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There Goes the neighborhood: Sid Harth
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2010-06-03 01:23:24 UTC
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Mamata Banerjee: Next stop, chief minister
TNN, Jun 3, 2010, 01.09am IST

Tags:Congress|CPM|Trinamool Congress|Mamata Banerjee|Bengal|Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee

KOLKATA: Mamata Banerjee's message on Wednesday was unambigious --
come next year, and she would be in the chief minister's gaddi in
Kolkata. If there was any doubt about this because of Congress playing
hardball, she put them to rest when her party Trinamool Congress
emerged as the clear winner in West Bengal's civil polls -- billed as
the semi-final in the run-up to the assembly polls next year --
without an alliance with the Congress.

This means she has forced the Congress's hand -- it will have to come
to terms with Mamata on her terms. And the Bengal Congress leaders
will have to learn to play second fiddle to the mercurial Didi.
Trinamool Congress, which won 50% gram panchayats in the 2008 rural
elections, is now also the single largest party in urban Bengal,
including Kolkata. Congress can ignore Mamata at its own peril as that
would be risking a majority of the 42 seats in West Bengal in the next
election.

The jewel in Mamata's crown was her landslide win in Kolkata -- out of
the 141 wards her party bagged 95 -- a scoreline that perhaps even
took the fiesty Didi by surprise. The Kolkata verdict showed the
intensity of the anti-Left sentiment in urban Bengal. Coming after
Mamata's stunning performance in last year's Lok Sabha election, the
civil poll results clearly show that the momentum is with her. It can
be said that the Left's 33-year lien on West Bengal can at best be
extended by only one year -- that is, until the next polls.

Euphoric at the prospect of extending her winning streak into the 2011
assembly elections, Mamata called the civic poll victory "historic",
and demanded immediate assembly polls. "The Left Front has lost all
right to continue in power. It is a victory of ma-mati-manush (mother,
land and people). They have given a verdict in favour of political
change," she said after arriving from Delhi.

In chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's home turf, Jadavpur,
Trinamool has won eight of the 14 wards. The Left's tally in Kolkata
is down by 42 wards from the 2005 polls, and marginally up by 10 wards
against the 2009 Lok Sabha poll tally where it had a lead in only 22
wards. Bhattacharjee refused to take questions on the party's debacle
and left Writers' Buildings in a huff. The CPM headquarters at
Alimuddin Street was also deserted.

In the districts, Trinamool bagged 26 municipalities, the Left Front
17 (down from 54), and Congress seven, while 31 are "hung boards"
where Trinamool is likely to push ahead with the support of Congress.
In fact, this alliance in the "hung" municipalities also shows that
Mamata too can't ignore the Congress, even if the terms of trade swung
decisively in her favour on Wednesday.

In Kolkata, the Left faced a complete rout in Behala and was relegated
to a nominal presence in its erstwhile strongholds Jadavpur,
Tollygunge and Dhakuria. However, the "friendly fight" between
Congress and Trinamool felled some big guns from both parties.
Trinamool's Javed Khan -- Opposition leader in the previous Kolkata
Municipal Corporation and a mayoral candidate this time -- lost. So
did Rizwanur Rahman's brother Rukban, who fought on a TMC ticket.
Congress heavyweight Pradip Ghosh and his daughter-in-law Tania Ghosh
also bit the dust.

CPM was routed in its strongholds, like Salt Lake (where Trinamool
will form the first board since 1989), North and South 24-Parganas,
Nadia and parts of Hooghly -- just as the scene was in the 2009 Lok
Sabha polls.

In North 24-Parganas, the Left tally nose-dived to a meagre two. In
2005 it had won 19 of the 21 municipalities in the district. In
Burdwan, its erstwhile bastion, the Left won only two of the six
municipalities. Trinamool and Congress joined hands to vote out the
Left from CPM heavyweight Benoy Konar's home turf, Memari
municipality. The Left also lost Kalyani Municipality for the first
time.

Ranaghat was particularly embarrassing for the Congress. Here, Pradesh
Congress president Pranab Mukherjee had personally launched a high-
voltage campaign against the "renegades" who had switched to Trinamool
after winning on the hand symbol in 2005. The "renegades" still won.
The Left retained Jangipur, Pranab Mukherjee's Lok Sabha seat.

However, the scene in North Bengal is more of a status quo, with
Congress clinging on to the municipalities it had won in 2005. It
retained Jalpaiguri, Murshidabad, Kandi and Beldanga, but Trinamool
made impressive dents in Cooch Behar and Mathabhanga. In south Bengal,
Congress could defend its support bases Katwa and Daihat, but in
Kolkata it finished with 10 seats, down by five from 2005.

The mandate is clearly against the Left. But so is the writing on the
wall that Trinamool and Congress have to come together in 31
municipalities (nearly 40% of the boards).

What's also evident is that voters rejected the Left's cosying up to
the Congress to isolate Trinamool. CPM leaders from Bengal, led by the
chief minister himself, made overtures to the Congress soon after the
2009 debacle. In the run-up to the civic polls, Congress and CPM swore
at the Trinamool in the same voice.

But voters rejected the CPM's survival tactic of trying to divide the
opposition. In fact, the CPM gamesmanship backfired, helping
consolidate anti-Left voters, who opted for the best anti-Left
candidate, without giving a leeway to the ruling party in most wards.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mamata-Banerjee-Next-stop-chief-minister/articleshow/6005131.cms

Trinamool demolishes Left, humbles Congress in WB civic polls
PTI, Jun 2, 2010, 06.53pm IST

Tags:Congress|Pranab Mukherjee|Banerjee|Trinamool Congress|Mamata
Banerjee|Kolkata Municipal Corporation|WB|west Bengal civic polls|
Buddadeb Bhattacharjee

KOLKATA: Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress today inflicted a
crushing blow to the ruling Left front in the civic polls in West
Bengal, capturing the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation(KMC)
and bagging 36 other municipalities in the "semi-finals" ahead of next
year's assembly elections.

Riding the winds of political change and improving on its performance
in the Lok Sabha polls and subsequent by-elections, the Trinamool
Congress also humbled ally Congress in its victory march.

The Trinamool, which had lost the KMC to the Left Front in 2005, swept
the 141-ward city corporation, winning 95 with the CPI(M) following
far behind at 33, Congress securing 10 and BJP three.

Among the 81 civic bodies spread across 16 of 19 districts for which
elections were held on Sunday, the Trinamool Congress won 36, the Left
Front 18 and the Congress six.

Besides this, the TC and Congress won in 17 municipalities, including
in Memari, Daihat, Kalna, where there was unofficial understanding
between the two parties.

Elections to four of the civic bodies in Bongaon, Taki Mathabhanga and
Kanchrapara led to hung boards.

The Left Front had been in power in 55 civic bodies Trinamool in eight
and Congress in 11 prior to the elections.

The Trinamool also wrested the Bidhannagar (Salt Lake) municipality
after a gap of 15 years.

Buoyed by the remarkable showing of her party, Banerjee demanded
immediate Assembly elections, saying that the CPI(M) has lost all
right to continue in power.

Chief Minister Buddadeb Bhattacharjee refused to take questions from
the media on the Left Front's poor showing.

The civic elections were also a prestige fight between Banerjee, the
Railway Minister, and Union Finance Minister and WBPCC chief Pranab
Mukherjee after the two sides failed to clinch a seat-sharing deal in
the KMC.

It was also to judge the Trinamool's own strength sans Congress prior
to next year's assembly elections.

In Delhi, Mukherjee congratulated Banerjee for her excellent
performance and accepted the failure of the Congress in not coming up
to expectations.

"I accept the failure of the Congress to perform up to the
expectations which we had. I accept the verdict of the people with all
humility," he said.

For the Left Front it was equally a test to ascertain whether it had
gained from the Trinamool and Congress going separate ways in the
civic elections.

Readers' opinions (5)

Srikant J. Pondicherry 02/06/2010 at 10:14 pm
This is a great victory for democratic forces of Trinamool. People are
slowly coming to terms that their salvation is in democracy and not in
socialism.
Agree (1)
Disagree (1)
Recommend (1)

Narendra KV Bangalore, India 02/06/2010 at 10:13 pm
Jyothi Basu ruled Bengal for over 2.5 decades on the strength of good
governance. Bengalis have given a quite tribute to Jyothi Basu in the
year of his death. Bengal needs change and good governance. I however
pity the voters, for they have a Hobson's choice. While CPI(M) is in
comatose and will immensely benefit from a spell in opposition, Mamata
is an unmitigated disaster as an administrator.
Agree (1)
Disagree (1)
Recommend (1)

Padam Singh Salisbury, UK 02/06/2010 at 10:08 pm
Former leaders of Bengal like Surendranath Banerjea, the Grand Old Man
of Bengal to Dr BC Roy who told his people " My young friends, you are
soldiers in the battle of freedom-freedom from want, fear, ignorance,
frustration and helplessness. By a dint of hard work for the country,
rendered in a spirit of selfless service, may you march ahead with
hope and courage... ."
Agree (1)
Disagree (0)
Recommend (1)

friend of change NJ 02/06/2010 at 09:57 pm
Wb CM should resign immediately
Agree (1)
Disagree (1)
Recommend (1)

Rana Mumbai 02/06/2010 at 09:51 pm
Winning election is one thing and delivering is altogether a different
matter. If Left and Cong want to play long, let her win (not that they
can stop her from winning) the assembly election. Like left all she
can do is stop development, promise big but she is not an
administrator who will deliver.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Trinamool-demolishes-Left-humbles-Congress-in-WB-civic-polls/articleshow/6003946.cms

Breaking News:Pranab congratulates Mamata for 'excellent performance'
IANS, Jun 2, 2010, 12.57pm IST

Tags:Congress|Pranab Mukherjee|Trinamool Congress|Mamata Banerjee|
Kolkata Municipal Corporation|west Bengal civic polls

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader and Union Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee Wednesday congratulated Trinamool Congress chief and Railway
Minister Mamata Banerjee for the "excellent performance" of her party
in the West Bengal civic polls.

Pranab, who is also the chief of the Congress in the state, accepted
the failure of his party in the elections held to 81 municipal bodies,
including the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), ahead of next
year's crucial assembly polls.

"I would like to congratulate Mamata Banerjee for her excellent
performance," Mukherjee said, accepting that the Congress has done
"badly" in the elections.

"I accept the verdict of the people," Mukherjee said.

The Trinamool Congress won the KMC elections with a huge margin. The
initial results of other municipal corporations across the state also
indicate a victory for the party.

The elections were held a year after the Lok Sabha polls that saw the
Trinamool Congress-Congress combine along with the Socialist Unity
Centre of India decimate the ruling Left Front.

