probably a universal and undisputed phenomenon. It may be more so in India where politics is often violent, where money plays a big part, where muscle power sometimes dictates the outcome and where defection has become a way of life for a big number of politicians of various parties.

So it was no surprise when a senior Congress leader, and AICC General Secretary Margaret Alva, known for comparatively cleaner politics, could not take it anymore and burst out that her own party leaders sold tickets to the highest bidders to contest the elections for Karnataka Assembly elections in May.

This was a big scandal and top Congress leaders didn’t like it. Party boss Sonia Gandhi and her son, General Secretary of Congress Rahul Gandhi reacted swiftly and relieved Alva from all the important posts; she was a member of the Congress Working Committee, and Central Election Committee of Congress.

Alva had said, November 8, that ‘selling the tickets to the highest bidder’ was one of the reasons Congress lost the state. (Out of 224, Congress got only 80; Bharatiya Janata Party won 110 seats and formed the first BJP government in Karnataka.)

Alva’s allegations had created a storm within Congress and some leaders had demanded stern action against her. Some leaders of Karnataka state Congress had urged the Party High Command to take disciplinary action against Alva.

Margaret Alva had opposed RV Deshpande’s selection as Karnataka Pradesh Congress President. Working President DK Shivakumar was one of those who demanded action against Alva for what he described as ‘baseless charges.’ Former KPCC President Mallikarjun Kharge, former Chief Minister Dharam Singh and others denounced Alva’s remarks.

However, another senior Congress leader, Yogendra Makwana, also made allegation and supported Alva. Yet another senior state leader, Siddaramaiah, at first supported the charges and then retracted his statement. He has been not attending party’s meeting for quite some time showing his displeasure for the appointment of Deshpande as KPCC President.

Alva had earlier questioned the policy of distributing tickets to the relatives of party leaders for the upcoming elections in several states. She said in Karnataka the party denied ticket to her son and a grandson of a former Central cabinet Minister CK Jaffer Sharief but in other states that principle was not being followed.

She said she was not alone in wondering why party policy was not being applied uniformly in all States. “I am a member of the Central Election Committee of Congress and Karnataka people have been asking me why one set of guidelines was applied to Karnataka and another set of rules for the ‘election-going’ States.”

It is estimated that so far 23 Congress candidates chosen to contest polls in various states are relatives of senior party leaders. Madhya Pradesh has 10 relatives; Chhattisgarh five; Rajasthan seven and one is in Jammu & Kashmir.

Alva’s charges were pounced upon by the major opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party. BJP said the allegations are stunning but they prove that Congress has been using money for selecting candidates or winning trust vote in Lok Sabha.

While Congress denied that any money was involved in selection of candidates, BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said that Alva has made a stunning revelation and has thrown up a cash-for-ticket scam. He said that “while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tried to buy votes during the trust vote, this is a new scam the Congress has come up with. It should be seriously taken note of. This is the core of parliamentary democracy.”

On the other hand Congress party’s spokesman, Abhishek Manu Sanghvi, denied that money is used in the distribution of tickets. He said during elections, people may differ on selection of some candidates but such differences were not to be aired in public. Winnability and party ideology are the only criteria for giving tickets for elections.

That kind of charge is reserved for and expected from the opposition but one of its own, a responsible leader like the General Secretary of AICC leveling such charges was too much. What really has happened forcing Alva to make those charges?

Sixty six-year old Alva is the daughter-in-law of the late Violet Alva, once the Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha and experienced parliamentarian who was denied nomination for Vice President by Indira Gandhi. Heartbroken, she resigned from the post, and was dead within a week. However, Margaret continued to work for Congress and has played a leading part in legislative activities as a Member of Parliament for five terms and an activist for women’s causes for many more years.

She had sent in her resignation to Sonia Gandhi, November 11. Alva was holding significant position in the party and was in-charge of seven states including Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana.

Though Alva’s outburst about money was a serious one, it was debatable if Sonia Gandhi would let her go. Alva is supposed to be close to Mrs Gandhi, both being Roman Catholic is an additional reason to be close. Besides, 66-year-old Alva has been a staunch Congress activist for more than 46 years.

A senior Congress leader told the Hindustan Times after reports of Alva’s resignation: “Thank God that good sense has prevailed.” It was in an apparent allusion to her ‘scandalous’ charge that tickets were sold by the Congress during the Karnataka assembly polls and that Congressmen were the party’s own worst enemies.

AICC spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan had also rejected her allegations of tickets being sold. “There is no truth in the allegations so the question of a probe does not arise,” she said.

But Alva’s charges found an echo in the statement of Yogendra Makwana, chairman of the AICC’s scheduled caste department, who is all set to quit the party. He claimed that two SC women ticket aspirants from Rajasthan made a similar complaint to him.

“A candidate from Bara constituency in Rajasthan told me an AICC leader demanded Rs 80 lakh from her to get her a ticket,” alleged Makwana. What will happen to Makwana after Alva has been shown the door, is uncertain.

Where does all that lead to? It had looked unlikely that after Alva made those serious charges publicly, she would remain at the important positions. Whether she would be expelled from Congress is still not certain. Would she quit Congress and join some other party? This seems unlikely. But politics has always been strange, and stranger in the Congress organization as it has developed now. So anything can happen.