But the political equations have substantially changed this time
around. The Trinamool Congress and the Congress failed to clinch a
seat-sharing deal.

Readers' opinions (2)

Agree
freddie uk 02/06/2010 at 05:00 pm
One Bengali praises another Bengali
Agree (1)

Deshbandhu Sing Kolkotta 02/06/2010 at 05:55 pm
Shameless the firstnamed Bengali who would have been kicked out by
Netaji for being hypocr and a fraud

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Pranab-congratulates-Mamata-for-excellent-performance/articleshow/6002465.cms

Advantage Mamata
Jun 3, 2010, 12.00am IST
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Tags:Congress|CPM|Mamata|Trinamul|municipal election
The West Bengal municipal election results are likely to impact
political equations at the Centre and in the state. The Trinamul
Congress seems to have emerged the winner while the Left Front has
failed to recover the ground it lost ahead of the 2009 parliamentary
election.

Trinamul can claim to have consolidated the anti-incumbency sentiment
in the state and could effectively challenge the Left Front, which has
held office in the state for more than three decades, in the assembly
polls scheduled for next year.

The implications of this trend are many. The Congress, which contested
the civic poll on its own, has failed to make significant gains.

Clearly, it needs a strong partner like the Trinamul to win seats in
Bengal. But the Trinamul will need the Congress too. Mamata shouldn't
construe the election result as a reason to drive too hard a bargain
with the Congress. It is likely that Mamata would now concentrate even
more on preparing her party for the assembly election at the cost of
her ministerial duties.

Her preoccupation with West Bengal politics has crippled the
functioning of the railway ministry. The UPA leadership should ask her
to take a call on the matter. She could hand over the Railways to a
Trinamul nominee and focus on state politics if that's her
preference.

Buoyed by the civic poll results, Mamata would be tempted to go it
alone in the assembly election. The Trinamul has surged ahead of the
Congress as the main opposition party in the state, but does it have
the organisational spread and strength to take on the Left single-
handedly?

The winds of change are visible in West Bengal. However, a combined
opposition grouping of the Trinamul and the Congress is better placed
to ride the wind. That the Left recognises this and wants to prevent a
consolidation of opposition forces is evident from the overtures made
by the CPM to the Congress.

There are leaders within the Congress as well who believe that the CPM
will make for a better ally. Mamata's unpredictable temperament makes
her a difficult partner.

Her politics is a mix of populism and demagoguery while the CPM comes
with a bag of ideological fixations, which would hinder the UPA
government's foreign policy initiatives and economic reforms agenda.
There are far too many imponderables to predict how the political
climate could change. Hopefully, the Congress will keep in mind
stability and policymaking continuity at the Centre when it chooses
allies.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Home/Opinion/Edit-Page/Advantage-Mamata/articleshow/6004232.cms

Brave Front is all that's Left
TNN, Jun 3, 2010, 01.09am IST

Tags:Congress|West Bengal|CPM|Mamata|Red Fort|Sitaram Yechury

NEW DELHI: The municipal poll results have dealt another body blow to
CPM, confirming the perception that the party is on its way to lose
the Red Fort of West Bengal.

Even though spokespersons of CPM and CPI put up a brave front, it is
being recognized that Mamata Banerjee's win in the third consecutive
match-up is seen as a clear indication that the political momentum is
with her and may sweep her into Writers' Building.

When politburo member Sitaram Yechury finally appeared before the
media, heunderlined that the contests were limited to urban areas
which make up for 17% of West Bengal. He rejected Trinamool's demand
to bring forward the assembly elections scheduled next year.

But the fact is that, as the 2008 panchayat polls showed, Trinamool
has dented what was considered to be the impregnable bastion of Left
in rural Bengal.

While CPM has lost and won power frequently in Kerala since 1957, it
defied the law of averages by not ceding power even once since 1977
when it stunned itself by winning the assembly polls. Its immunity to
anti-incumbency in West Bengal brought in advantages across the
country -- an assured strength in Parliament and a profile that was
disproportionately outsized.

It has negative consequences too. Control over West Bengal bred
complacency, helping those who wanted to paper over what successive
party documents called "stagnation" in the north.

As it happens, the bastion has developed alarming cracks just when the
CPM appeared to be on a slippery slope in the other party-ruled state
of Kerala as well. A double whammy will be a huge setback to the party
which defied the decline of the Communist movement across the globe to
command clout.

The unfolding scenario looked inconceivable just over two years ago
when the Left, commanding an all-time high of 62 seats in Lok Sabha,
was seen as the real power at the Dilli Darbar. It unsparingly used
its leaverage with UPA-1 to organize concessions -- ranging from
policy tweaks to appointments.

The defeat may also encourage those within who have said that Prakash
Karat's dogged anti-Americanism drove the Congress into a partnership
with Mamata, giving rise to a powerful challenge.

Talking to the media, Yechury refrained from making excuses. "Anti-
left votes get consolidated even without a mahajot," he said. The
politburo member, however, found a silver lining in the verdict as he
pointed out that Left's vote percentage had shown a marginal
improvement of over 4% from the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. "Our vote
percentage has shown marginal improvement of over 4% from last Lok
Sabha elections. It shows that the trend seen in the Lok Sabha
elections has been arrested but not reversed," he said.

Saying that election to 81 civic bodies involved only 17% of the urban
population of the state, he argued that Wednesday's verdict not be
seen as a conclusive one. He also disagreed that it was a semi-final.
"The final will also be played by the same teams," he said.

CPI leader D Raja said Left should introspect and take necessary steps
before next year's assembly election. CPM politburo already has a pre-
scheduled meeting from Saturday in which the rout will be discussed
threadbare. It is unlikely that heads will roll at this stage. "We did
not have high hopes from this election. In many ways, the result has
shown both the party and the government need to work together," a
source said.

Among factors that the party is going to analyse in detail is the way
Muslims voted in the civic polls. CPM had hoped that the state
government's recent decision to give reservation to Muslims in jobs
will have a positive impact. "The state government is implementing
reservation very seriously. We expect it will have an impact during
the assembly election," the source said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Brave-Front-is-all-thats-Left/articleshow/6005155.cms

Mamata Banerjee to get more clout in Delhi
Mohua Chatterjee, TNN, Jun 3, 2010, 12.11am IST

Tags:Sonia Gandhi|Congress|West Bengal|TMC|Mamata Banerjee

NEW DELHI: Mamata Banerjee's big victory in Kolkata and her
considerable gains elsewhere in West Bengal in the civic polls may
have altered equations to her advantage within the UPA, but it's also
clear that the Trinamool Congress chief too needs Congress by her side
to ensure a clear victory in the assembly elections in 2011.

Mamata's bargaining power with Congress is sure to go up with her
increased strength in the state. It is already evident with the Centre
giving in to the railway minister's demands and ordering a CBI probe
into the Jhargram train mishap even though the state government did
not want it.

But the message for Didi lies in the hung mandate in 31 of the 81
municipalities that went to polls on May 30. A clear win could have
come their way in these municipalities if Congress and TMC had allied
to keep the Left out of the picture. So, Mamata will also have to keep
to the coalition dharma, whether it is for seat sharing in 2011 or as
part of the UPA government. The attempt on both ends will be to not
ruffle feathers before the assembly polls next year.

As the state's PCC chief, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, before
leaving for the G20 meet in Busan on Wednesday night, submitted a
report to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi stating that compared to the
number of munipalities that Congress and TMC have won on their own
respectively, the number of hung houses were much more at 31. TMC has
made it to 24 of the 81 municipalities and Congress has won seven. The
Left Front has won only 18.

Also, with Left losing ground, it is no longer a viable option for
Congress as an alliance partner. In that situation, it has to be a
partnership with Mamata to keep the Left out.

It is likely that more of her demands will be heeded by the Congress-
led Centre as 2011 draws closer. That the need for each other's
partnership was "mutual" was also clear from Mamata's statement
saying, "I am part of the UPA... I have no problems with Congress
party except for some local leaders." The indication was clear from
Mamata's claim that her party will be able to cobble up a board in at
least 23 of the 31 municipalities where there is a hung mandate. Her
hint was towards a post-poll tie-up with Congress to form the civic
boards.

It was not without a thought that Mukherjee wasted no time in
congratulating Mamata for her big victory in Kolkata and "doing well
in the districts". The Congress leader's message was loud and clear
that there are no more ego issues in the way of the allies reuniting
after they had parted ways before the civic polls as they could not
agree on seat sharing.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mamata-Banerjee-to-get-more-clout-in-Delhi/articleshow/6005174.cms

I didn't term Maoists as 'Gandhians with guns': Arundhati Roy
PTI, Jun 3, 2010, 01.02am IST

Tags:Arundhati Roy|Maoists|Gandhians with guns

MUMBAI: Noted writer and Naxal sympathiser Arundhati Roy on Wednesday
clarified that she never termed Maoists as 'Gandhians with guns'.

"I never called them Gandhians with guns. It was a blurb carried by a
magazine. What I meant was that they (Naxals) are more Gandhian than
any other Gandhian in their consumption pattern...their lifestyle,
which is in stark contrast to their violent means of resistance," said
the 48-year-old Booker Prize winner.

Arundhati drew a lot of flak for the reported comments, especially
after the Dantewada Naxal attack claiming lives of 76 security
personnel for calling Naxals as 'Gandhians with guns'.

"I in fact have also written a letter in the next issue of the same
magazine which carried my article, 'Walking With The Comrades'
clarifying my point and stand, she said addressing a lecture 'The War
on People' organised by the Committee for Protection of Democratic
Rights here on Wednesday.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/I-didnt-term-Maoists-as-Gandhians-with-guns-Arundhati-Roy/articleshow/6005215.cms

Page last updated at 14:02 GMT, Sunday, 17 May 2009 15:02 UK

Bastion of Indian communism crumbles

The Trinamul Congress and Congress alliance swept West Bengal

For decades it was a fortress for the Left, but now Indian voters have
radically reshaped the politics of West Bengal. The BBC's Subhir
Bhaumik, in Calcutta, considers where it all went wrong for a once
untouchable political force.

Anti-incumbency has finally caught up with the ruling Left coalition
in the Indian state of West Bengal, which has been in power for 32
years.

On Saturday, the coalition could only manage to win 15 of the state's
42 parliament seats.

The opposition alliance of Trinamul Congress and Congress swept the
thickly-populated state, where the Leftists had pioneered land reforms
and institutionalised local self-government to build up what appeared,
until not so long ago, an unbeatable political support base with the
rural poor at its core.

The fiercely anti-Left Trinamuls won 19, the Congress won five and a
smaller socialist ally won one seat.

Early signals

Many, like political analyst Ranabir Sammadar of the Calcutta Research
Group, had seen this coming.

Only three years ago, the Left won a resounding victory in the state
assembly polls and looked unbeatable

Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhuri
Bengal psephologist

"The signs of erosion in the Left support base was becoming evident
over the last three years. First, there was widespread rioting against
the public distribution shops manned by Leftist cronies throughout
rural Bengal," he said.

"Then there was the huge unrest against the Left's efforts to take
over fertile croplands for setting up industry. Finally, when the Left
lost nearly 30% of seats in last year's village council elections, it
was clear that the slide had started."

But analysts are stunned by the speed with which this happened.

Mamata Banerji: Trinamul leader's austere lifestyle plays well with
poor
"Only three years ago, the Left won a resounding victory in the state
assembly polls and looked unbeatable," says Sabyasachi Basu Ray
Chaudhuri, Bengal's leading psephologist.

"And now they have lost more than 53% of their parliament seats.
Though detailed statistics are not available, a four-to-five per cent
swing would be needed to make this [happen]."

Mr Chaudhuri says the Left failed to retain its support base among the
rural poor who felt threatened by the government's cropland takeover
plans , while it failed to gain support from the urban voters for its
plans to rapidly industrialise the state.

Battered image

But interestingly, the Trinamul Congress upset the Left by picking on
issues once championed by the Left itself.

The whole state saw the face of Red Terror for the first time in
three decades and that turned even the urban middle class against
them

Ashis Ghose
Bengal Left-watcher

"We are the true Leftists, they are fakes ," thundered the Trinamul
chief Mamata Banerji in one rally after another.

Her loud campaign against the takeover of croplands - that drove the
"Nano" small car project out of the state - won her countless
supporters among the rural poor and middle peasantry who once solidly
backed the Left coalition, specially the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) or CPI(M) that leads it.

Some say the use of organised muscle-power by the CPI(M) to take over
the fertile croplands, especially in the embattled southern enclave of
Nandigram, dented the party's pro-poor image.

"The police firing that killed 14 peasants at Nandigram two years ago,
the terror struck by armed CPI(M) cadres on rows and rows of
motorcycles donning red neck scarves, and the defence of peasants by
the opposition supporters were all captured live on television, " says
Bengal Left-watcher Ashis Ghose.

"The whole state saw the face of Red Terror for the first time in
three decades and that turned even the urban middle class against
them."

Even the highly-respected Bengali intelligentsia - some of India's
best writers, playwrights, poets , film-makers and artists - turned
against the Left coalition and took to the streets demanding political
change.

The Nano, the world's cheapest car, was to have been made in West
Bengal
"In Bengal, the intelligentsia commands huge respect. They are
generally anti-establishment and have been largely with the Left, but
no longer ," says Basu Ray Chaudhuri.

Some key figures like Debabrata Banerji - who, as a serving bureaucrat
had masterminded the Left-driven land reforms - have also backed the
Trinamul Congress, because they are convinced that the Left is no
longer for the poor and the down-trodden.

'Self-seekers abound'

It seems the wheel has come full circle in West Bengal with political
parties changing roles: The Left appearing to be pro-capital in its
drive for rapid industrialisation, the Trinamuls appearing to be pro-
poor in their campaign to protect croplands from forcible takeovers.

The present crop of our leaders have backgrounds in student politics,
the type who have made it to the party politburo from university
coffee-houses in a few years

Unnamed CPI(M) figure

Add to that Mamata's austere personal lifestyle, which makes a great
draw among the poor.

On the day of the election, hard-core Left supporter Ashis Santra of
Uluberia township near Calcutta told the BBC: "Mamata Banerji's
politics is dangerous, but none can fault her on integrity, commitment
and her lifestyle."

Over the years, the CPI(M)'s party organisation - and that of other
Left parties - has also weakened.

"Too many self-seekers have entered the party. Our numbers have
increased, the quality of membership has not," admits Birnan Bose,
CPI(M) state party secretary and Left Front chairman.

But many party supporters say the younger wave of leaders who have
taken over the running of the party lack the organisational ability
and the political acumen of veterans like former chief minister Jyoti
Basu and the late party secretary, Anil Biswas - and that, they say,
cost the party dear in moments of crisis.

"The present crop of our leaders have backgrounds in student politics,
the type who have made it to the party politburo from university
coffee-houses in a few years," said a CPI(M) state-level leader who
runs a party publication.

"They lack the experience and resilience to tackle a tough political
situation and they don't understand the peasantry or the working
classes," said the official, who did not wished to be named.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8054289.stm

West Bengal: Communists paying for their bad Karma
September 01, 2008

"To the man thinking about the objects arises attachment, from
attachment arises longing; and from longing arises anger. From anger
comes delusion; and from delusion loss of memory; from loss of memory,
the ruin of discrimination; and on the ruin of discrimination, he
perishes" - Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

Karma theory has been the traditional Indian way of rationalising the
irrational, explaining the inexplicable. Simply put, it is the
nature's way of effectuating a global restitution system. It
correlates all our actions to its final consequences. Sometimes, this
manifests after several generations, sometimes the very next day.

Further, it seeks to explain the continuous link life has with this
world prior to our birth and after we cease to exist. It forces one to
be considerate in their actions lest their deeds do not recoil on them
or on their future generations. In this connection Concise Oxford
Dictionary of Current English defines it as the "sum of person's
actions in one of his successive states of existence, viewed as
deciding his fate for the next."

All these can simply be explained as an extension the Newtonian laws
of physics and his explanation of cause and effect on physical action
into life. In effect, it concludes that by all our action we create a
cause, which in time will bear its corresponding effects.

One may be equally familiar with the modern chaos theory too � that
which seeks to explain how a butterfly flapping its wings in Peru
could cause devastating typhoons across Pacific Ocean in distant Japan
[Images]. Or how the July 2005 nuclear agreement between India and US
by a series of interconnected events led to the installation of Sibu
Soren as chief minister of Jharkhand last week. Chaos theory and Karma
theory are of the same genre.

Interestingly, what is true for individuals seems to be applicable to
political parties now. The recent happenings at West Bengal only seem
to fortify the view that our Communists are reaping what they had sown
over the past three decades there. Karma theory in full work against
the Communists!

Politics of Bandhs and its consequences

To understand what has been stated it is pertinent to delve into the
history of the Communist movement in West Bengal during the past three
decades since they came to power in the mid-seventies in order to
understand their Karma.

Readers may recall that in even in the pre-independence era, Kolkata -
then Calcutta - was a pride of India and the engine of our
independence movement. It is often remarked that whatever Bengal
thought or did, the rest of India followed. And post independence too,
Bengal continued to dominate our collective thinking in politics as
much as in economics.

It was natural given the levels of intellectualism that prevailed then
and coupled with the industrial climate, many business houses from
distant Marwar [Images] in Rajasthan and even a few MNCs had their
head offices in Kolkata.

But by the late seventies things changed dramatically after the advent
of the Communists at the helm of affairs of the state. By a series of
anti-industry policy, intimidation, pro labour approach, bandhs
(general strikes) and gheraos (encircling a superior), West Bengal was
crippled within a few years. The Frankenstein monster was well and
truly unleashed.

That surely put Kolkatha on the international map, but as a poor city
and one that was renowned world over for its penury. And this brought
aid to the city, not investments. Readers may note that international
aid and foreign investments are alternatives � one cannot have the
luxury of both.

Given this scenario, leave alone FDI, even domestic investments was
hard to come by. Worse still, the state witnessed a flight of capital
for the past several decades. After all, people invest while there is
prosperity, not where there is self-proclaimed poverty, state
sponsored industrial unrest and of course a hostile government.

Similarly "City of Joy" too by its very portrayal of the city did not
bring joy to this city, though it brought it international acclaim. It
is indeed surprising the people of Bengal � one of the most
intelligent in the entire country � did not foresee the economic
consequences of all these negative representation.

The net effect was that by early eighties, the only international
organisation operating from Kolkatha by then was the Missionaries of
Charity of Mother Teresa. Others, for obvious economic, political and
strategic reasons, had fled.

Nevertheless, all this went very well with the Communists, the
specialists in poverty economics.

In the process a new culture had come to play in Bengal � a culture of
lawlessness, indiscipline and of course disruptive behaviour.
Naturally, this had a tremendous negative impact on investment climate
of the state. Where else in the world do you find the government
abdicating its constitutional responsibility through a bandh and
resume its responsibility the next day as if nothing had happened in
the interregnum?

And this happens in West Bengal virtually every other day. And if the
Communists backed by the government do not call for a bandh the
opposition would do. It would seem that the state and its people are
perennially on dissent � sometimes with a cause, sometimes without but
never without a pause.

The extent of the damage caused to the collective psyche of the state
can be gauged by the fact that on the entry of some IT industries,
members of the political parties, unused as they were to deal only
with white collar employees, began to debate as to how to effectuate
strikes in such business places!

The leopards' spots are infectious

Naturally, over a period of time the state became a laggard in every
field, especially in the socio-economic areas when compared to the
rest of the country. No wonder, Jyoti Basu, the former chief minister
of West Bengal is often compared to Lord Shiva [Images] - the
destroyer of investment, capital and the Bourgeois.

By the early part of this decade, the Communists too had realised the
futility and folly of their approach. Surely their economic policies
needed a revisit. And that was left to the eternal credit of Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya, the incumbent chief minister of Bengal to effectuate the
Left's turn "U" turn. In turn, the chief minister began to play Brahma
� the creator of investment, capital and Bourgeois in Bengal all over
once again � exemplified by the invitation to the Tata group to set up
their Nano plant in Singur.

Given their track record, it is indeed difficult to fathom that a
leopard can even change its spots. No wonder despite the repeated
assurances of the chief minister -- no less -- the Communist Party
seems to be in its perpetual state of war with the government, little
realising that it is actually in power in the state.

What else would explain the reported comment of the chief minister as
opposing such disruptive practices as bandhs inviting a sharp rebuke
from the party instantly and censuring him publicly last week? Surely
the leopard cannot change its spots.

But this leopard's spots seem to be infectious. Strangely opposition
seems to have come to have realised that the only way of toppling the
Communist government in West Bengal is to adopt their own wretched
practices of bandhs, disruptions and lawlessness.

Naturally, as Mamata Banerjee is paying in their own coin in Singur to
the Communists, it is a pity that the people of state are the losers.
When Karma theory is at work, like all other laws of nature, it
carries no sympathy. Neither does it discriminate amongst its
victims.

One may also recall that the Leftists have often encouraged, albeit
tacitly, illegal migration from across the border from Bangladesh in
order to bolster their vote bank. Now press reports as well as some of
my friends from the state suggest that the Nandigram [Images] movement
is in fact shepherded by such illegal migrants.