11 15 2008

RANDOM RECOLLECTION

Moon-landing for Indian Flag, Jai Hind-1

Yatindra Bhatnagar

[‘Uphill Battle to Beat the System’ series has been held over]

It was a proud day for us Indians, when the national Tricolor landed on the Moon, November 14, heralding the nation’s next step in the march into space. Indian Space Research Organization’s first Moon-mission with the spacecraft Chandrayaan -1, flying over moon ejected an indigenously manufactured device, Moon Impact Probe (MIP) to take a giant step for India in space.

With the launch of Chandrayaan-1 India joined the elite group of nations exploring the Moon successfully; the countries ‘Reaching the Moon’ are the US, former Soviet Union (now Russia), Japan (albeit via a malfunction that sent its orbiter crashing onto the lunar surface) and the European Space Agency (17 nations). India becomes the fifth member of this club.

The moon is only a little over 238,000 miles away from us but we have the closest relations. Moon is the Earth’s satellite. We call the Moon our Chandamama (uncle moon); we sing hundreds of songs and write thousands of poems about the Moon; we wait for the Moon to rise and see it before we perform festivals and religious rituals. We also follow Lunar Calendars.

Hundreds of legends have come up about the Moon; millions of kids have their old aunty, or grandma, sitting there with a charkha spinning yarn. The Moon is our life and a vital part of it. The Sun is the source of light and energy; the Moon gives us emotions and soothes our frayed nerves, glows in our dark nights even though with light borrowed from the Sun. And today, this ancient relation has been cemented with India’s colors on it. In a couple years an Indian rocket would carry some Indian spacemen - may be spacewomen too - land them on Moon, and bring them back. That would add to our endless stories of the tiny planet but a significant, giant entity in our social, religious and literary life.

But wait, first a brief account of what happened after the successful launch of ISRO’s spaceship Chandrayaan-1, on October 22 from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, in Andhra Pradesh state. The vehicle entered lunar orbit, November 8.

Going back in space history (in modern India): November 1963, ISRO launched a sounding rocket; the first Indian Space satellite Aryabhata, took a few more years but was, finally, launched in 1975. Orbiting satellites started from 1980. In the last 28 years India has come a long way through the launch of dozens of satellites for various studies and experiments till Chandrayaan-1 was sent on a moon mission.

According to reports from India:

The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) with the tricolor painted on it - about the size of a large television set and weighing about 45 pounds - ejected from the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, touched down successfully on the Moon’s surface at 8.31 pm, November 14 - a giant leap forward for Indian space research.

Seconds later, at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) station in Bangalore, a scientist emerged to give the ‘thumbs up’ signal. The waiting crowd erupted in cheers.

Inside, in the control room, with its large, blue screens all over the walls, all the way to the ceiling, scientists monitoring the progress of India’s Moon mission beamed and hugged one another, while badam (almond) sweets from a box resembling the MIP were distributed. “We were all as excited as little children,” M Annadurai, project director of Chandrayaan said.

“The mission was accurate to the second,” Annadurai added. The MIP was released at 8.06 pm, while Chandrayaan was orbiting over the Malarpet Mountain on the Moon. It landed in the Moon’s Shakleton Crater, 25 minutes later.

“During its descent the MIP has taken visuals of the Moon, from its equator to its South Pole, never taken before,” said Annadurai. “This data will be downloaded from Chandrayaan later tonight.”

“It’s been a great night, very exciting to watch,” said Paul D Spudis, a senior lunar scientist from NASA’s Lunar and Planetary Institute at Houston. He is at ISRO to monitor the data from a payload Chandrayaan is carrying for NASA.

The MIP contains a spectrometer to analyze the lunar atmosphere, an altimeter to measure heights and a video camera. “Our next big task is to put an Indian astronaut into space in an Indian spacecraft, and after that the unmanned mission to Mars. For both these the data we shall now collect will be of great use,” said ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair.

MIP was attached to the top portion of the main lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1. The MIP is the brainchild of former President APJ Abdul Kalam who witnessed its separation from the main orbiting craft and its crash-landing 32 km from the Shackleton crater on the Moon’s South Pole from the mission control room at ISRO’s telemetry, tracking and command network in Bangalore.

The countdown for the MIP’s much-awaited flight to the surface of the Moon began at 7.47 pm and at 8.01 pm the command was issued for it to separate from the orbiting spacecraft. The MIP began its flight towards the Moon’s South Pole and after a 25-minute flight, crash-landed, as planned. There was no return trip.

During its flight, its video camera took pictures of the Moon, the spectrometer began its analysis and the altitude meter did what is known as a ranging. While approaching the Moon, it slowed down slightly, then spun. While spinning, its three instruments went into action. When it was 5 km above the Moon’s surface, the altimeter did the ‘ranging of the Moon.’ “All this while the atmosphere was pretty tense in the mission control room,” said a scientist.

Kalam’s rationale for including the MIP was that since Chandrayaan was orbiting the Moon at an altitude of 100 km above the lunar surface, a landing would make India’s presence felt on the Moon’s surface. He believed that if this was done, India could always stake a claim to a portion of the Moon.”

And India has indeed done just that – claimed a part of the Moon and cemented its age-old emotional relations with Earth’s closest relative, and our Chandamama.

[To be continued]

11 15 2008

Volume 8 Number 44 Week Ending November 15, 2008