What else would explain the simultaneous flare-up in Kolkata on
Taslima Nasreen [Images], the Bangladeshi author, now in exile in
India and the operation in Nandigram by the state's police in November
2007? Surely, the links are too obvious to be missed.

Obviously, the Leftists are caught in a bind. If they use force
against these protestors they would be doomed in the next elections.
If they don't, surely Tata may exit Singur and relocate their Nano
plant elsewhere, which means economic doom for the state.

Either way, it is not a happy situation for the Communists. After-all
the farmers (who by the land reforms carried on by the Communists) and
the illegal migrants from Bangladesh (for the reasons stated above)
are perhaps some of the very few beneficiaries of the three decades
long Communist rule in West Bengal.

Strangely, it is this vote bank of the Communists that is endangered
by the successive events in Singur and Nandigram. The opposition
realises that it can go for the jugular. Surely, they would intensify
their protests hoping to fish successfully in troubled waters. A state
used to such mass indiscipline is perhaps damned in the medium-term.

And this where the quote of Lord Krishna made at the outset becomes
relevant. The Communists, by their antagonistic approach always run a
risk of being overwhelmed by a downward spiral. The Leftists can be
bettered by ultras, ultras by Naxalites [Images], Naxals by Maoists,
Maoists by extremists and extremists by terrorists. And that is what
is happening in West Bengal � the Karma of Communists is catching with
them.

The author is a Chennai based Chartered Accountant. He can be
contacted at ***@rediffmail.com

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http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/01guest1.htm

Fascism reigns supreme in Nandigram

Indrani Roy Mitra in Nandigram | May 11, 2008 16:16 IST
Last Updated: May 12, 2008 09:29 IST

A 32-year-old woman from Kanungopada could not control her tears as
she blurted out, "We have not gone to cast our votes. We are simply
not allowed to do that. Last night, hundreds of Communist Party of
India-Marxist cadres from Khejuri came to our place and threatened us
with widowhood if we cast our votes.

In fact, they came with white dhotis and said you would have to wear
it all your life if you voice your opinion," the woman said. She then
rolled up her sari to show how she was beaten up by CPI-M loyalists a
few days ago.

She did not disclose her name, nor did she allow us to take her
photograph. "Didi, I want to live a little longer," she reasoned as
her neighbour kept a strict vigil so that no CPI-M loyalist was around
to eavesdrop on the conversation.

The official figure for the Nandigram [Images] panchayat election
stated that 40 per cent polling was conducted till 1 pm on Sunday.

In Kanungopada, only 200 families out of 900 were 'allowed' to vote.
Those who voted were known CPI-M supporters.

The woman's fears could be seen relected in the eyes of Shobhon Bijli
of Adhikaripada who rushed to the local Central Reserve Police Force
camp to help rescue his father Sudhin Bijli, who had allegedly been
abducted by CPI-M goons on Sunday morning.

The boy's pleas fell on deaf ears of the policemen around, which is
when he thought of approaching the CRPF.

The police have a very 'weird' role in Nandigram. They have all the
power or no power at all, whatever the circumstances.

"My head hangs in shame to think that I belong to West Bengal police,"
said a senior police inspector in charge of a polling booth in
Gokulnagar area. "We would not have had this much peace in Nadigram if
CRPF DIG Alok Raj and his team were not here. Prior to their arrival,
our survival was at stake," the inspector said.

He said what is happening in Nandigram is shameful for entire
humanity. "It pains me to see colleagues of mine unleashing terrror,"
the inspector added.

The situation in Nandigram is no less peaceful, infomed Alok Raj
barring stary incidents of violence and booth-jamming.

Raj became a hero to the residents of Nandigram overnight as they
started looking up to him as their saviour.

The CPI-M men, obviously, do not like him and an FIR was lodged
against him on Sunday morning charging him with molesting a rural
woman during a routine search, but Raj was undetered.

While speaking to rediff.com on phone he said he would go to court if
need be to challege the FIR.

Incidentally, he had been threatended by local CPI-M MP Laxman Seth
of dire consequences if he interefered with the polling process.

All these threats and violence by the CPI-M send out a clear signal:
They are insecure and scared, as a physician obervering polling at
Nandigram puts it.

These atrocities are not going down well even with hardcore CPI-M
activists. The day is not far when we will find the so called CPI-M
politicans crossing floors to topple the government. We all are
waiting eagerly for that to happen.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/may/11nandi.htm?zcc=rl

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• Nandigram: Communism as fascism - Part II
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Images

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May 11, 2008
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May 10, 2008
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March 06, 2008
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March 04, 2008
Buddha warns of Maoist attempts to re-enter Nandigram

February 25, 2008
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CBI submits second report on Nandigram firing to Calcutta HC

January 18, 2008
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January 15, 2008
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December 26, 2007
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December 25, 2007
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December 23, 2007
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December 21, 2007
CRPF begins questioning villagers on new graves

December 20, 2007
CRPF finds 8 more graves near Nandigram
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December 19, 2007
Nandigram: CBI registers 4 cases against CPI(M) leaders

December 18, 2007
Nandigram: 9 bombs found in CPI-M supporter's house

December 17, 2007
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December 13, 2007
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December 12, 2007
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December 11, 2007
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December 10, 2007
New grave found in Nandigram

December 09, 2007
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December 03, 2007
Buddha briefs PM on Nandigram

December 02, 2007
WB Governor visits Nandigram, wants CRPF to stay

November 29, 2007
Human rights groups tour Nandigram, slam Buddha

November 28, 2007
CPI-M leaders target CRPF in Nandigram
CBI team arrives in Nandigram

November 27, 2007
CPI-M leaders visit Nandigram
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Calcutta HC cracks the whip on comrades

November 26, 2007
Nandigram: Fear stalks people in refugee camps

November 25, 2007
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November 23, 2007
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CRPF accuses Nandigram police of non-cooperation
Army withdraws from central Kolkata
Kolkata: Situation peaceful; Army stages flag march

November 22, 2007
Left Front chief backtracks on Taslima statement
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BJP, CPM in war of words over Nandigram
Nandigram issue has created chasm among people of West Bengal: Noam
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Curfew lifted in Kolkata, life limps back to normal
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Army called in to control protests in Kolkata; curfew imposed

November 20, 2007
NDA, Left to discuss Nandigram in LS on Wednesday
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November 15, 2007
NDA to move adjournment motion in LS on Nandigram
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November 14, 2007
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November 11, 2007
Intellectuals court arrest over Nandigram
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Nandigram: 1 killed; cops say situation alarming
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November 09, 2007
Gunshots heard in Nandigram, uneasy calm prevails
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November 08, 2007
Medha Patkar assaulted on way to Nandigram

November 07, 2007
CPI-M captures areas around Nandigram; toll 4
Tension prevails at Nandigram
PM expresses concern about violence in Nandigram

November 06, 2007
Two killed in fresh violence in Nandigram

October 31, 2007
Life paralysed in West Bengal

October 30, 2007

I was fired at en route to Nandigram: WB Oppn leader
Tension prevails in Nandigram

October 29, 2007
Nandigram: West Bengal seeks Central security forces
CPI-M bandh in Nandigram gets mixed response
Nandigram: CPI-M, BUPC activists exchange fire

October 28, 2007
Bullet fired at Mamata's car in Nandigram: Trinamool
Nandigram tense; CPM offices torched

October 27, 2007
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October 08, 2007
Nandigram violence: 1 killed, 4 wounded

October 07, 2007
Woman killed in renewed violence in Nandigram

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August 04, 2007
Injured CPI-M worker dies, bandh called at Nandigram

July 08, 2007
Mahasweta Devi calls upon writers to spread awareness

June 15, 2007
4 cops shot at in Nandigram

June 12, 2007
Shahi Imam faces the heat Nandigram

June 05, 2007
All-party meet held in Nandigram
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May 27, 2007
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May 25, 2007
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May 24, 2007
Mamata walks out of all-party meet on Nandigram

May 15, 2007
Left agrees to state-level talks on Nandigram

May 08, 2007
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May 03, 2007
HC directs WB govt to ensure normal life in Nandigram

May 02, 2007
HC wants Nandigram status report
Clashes erupt in Nandigram again
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April 30, 2007
Police to act cautiously in Nandigram
Trinamool protests Nandigram violence

April 29, 2007
1 killed, 2 hurt in Nandigram violence

April 28, 2007
Nandigram: Firing, bomb throwing continue

April 27, 2007
Firing, bombs hurled in Nandigram

April 26, 2007
High Court defers Nandigram hearing

April 09, 2007
Nandigram firing: HC grants bail to 14

April 07, 2007
Compensation for Nandigram victims after inquiry: CM

April 05, 2007
Nandigram: 11 depose in executive inquiry

April 03, 2007
Nandigram: 25 out of 27 missing persons traced

April 01, 2007
Nandigram: Charred body of a child found

March 28, 2007
Buddhadeb scraps Nandigram project

March 26, 2007
Calcutta High Court halts CBI probe into Nandigram
100 cops return from Nandigram

March 25, 2007
Nandigram pre-planned by police: Dasmunshi

March 24, 2007
Bombs hurled in Nandigram

March 23, 2007
Rift over Nandigram widens in Left in W Bengal
Fresh tension at Nandigram
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March 22, 2007

CBI submits report on Nandigram to HC
NDA leaders request President Kalam to visit Nandigram

March 21, 2007
Cracks appear in Congress-Left alliance
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Nandigram: 3 women file rape complaints
Nandigram firing: FIR filed against cops
Nandigram violence should not have happened: PM
Rajya Sabha adjourned till April 26 over Nandigram

March 20, 2007
CBI rushes senior official to Nandigram
Nandigram rocks Parliament again
CPI-M supporters demand security
WB govt fears fresh violence in Nandigram
Outsiders were involved in Nandigram violence

March 19, 2007
Nandigram outcry: Will Bengal CM resign?
Nandigram: Parliament stalled again
WB govt stops land acquisition
Nandigram: Communists explain stand

March 18, 2007
Opposition to stall Parliament again over Nandigram
Nandigram probe progressing well: CBI

March 17, 2007
West Bengal govt under threat
Advani equates Nandigram incident to Jallianwallah Bagh
CBI arrests 10 in Nandigram, arms seized
Left Front govt to stop land acquisition in Nandigram

March 16, 2007
RSP may pull out of West Bengal govt
WB bandh: Buses torched, officials beaten up
CBI team begins Nandigram probe
Police camps attacked in Nandigram
Nandigram tense but under control: Patil
Tata project site in Singur attacked

March 15, 2007
What Buddhadeb says on Nandigram violence
Mamata returns to Kolkata
Nandigram: 'I fled but my brother is missing'
Advani to lead NDA delegation to Nandigram
Police were provoked to fire in Nandigram: WB govt
We're ready for CBI probe into Nandigram: CPM
Nandigram: Mamata injured in stone-pelting; hospitalised
Calcutta High Court asks CBI to probe Nandigram firing
Amidst furore over Nandigram, LS and RS adjourned
Nandigram: Centre gets report from WB govt
Nandigram: Trouble erupts again; toll rises to 14
Advani speaks to PM about Nandigram violence

March 14, 2007
Scribes covering Nandigram violence assaulted
Cong seeks President's Rule in West Bengal
CPI-M blames TC for Nandigram violence
TC calls for Bengal strike on Friday over Nandigram violence
6 killed, several injured in Nandigram violence

March 13, 2007
Police not entering Nandigram area

February 18, 2007
Bombs hurled, people beaten up in Nandigram

February 17, 2007
Fresh trouble at Nandigram, houses set ablaze

February 12, 2007
Protests rage in Nandigram

February 07, 2007
Nandigram: Rival parties take out processions

January 10, 2007
Calm prevails in Nandigram

January 09, 2007
CPI-M leader shot dead in West Bengal
Police sets up camp in Nandigram
NDA to discuss Nandigram issue

January 08, 2007
Peace process begins at Nandigram: Govt
Bengal bandh hits normal life, 350 arrested
WB: Villagers flee Nandigram
Bengal: Villages around Nandigram remain inaccessible

January 07, 2007
Six killed in Nandigram violence

...and I am Sid Harth
cogitoergosum
2010-06-03 12:40:57 UTC
Permalink
There Goes the Neighborhood: Sid Harth
http://navanavonmilita.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/there-goes-the-neighborhood-sid-harth/
http://navanavonmilita.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/there-goes-the-neighborhood-sid-harth-2/

Queen of Calcutta, not of Bengal yet
Buddha loses popular mandate
ASHIS CHAKRABARTI

Calcutta, June 2: Repeating the trend of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls,
Bengal has again voted decisively against the Left. The results of the
civic polls across the state should leave Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in
no doubt that he has lost the popular mandate to rule.

The verdict is yet another confirmation of the big political
transformation that has been taking place in Bengal since the
panchayat polls two years ago. At the centre of the change is the
people’s rejection of the Left. And it is growing stronger from
election to election.

True, these were civic polls and the voters numbered about 16 per cent
of Bengal’s total electorate. Constitutionally, the government can
last one more year. But these arguments do not alter the fact that the
verdict has robbed Left rule of its political and moral legitimacy.

More than ever before, Mamata Banerjee’s call for early polls would
not only look justified but also have a wider popular appeal. In
rejecting the idea for early polls, the CPM’s politburo member M.K.
Pandhe and Bengal unit secretary Biman Bose were utterly predictable,
but that only seemed to highlight the hiatus between the party and the
people.

The CPM’s refusal to accept the people’s verdict and seek a fresh
mandate can only strengthen Mamata’s resolve to force the issue. For,
the people who voted overwhelmingly for her call for change could see
in the CPM’s refusal a brazen attempt to hold on to power.

The massive swing against the Left has been mostly her doing. The
results show that her campaign to forge a broad unity against the Left
has not only held but also intensified since the 2009 polls.

Nowhere was the popular mood stronger than in Calcutta, which has been
her primary base for a long time. For all the CPM’s campaigns against
her over the recent train disaster, her party’s alleged links with
Maoists and other issues, the people seemed to have settled for just
one thing — the ouster of the Left.

Mamata’s massive victory in Calcutta has few parallels in recent
politics in Bengal. Her break-up with the Congress makes it look ever
more awesome.

But the results have another message that clearly makes Mamata’s
victory less than complete. She made a clean sweep of Calcutta, but
failed to take the rest of Bengal.

The difference between Calcutta and the districts for the Trinamul
Congress is a striking feature of the results. While Trinamul won
Calcutta and Salt Lake overwhelmingly on its own strength, it could
get only 25 of the 79 civic boards in the districts. Hidden under that
tally is the fact that in at least seven of these municipalities,
Trinamul’s success was made easier by official or unofficial seat
adjustments with the Congress.

An important tale thus hangs by the “hung” verdict in as many as 29
municipalities. Mamata was confident that Trinamul would form the
board in most of these civic bodies and the party may well do so.

But that does not change the fact that she could not take the rest of
Bengal the way she swept Calcutta. She would need the Congress to form
the boards in the “hung” municipalities. This means that even such a
massive wave against the Left is not enough for Trinamul to seize
power in Bengal on its own. This may change but it is so at least at
this moment.

It is entirely possible, though, that many Congress winners will leave
the party and join Trinamul to help the latter form the boards. But
the results in the districts prove beyond doubt that Mamata’s run for
Writers’ Buildings could still be an open question without help from
the Congress.

As for the Congress, the first look at the results could be somewhat
misleading. With the break-up of the alliance, its chances never
looked very bright. Mamata’s campaign against the Left has always had
another significant political angle — the spread of her area of
influence had to be at the expense of both the Left and other non-Left
parties such as the Congress.

It is still unclear how much the Congress vote queered the pitch for
Trinamul in the municipalities in the districts where the two parties
fought each other. What is clear, however, is that the Congress has
held on to its traditional areas of strength, such as Jalpaiguri,
Cooch Behar, Malda, Murshidabad and parts of Burdwan and Nadia. And
this too braving the double onslaught of the CPM and Trinamul.

While the Left may become yesterday’s story, the Congress could be
more relevant than Mamata would like to admit. To capture Bengal
whenever the Assembly polls take place, she may need the Congress more
than the latter may need her because it is she, more than the
Congress, who wants to rule Bengal hereafter.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/frontpage/story_12518150.jsp

Jitters give way to shouts of joy
OUR BUREAU

Rabi Mondol’s eyes were closed and hands folded. Standing outside Hare
School on College Street, the 32-year-old electrician from Tara Chand
Dutta Street was praying.

“The initial trends are not encouraging. I hope my party maintains the
momentum it gained in the Lok Sabha elections last year,” muttered the
die-hard Mamata Banerjee supporter around 9.30am, when Left Front
candidates were going neck and neck with those of the Trinamul
Congress.

M for mania: What Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya defined as “mob
hysteria” for Trinamul, was evident in — (from left) a car near Nicco
Park , a foam shower near Mamata’s home and a bike brigade in Alipore.
(Pradip Sanyal, Amit Datta, Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya)

An hour later, the picture had changed. A smiling Mondol reached into
his trouser pocket. When he brought his hands out, he was holding a
fistful of green abir.

“I bought abir yesterday but did not want to bring it out before
becoming sure that my party was going to win the election. Now we are
going to celebrate,” said Mondol, before blowing a bugle.

Hundreds of Trinamul supporters who had been anxiously tracking trends
erupted in jubilation at the sound. Huge party flags appeared from
nowhere and covered the sky. Slogans like “Jidhar Mamata, udhar janta”
and “Thanda thanda, cool cool, jeete gelo Trinamul” filled the air.

More youths arrived on motorcycles, carrying abir, flags and badges
with Mamata’s picture and distributed these among supporters.

The scenes in south Calcutta, Trinamul’s bastion, were no different.
The party supporters were celebrating outside every counting centre.

Those outside Ballygunge Government School — many were waiting since
dawn with party flags and abir — were the most jubilant. The party won
all the 11 seats, whose votes were being counted in the school. “We
have won all the seats in borough VIII. It’s a clean sweep for us,”
yelled Sayan Chakraborty to every familiar face he saw around him.

The party workers paraded a man in his mid-40s, wearing a garland of
edible oil bottles and packets of cereals. “This is to say that the
Left Front government is responsible for the price hike and the
results reflect that,” said Chakraborty.

Trinamul supporters outside Jodhpur Park Girls’ High School, another
counting centre, could scarcely believe the change in the party’s
fortunes. “Last time, we won only two out of the seven seats in
borough XII. This time we won six seats in there,” declared Pranab
Dey, who had been standing outside the school for hours.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/frontpage/story_12518104.jsp

Hung, it is time to reach out
29 municipalities tickle Trinamul and Congress
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

All are welcome. Picture by Anindya Shankar Ray

Calcutta, June 2: The elections have thrown up as many as 29 hung
municipalities, prompting Mamata Banerjee to soften her stand on the
Congress and say she would welcome its support to form civic boards.

In each of the 29 hung civic bodies, estranged allies Trinamul
Congress and Congress can together form the board. Independents can
also make a difference in some boards but they usually wait for the
picture to become clear on who holds the edge before revealing their
cards.

Mamata had dubbed the Congress “a party of betrayers” and its leaders
“CPM agents’’ during the campaign. Today, she said: “We have no
complaints against any political party for the failure of the alliance
in the municipal elections. They might have had some compulsions. But
I am with the UPA and will continue to be part of the coalition at the
Centre to serve the people.”

She added: “If my UPA friend extends support to help us form civic
boards in places where there is a hung verdict, I shall feel obliged
to them.”

Asked whether the Congress would offer support to Trinamul to form
boards, state Congress working president Pradip Bhattacharya said: “We
wanted an alliance with Trinamul though it didn’t happen. But it’s
good that Mamata wants our support.

“I have talked to Pranabda (Pranab Mukherjee) today. The verdict
across the state has been anti-Left, and the votes in the hung bodies
went mostly in favour of Trinamul or the Congress. So, what’s wrong in
joining hands to form municipal bodies?’’

In the past, the state has been witness to post-poll alliances between
the Congress and Trinamul to form local bodies.

After the 2008 panchayat elections, there were such tie-ups in several
districts, leading to the formation of non-Left gram panchayats and
panchayat samitis.

North 24-Parganas, where 21 municipalities went to the polls on May
30, has the highest number of hung civic bodies: nine. Hooghly has
four: Konnagar, Serampore, Rishra and Champdani.

In Maoist-hit West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, five of the 12
municipalities spread across the belt have witnessed hung verdicts.

In north Bengal, where seven municipalities went to the polls, only
two have hung bodies. The fate of Cooch Behar’s Mathabhanga
municipality, where there’s a tie between Trinamul and the Left, may
be decided by a flip of the coin.

Of the 19 municipalities spread across Burdwan, Birbhum, Nadia and
South 24-Parganas, nine require the Congress and Trinamul to tie up to
form the board.

Murshidabad, where six municipalities have held elections, is the only
district without a hung verdict.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/frontpage/story_12518091.jsp

Overrun: crimson citadel
Cradle of CPM leaders crushed
ANINDYA SENGUPTA

Trinamul Congress supporters celebrate outside the CPM’s Alimuddin
Street office. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Calcutta, June 2: One of the biggest blows the Left has suffered in
these civic polls is its rout in Bengal’s so-called Red Citadel that
had resisted the “winds of change” in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

The six districts of Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly and Maoist-hit West
Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia had given the Left 11 of the 15
parliamentary seats it won last year. In the civic elections, the CPM
has won just six of the region’s 33 municipalities.

Asked about the debacle, CPM state secretariat member Mohammad Salim
said: “It’s true that we did well in these areas in last year’s
parliamentary polls. Realising that, Trinamul began launching attacks
on our supporters, set houses on fire and created anarchy and terror
in these places over the past one year.

“That’s the reason the Red-belt votes got dented. They will increase
such attacks now keeping in mind next year’s Assembly elections. We
will have to find a way to counter their terror and recover lost
ground.”

The Telegraph had reported in the run-up to the civic polls that if
the Left had any hopes of launching a fight-back on May 30, it must do
well in the Red Citadel.

Even during the 2009 parliamentary polls, though, the Red belt had
thrown up indications of change, as reflected in the Assembly segments
from where the Left had trailed and the impact of an unofficial
alliance between the Congress and Trinamul in some areas.

The CPM will be upset at its poor civic tally in Burdwan district, a
party bastion that has produced politburo or central committee members
like Nirupam Sen, Benoy Konar and Madan Ghosh.

Of the six municipalities that went to the polls in Burdwan, the CPM
has lost four, all located in the district’s agricultural zone. On
Konar’s home turf of Memari, where the CPM held 15 of the 16 civic
seats, it has drawn a blank this time, with Trinamul and the Congress
winning 12 and four, respectively.

The CPM will also struggle to accept its score of zero in Katwa
municipality though the Congress has held the civic body for two
decades. The last time, the CPM had won two seats there.

In Hooghly district, where 12 municipalities went to the polls, the
CPM has won only Arambagh. This time, areas along the Ganga have
turned their back on the Left, which had won nine municipalities in
Hooghly in 2005.

In Birbhum, the CPM has lost in all the three municipalities — Bolpur,
Suri and Rampurhat — failing to turn its fortunes around after last
year’s defeat in the Birbhum parliamentary constituency.

CPM leaders are blaming the Left’s defeat in eight of the 12 civic
bodies in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia on an “unofficial
alliance of the Congress and Trinamul’’.

“In West Midnapore’s Ghatal, Ramjibanpur and Kharar, we lost to an
Opposition mahajot (grand alliance) at the ground level. The same
thing happened in three municipalities in Bankura and two civic bodies
in Purulia,’’ a CPM state committee member said.

The CPM leadership fears that as Trinamul prepares for the 2011
Assembly polls, it would be encouraged to try and wrest huge chunks
off the Red Citadel.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518144.jsp

Logistics, not demand, to carry more voice
SAMANWAYA RAUTRAY

New Delhi, June 2: Mamata Banerjee may yet get what she wants — early
Assembly elections in Bengal.

Officials said it was an Election Commission practice to hold
simultaneous polls in states where Assembly terms end “almost
together”.

In Bengal, the term of the current House ends in June 2011, about
seven months after the tenure of the Bihar Assembly expires in
November 2010. So simultaneous polls in these two states would make
“logistical” sense, they said.

According to the officials, another reason the commission might club
the elections in the two neighbouring states is the Maoist menace.

If elections are held simultaneously in Bengal and Bihar, troops
collated from across the country — the commission does not have any of
its own — could be easily moved from one to the other. Otherwise, the
officials said, they would have to return to the barracks only to come
back after a few months.

Constitutional experts, however, said Mamata couldn’t demand early
polls, and it was up to the commission to take a call whether to delay
or advance elections.

Under Article 324 of the Constitution, the commission, an expert said,
has absolute powers to decide the dates on which to hold elections to
Parliament or any Assembly.

“The commission can call elections any time in the six months
preceding the date on which the term of a House expires,” said Subhash
Kashyap, former Lok Sabha secretary-general and adviser to the
government on constitutional matters.

However, the convention is to wait for a state government to suggest a
date to the governor for dissolving the House. The commission usually
goes by that date.

If a state government shows no signs of doing so, the commission can
take a call on the poll dates.

Senior lawyer and constitutional expert P.P. Rao said that under the
Constitution, six months should not elapse between two sessions of a
House.

Since an election process takes anything between four and eight weeks
to complete, sources said the commission could wait till March-April
next year for the Bengal government to recommend dissolution of the
House, but not any further.

The term of the Bengal Assembly ends on June 12, 2011, five years
after the date of its first sitting on June 12, 2006. But should the
government wait till then, the reins of governance would have to be
handed over to the governor, paving the way for President’s rule, Rao
said.

“No government in power would want to go for elections under
President’s rule. So there’s no reason to believe that the state
government would not want to recommend dissolution of the House well
in time,” he added.

Rao said Mamata may have tried to “score a political point” with her
demand for early polls, but it was “not constitutionally tenable”.

He also said local polls were hardly an indicator of what Assembly or
Lok Sabha poll results might be, and cited several instances in which
governments had gambled on the outcome of local elections only to see
their plans backfire.

“The mandates for local bodies and Assemblies and Parliament are
different,” Rao said.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518099.jsp

Govt work on Nirupam lips
BISWAJIT ROY

Nirupam Sen

Calcutta, June 2: Nirupam Sen, Bengal industries minister and CPM
politburo member, has drawn attention to the state government’s
performance without directly blaming it for the civic poll debacle.

“The public may have believed in the Opposition’s campaign or people
may really think that we committed mistakes and they are not satisfied
with our government’s work. It’s difficult to change the people’s mind
within a short time,’’ said Sen.

CPM state secretariat member Mohammad Salim underscored the need to
examine the party’s “success in changing public perception of the
government’s and party’s role in development and whether their moves
reflected the people’s aspirations”.

The hint was apparently to the post-Singur and Nandigram
controversies. Other party leaders felt that both may be called
“catalysts for the catastrophe that was waiting to explode for years,
given the accumulated grievances over bad governance and party-people
relations”.

They also felt that it was too late to undo the damage and change the
popular perception. But the state party leadership was at a loss to
explain the reasons for the extent of the defeat.

Asked why the Left’s tirade against the “Maoist-Mamata nexus” and lack
of railway safety and the anti-Centre campaign on price rise had
failed to convince voters, state CPM chief Biman Bose said: “We have
to introspect why our campaign went over the people’s head. We will
ponder over our mistakes and take corrective steps after completing
our review of the results by this month.’’

The CPM lost not only its capital today but also its trophy ward in
Jadavpur, the Assembly seat represented by chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee.

In Ramgarh, the Jadavpur ward that had sent outgoing mayor Bikash
Ranjan Bhattacharyya to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) in
2005, Trinamul won by 591 votes. Such upsets spoiled the CPM’s dreams
of bagging at least 50 seats in the CMC.

In Calcutta, the Left lost most of the 22 wards in which it had a lead
in the Lok Sabha polls.

Minority blow

The chief minister’s promise of government job quotas for backward-
class Muslims seemed not to have cut much ice among the city’s
minority voters. The Left bagged four of the 16 minority-dominated
wards compared with nine last time.

In the Garden Reach-Metiabruz area, which has a mixed population of
Bengali and Urdu-speaking Muslims, the CPM had won five out of eight
wards in 2005 but managed to retain only two this time.

In contrast, it fared better in adjoining Kidderpore, regaining part
of the ground lost in the Lok Sabha polls despite the defeat of mayor-
in-council member Faiz Ahmed Khan.

In Tiljala-Park Circus, the defeat of Trinamul’s Javed Khan and
Rizwanur Rahman’s brother Rukbanur made the CPM happy. But the CPM’s
mayor-in-council member Abu Sufian lost too.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518146.jsp

Bloc bastion blocks Trinamul
MAIN UDDIN CHISTI

Forward Bloc supporters celebrate in Dinhata. Picture by Main Uddin
Chisti

Cooch Behar, June 2: The Left Front has retained the Dinhata
municipality despite the buzz that the Trinamul Congress would make
inroads into the Forward Bloc bastion.

The Left won 13 of the 15 wards, while Trinamul’s tally was unchanged
from the 2005 polls at two. The Congress, which had two wards in the
outgoing body, was wiped out.

Trinamul had cut its teeth in north Bengal by winning the Dinhata seat
in the 2006 Assembly elections, sparking the buzz that it would fare
better in the civic polls.

But the hopes seemed to have been belied. Only Ashok Mondol of
Trinamul, who had defeated late Bloc stalwart Kamal Guha’s son Udayan
in the Assembly polls, won today. The second winner was Rabi Dey.

All the nine Bloc candidates romped home. The CPM, which had fielded
five candidates and supported an Independent, won four wards.

Political observers said Udayan had concentrated after his 2006 defeat
on strengthening the Bloc’s organisation, which had been riddled with
factionalism, the divisions deepening after the demise of his father.

“Another major factor was the close and co-ordinated strategies that
he adopted with the CPM in the district, something that is rarely
seen,” an observer said.

The rapport marks a turnaround from the situation in the aftermath of
February 5, 2008, when five Bloc supporters were killed in police
firing outside the Dinhata subdivisional office, pitting the Left
allies against each other. “This had an effect in the May 2008
panchayat polls where Trinamul made inroads ,” the observer said.

However, all is not lost for Trinamul in the Cooch Behar district,
which covers Dinhata. Overall, the party’s tally up from six to 15
wards in the four municipalities of the district.

“We are satisfied with the results and the people have voted in our
favour,” Guha said.

Trinamul district chief Rabindranath Ghosh said: “We will have to
analyse the results, that is all I can say at the moment.”

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518038.jsp

Karat redirects glare to Alimuddin
J.P. YADAV

Prakash Karat. (File picture)

New Delhi, June 2: Prakash Karat is known to be a diligent ten-to-six
worker, turning up at AK Gopalan Bhawan at 10am and staying on till
6pm.

This morning, when votes for the Bengal civic elections were being
counted, the CPM general secretary arrived a little earlier and
appeared surprised to see television crew parked outside the party
headquarters.

“Why are you all here? You should be at Alimuddin Street. All the
action is there,” he was heard saying while stepping inside with the
faint hint of a smile.

Otherwise a casual remark, but coming from Karat, usually not prone to
idle chatter, the statement was loaded with political significance for
a party struggling to reconcile the “central” and the “Bengal” lines.

Karat’s nonchalance towards the outcome of the civic elections in
Bengal was read here as a “spontaneous” expression of his belief that
the Left Front’s performance should be held responsible for the
reverses in the state and not the decision of the central leadership
to close the door on the Congress over the Indo-US nuclear deal when
UPA I was in power.

Shaken by the initial flood of results in Calcutta and without taking
a closer look at the picture elsewhere, some sources in the party said
the civic election results had strengthened the dominant “central”
line — toed by Karat — as the Trinamul Congress continued its victory
spree despite not having an alliance with the Congress.

Those pursuing the “Bengal” line feel that a wedge between the
Trinamul Congress and the Congress will help them hold onto power in
Bengal. To achieve this, Bengal leaders are known to be keen on
warming up to the Congress, a view known to be strongly opposed by
Karat.

“Now they (the Bengal leaders) have been proved wrong. It shows that
anti-Left votes unite even if Trinamul and the Congress fight
separately,” claimed a CPM leader, indicating a fresh debate would
start in the party and the issue could figure in the politburo meeting
of the party scheduled later this week.

Other sources said the state CPM could point out that the full results
suggested that Trinamul would not be able to capture Writers’ without
the support of the Congress.

With Karat lobbing the ball to Alimuddin Street, it was left to
politburo member Sitaram Yechury to defend the party in Bengal. But
Yechury almost repeated what Bengal CPM secretary Biman Bose said in
Calcutta.

“We accept the verdict. Although we have failed to reverse the trend,
we have been able to arrest the downslide since the last Lok Sabha
polls and fared marginally better,” Yechury said.

He refused to accept that it was a verdict on the performance of the
Bengal government. “It is a verdict on the municipalities, not on the
West Bengal government,” Yechury said, rejecting the demand for early
Assembly polls.

Throughout the day, central CPM leaders tried to avoid giving
reactions to the civic poll results. The disinterest or the desire to
steer clear was evident as only a handful of central leaders such as
Karat, Yechury, S.R. Ramachandran Pillai and M.K. Pandhe were present
at the headquarters in Delhi.

Yechury, who arrived after Karat, sought to contest media reports that
his meeting last night with Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee had a
political agenda. “It was a meeting with the finance minister. It had
nothing to do with politics. There is no question of any alliance with
the Congress,” Yechury said, but did not clarify the “financial”
aspect.

Thereafter, Yechury got busy with editorial matters of the CPM’s
mouthpiece. In the afternoon, international matters kept him
preoccupied — he drove away to participate in a protest organised by
the Left parties against the Israeli attack on a flotilla carrying aid
for Gaza.

As reporters fretted and fumed in the hot weather, Karat stayed put in
his AC office. He did not leave for home for lunch, which he usually
does. In between, only trade union leader Pandhe came out, speaking on
a swanky touch phone.

“People have voted against the Left. The results are on expected
lines. But Mamata Banerjee will have to wait for another year to test
her strength,” Pandhe said.

Karat stepped out of AKG Bhawan only after Yechury had spoken to
reporters and most of the scribes had left. He refused to say anything
on record.

Some other comrades who were constantly glued to television were heard
saying that it was now impossible to reverse the trend in Bengal. “We
can only try to check the downslide,” one of them said.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12517953.jsp

Mamata sets eyes on early poll
Result shows no trust in Left, says Trinamul
BARUN GHOSH

Calcutta, June 2: Mamata Banerjee today renewed her call for early
Assembly elections, buoyed by the “historic” civic poll results across
Bengal.

“Today’s results are not only historic but revolutionary since people
have expressed a complete no-trust against the CPM. So, the CPM should
not stay on in power in Bengal any more and instead seek a fresh
mandate by advancing the Assembly elections,” Mamata told a crowded
news conference this afternoon.

She suggested that the Assembly elections, due in May 2011, be held in
October this year. “I have heard that some states will go to the polls
in October this year. If the Election Commission considers our demand
for early polls, elections in Bengal could be held in October without
dismissing the state government,” she said. Only Bihar will go to the
polls this October.

CPM state secretary and Left Front chairman Biman Bose today rejected
Mamata’s demand. “The results of the civic polls are a verdict of 17
per cent voters of the state. How can it reflect the view of the total
electorate of the state?” he asked.

State industries minister and CPM politburo member Nirupam Sen echoed
Bose’s view. “The Assembly elections will be held as scheduled,” Sen
said at Writers’ Buildings. “There are some laws of the land and they
will have to be adhered to.”

Trinamul sources said that Mamata would, however, keep mounting
pressure on the state government for advancement of the Assembly polls
by taking recourse to a string of movements.

“We shall raise the slogan for advancement of Assembly elections at
our Martyrs’ Rally on July 21 that Mamata has already offered to the
people for their overwhelming support to us,” said a Trinamul general
secretary.

Mamata had in a string of campaign meetings for the civic polls also
time and again raised the demand even as chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee had rejected it.

The Trinamul leader felt that the results of the civic polls “assume
significance” for her on the ground that her candidates had fared
better in the Left bastions like Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia and West
Midnapore than what they had done in the Lok Sabha polls.

“Going by the results of the civic polls, we have made considerable
inroads in such Left bastions such as Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia and
West Midnapore. In a majority of civic bodies located in the four
districts, we are going to form the boards on our own,” a smiling
Mamata said.

The CPM’s total rout in Burdwan’s Memari, known to be party stalwart
Benoy Konar’s fiefdom, has come as a shot in the arms for Mamata.

“We can’t even imagine that the CPM drew a blank in Memari. By getting
a majority in 12 wards out of 16 there, we are going to form the civic
board in the red bastion,” said a Trinamul vice-president.

Asked about the possible mayoral candidates for the Calcutta Municipal
Corporation and the Bidhan Nagar municipality, Mamata said that the
party would shortly take a decision on this at a party meeting. “We
shall choose our important party nominees for the key posts,” she
said.

In Calcutta, Trinamul won 95 wards out of 141 and in Bidhan Nagar it
won 16 out of 25.

Mamata, who had dubbed the Congress “a party of betrayers” for
breaking up the alliance during the campaign for civic polls, today
appeared mellower in victory. “We have no complaints against any
political party for the failure of the alliance. They may have some
compulsion. But I am with the UPA and will continue to be a part of
the coalition at the Centre to serve the people,” she said, when asked
about the breaking up of the alliance.

She said she would welcome the Congress if the party wanted to extend
support to Trinamul in the municipalities where they are short of the
magic number for forming the boards. “If my UPA friend extends support
to help us form civic boards in the place where there is a hung
situation, I shall feel obliged to them,” she said.

Trinamul will form boards in 51 wards out of 81 across Bengal, Mamata
said.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518098.jsp

Buddhababu, Buddhababu... silence rules
KINSUK BASU

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in the Alimuddin Street office. Picture by
Bishwarup Dutta
Calcutta, June 2: He came, he surely heard, but he refused to speak.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today simply ignored whatever question waiting
journalists managed to throw at him as he got off his car, or climbed
into it, at Alimuddin Street and Writers’ Buildings.

It was 9.36am when the chief minister reached his party headquarters
in a convoy with gun-toting commandos all around him. As he stepped
out of his bullet-proof car in a starched-white dhoti and kurta, TV
cameras zoomed in on him.

“Buddhababu…” someone shouted from the knot of journalists, waiting to
catch the faintest of reactions.

Bhattacharjee neither paused nor looked back. He just held the end of
his dhoti and hurried up the flight of steps to the first floor.

Inside the conference hall, a TV set beamed the latest trends from the
Calcutta civic polls: “Left Front 30, Trinamul Congress 81, Congress
7.”

The sound of the TV seemed to echo around the corridor. The chief
minister paused for a moment before slipping into party state
secretary Biman Bose’s room.

As the trends turned into final figures, Bhattacharjee continued to
gaze at the TV set in the room. One by one, party colleagues came in:
industries minister Nirupam Sen, environment minister Manab Mukherjee,
Mohammad Salim, Mohammed Amin, Shyamoli Gupta….

Around 10.30, they all walked out of Bose’s room and into the
conference hall to discuss the results. Party insiders said
Bhattacharjee mostly preferred silence here, too, but heard out the
others.

The meeting lasted 35-40 minutes, after which Sen was the first to
leave the party office. A few minutes later, around 11.20, the air
crackled with a sense of anticipation outside.

Bhattacharjee could be seen climbing down the stairs.

The policemen stood at attention; the commandos smartened up their
jackets; the journalists shuffled a few steps closer. A reaction from
the chief minister would be the day’s prize “quote”.

But as he stepped on the ground floor, Bhattacharjee failed to take
the right turn towards his car, near which the reporters and cameramen
waited impatiently. He kept walking straight along the corridor and
disappeared from sight.

Then he emerged again, all of a sudden.

“Buddhababu, we have a question…” someone asked.

Grim silence.

As the journalists jostled with the police, Bhattacharjee settled
himself on the left side of his rear seat.

Just after the convoy had rolled out of the lane, a huge victory
procession by Trinamul Congress workers appeared, party flags
fluttering on two-wheelers. The marchers turned up their volume as
they neared the main entrance of the CPM headquarters.

“Laal hato,” the bike-borne youths screamed. Iqbal Ahmed, the local
Trinamul councillor, flashed a broad smile.

Bhattacharjee spent hardly two hours at Writers’. He refused to look
towards the assembled reporters and walked straight to his chamber
where he held a meeting to review the power department’s work.

After the meeting — attended by Sen, who has additional charge of the
power department, finance minister Asim Dasgupta and health minister
Surjya Kanta Mishra — Bhattacharjee watched the TV news. Around
1.30pm, he walked out.

A reporter flung a question: “Buddhadebbabu, will you bring the
Assembly elections forward?”

Silence.

The chief minister did not return to Writers’ after lunch as he
usually does but turned up at the party office at 4pm.

“Buddhababu, how do you react to the results?”

But the chief minister was already striding up the steps.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518145.jsp

BJP retains hold on business district
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Calcutta, June 2: The Trinamul Congress’s sweep across Calcutta has
largely left untouched Burrabazar, the city’s business district, where
the BJP has retained its support base.

Two BJP candidates — Meenadevi Purohit and Sunita Jhawar — retained
Wards 22 and 42 respectively, defeating Trinamul Congress candidates.
In Ward 23, newcomer Bijoy Ojha wrested the seat from the CPM nominee.
Burrabazar has seven wards. The Congress and the CPM have won two
while Trinamul retained the remaining.

“The victory of our three candidates proves that our party has not
lost its relevance in Calcutta,” said state BJP president Rahul Sinha.

Purohit and Jhawar have been winning since 1995. In 2000, Purohit
became deputy mayor in the Trinamul-controlled civic board.

First-timer Ojha has defeated sitting CPM councillor Bharati Jha.

Malay Majumdar, who as BJP candidate had won Ward 96 (comprising a
part of Jadavpur and Bijoygarh on the southern fringes of the city) in
2000 and 2005, this time retained the ward but as a Trinamul
candidate.

But barring Calcutta, the BJP has not performed well in the other 80
civic bodies across Bengal, where, according to Sinha, the party has
won only 10 wards.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518039.jsp

Aha! Dr Bose catches a statistical straw
DEVADEEP PUROHIT

Calcutta, June 2: A decisive drubbing in Calcutta and several other
civic bodies across the state has forced the Left Front to dip into an
innovative statistical arsenal to claim a “marginal improvement” in
its performance in comparison to the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

Front chairman Biman Bose claimed that amid the despair of the civic
poll results — the fourth successive rout since the 2008 panchayat
polls — a silver lining had emerged, indicating a trend reversal.

“Our candidates have won in 603 wards out of the 1,791 wards in which
the civic polls were held and the winning percentage is 33.67. If we
compare our last Lok Sabha poll performance in the same civic bodies,
it shows a marginal improvement,” claimed Bose, also the CPM state
secretary, trying to put up a stoical face.

As he read out from a prepared document — put together by the party’s
number crunchers — Bose said that extrapolation of the last Lok Sabha
poll results for the same civic bodies had revealed that the winning
percentage then was 29.73 — 525 wards out of 1,766 wards.

Although he admitted that the Left Front’s performance had been
inferior vis-à-vis that of Trinamul, he did not forget to crow about
the 3.94 per cent improvement in the percentage of winning wards.

“He was probably trying to lift the morale of party cadres with such
numbers. But the writing is clear on the wall and such numbers cannot
hide the fact,” said a CPM insider.

The innovation to buttress the claim of an improvement in performance
took Chennai-based psephologist Rajeeva L. Karandikar by surprise.

“When we try to analyse the performance of a political party in civic
polls, we look at the percentage of votes and the number of civic
bodies won by that particular party. Improvement in the percentage of
winning wards hardly reveals anything,” said Karandikar, adding that
such innovations would do little to hide the poor showing by the
Left.

Bose’s claim of improved performance could not be independently
verified as the percentage of votes cast in favour of the Left
candidates was not available till late in the evening.

But even without looking at those numbers, his claim of marginal
improvement can be contested as Trinamul and the Congress had an
alliance in 2009, which they could not forge this time. So, the
improvement in percentage of winning wards could be more to do with
the division of anti-Left votes than a turnaround by the Left.

Springing such a surprise statistic to deflect the attention from the
core issue is, however, not new for the ruling Left. After the 2009
Lok Sabha poll debacle, Bose had claimed that there was only a “minor
erosion” in total votes secured by the front in comparison to its
performance in 2004.

Data from the Election Commission website had corroborated that claim.
The total votes secured by the Left had come down from 1,87,59,692 in
2004 to 1,85,03,157 in 2009 — a slide of just 2,56,535 votes. But it
was a half-truth as the poll arithmetic had conveniently ignored the
fact that the number of voters in the state had increased by more than
50 lakh between 2004 and 2009.

Amid the rhetoric of only a marginal loss in the number of votes
secured, another important message — over 6.5 per cent reduction in
vote share — got drowned. If the CPM state secretary was trying to
hide the slide in the front’s support base in 2009, he decided to
ignore the message from the mandates since the 2008 panchayat polls.

“Of the 5,24,32000 voters across the state, 85,33,000 people had voted
in this election…. That represents only about 17 per cent of the
voters. There is no question of advancing the Assembly elections,”
Bose thundered.

While there was a definite answer that the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
government was determined to cling to power till May 2011, Bose looked
evasive while explaining the reason behind the rout.

“We will have to analyse the results in detail and find out the
reasons behind the poor showing,” Bose said.

Insiders in the party referred to an entire gamut of factors — from
excessive reliance on the split between the Congress and Trinamul to
failure to launch the rectification drive — responsible for the
debacle.

Bose ruled out suggestions that the strategy of going soft on the
Congress — Bhattacharjee’s penchant for playing the Congress against
Trinamul is an open secret — had harmed the Left. He also claimed that
the party had launched the rectification drive in line with its
strategy.

“We started the initiative in September but then the elections came….
But we will continue with our efforts to get closer to the people,”
Bose said.

Does the party have enough time to make a change before it faces the
final?

Bose was silent but the answer was written on the wall — the clock has
started ticking.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518143.jsp

Pranab pat for Mamata
ARCHIS MOHAN

Pranab Mukherjee

New Delhi, June 2: Yesterday, Pranab Mukherjee’s office had told
journalists not to expect him to comment on the poll verdict. He was
apparently too busy preparing for the G20 finance ministers’ meeting
in Busan, South Korea, for which he was to leave late tonight.

However, by this morning, Mukherjee had relented. He gingerly
approached the journalists who had gathered outside his office at
North Block around 9am.

His change of heart seemed to have been caused mostly by media reports
about a secret Congress-CPM deal to stop Mamata Banerjee’s juggernaut.

The reports had said Mukherjee and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury had
discussed this “deal” when they met yesterday.

“There’s no question of any deal with the Left in West Bengal. I had
no talks with Sitaram Yechury on a post-poll alliance in West Bengal.
Mr Yechury met me, but it had nothing to do with the elections,”
Mukherjee said.

The clarification had probably become necessary to leave the door open
for a Congress-Trinamul alliance for next year’s Bengal Assembly
elections.

“I will like to congratulate Mamata for her excellent performance both
in Calcutta and also in the districts. I accept the failure of the
Congress to come up to the expectations we had and I accept the
verdict of the people with all humility,” Mukherjee said.

“Till the final results come, it will be difficult to say what has
been the net loss or net gain, but we have done badly... there is no
doubt (about) that.”

Mukherjee had, at a campaign rally in Ranaghat, warned Mamata not to
repeat CPM general secretary Prakash Karat’s mistake of dumping the
Congress. The Trinamul chief had earlier alleged that the Congress was
colluding with the CPM to undercut her party’s prospects.

Some of Mukherjee’s aides kept asking journalists about the results in
Ranaghat, a former Congress stronghold, where Trinamul has won because
of a mass crossover.

Mukherjee remained incommunicado for the rest of the day, busying
himself with preparations for his South Korea trip. His office refused
all requests for interviews.

An aide said: “Pranabbabu’s job will be so much easier in trying to
strike an alliance with Trinamul for the Assembly polls. There will be
no unreasonable demands from Congress workers.”

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518040.jsp

Cong gamble works in districts
ASHIS CHAKRABARTI

Congress supporters celebrate in Jalpaiguri. (Biplab Basak)
Calcutta, June 2: Down in Calcutta, but very much a player out there
in Bengal. That could sum up the state of the Bengal Congress after
the verdict in the civic polls.

And no one would know this better than Mamata Banerjee.

Mamata’s massive win in Calcutta may not show it but the results in
the districts tell a different story about the Congress’s
performance.

There were two aspects of the Congress’s battle in these polls after
the break-up of its alliance with the Trinamul Congress — how much of
its own territory it could retain and what difference it could make to
Trinamul’s fortunes. Together, they added up to a battle for India’s
grand old party’s survival in Bengal.

In Calcutta, the Congress may not have done anything to stop Mamata’s
unstoppable march for complete domination of the battle. But even in
the city, its tally of 10 seems to suggest that its calculated risk of
going it alone was worth taking. The alternative available to it was
to accept Mamata’s offer of 23 seats, of which at least 15 were
unwinnable because of the huge margins by which the Left had always
won them.

The results have proved that the Congress’s fears about these seats
were entirely justified. According to Congress sources, the party
could barely win five or six seats if it had accepted Mamata’s
“dishonourable” offer. Forced to fight on its own, the party has
managed to win 10.

But the party’s big satisfaction comes from the results in the
districts. It has not only been able to retain its bases in districts
like Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Malda, Murshidabad and some parts of
Nadia and Burdwan but also improved on past performances.

It has not been even across the districts, with unforeseen ups and
downs, but the overall tally keeps the party’s hopes of survival
alive. In Jalpaiguri, for instance, the party not only retained
control of the civic board, but actually improved on its score of
2005, picking up 16 of the seats, as against Trinamul’s one.

In the Englishbazar municipality in Malda, it is the same story of the
Congress bettering its own record of 2005.

In Murshidabad, where the party has its strongest base among the
districts, thanks to the combined efforts of Pranab Mukherjee and
Adhir Choudhury, the party’s score rose from two to three.

These are clear results and the Congress’s performance is openly
visible. What is not so open but politically significant is the
Congress’s help to Trinamul in municipalities that the latter won. Of
the 25 bodies which Trinamul won on its own, there were official and
unofficial seat adjustments with the Congress. In several others,
Congress nominees withdrew their candidatures by issuing leaflets,
making Trinamul wins easier.

For example, Trinamul’s successes in the traditional Red belt of
Burdwan were due to the Congress in no small measure. In at least
three civic bodies in Burdwan — Kalna, Memari and Dainhat — and in
Kharar in West Midnapore, there were official seat adjustments between
the two.

In two other places in West Midnapore — Chandrakona and Khirpai —
unofficial adjustments with the Congress helped Trinamul win them for
the first time. In Kharar, where there are 20 seats, the Congress did
not up any candidate. In many other places, especially in south
Bengal, the Congress did not win but made Trinamul’s wins possible.

But the success of the Congress’s gamble showed best in the 29 “hung”
boards, where the party proved it was still very much a player in
Bengal politics. To put it from another angle, if Trinamul got only 25
boards out of the 79, barring Calcutta and Salt Lake, it had a lot to
do with the Congress vote.

The Congress’s show confirms that the party may be irrelevant in
Calcutta but not in all Bengal. And it can help the party quote its
part of the deal with Mamata in the 2011 Assembly polls. That the
party’s alliance with Trinamul would be revived for the state polls
was not much in doubt.

The crucial question for the party in Bengal, said a senior leader, is
whether its high command will emulate the state leaders’ example of
standing up on their own against a “humiliating” offer from Mamata
again.

The party’s leaders, including PCC working president Pradip
Bhattacharyya, today made it clear they would help Trinamul in forming
boards in all the hung municipalities. What they didn’t say in public
but hoped was that Mamata would reciprocate the gesture not just now
but also for the Assembly polls.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12517952.jsp

North unswayed by wind of change
OUR BUREAU

June 2: By the time they reached north Bengal, the winds of change had
petered out into a mild breeze.

If one region resisted the change that swept across vast swathes of
Bengal today, it was the north where seven municipalities went to
polls last Sunday — four in Cooch Behar district, two in Malda and one
in Jalpaiguri.

The Left retained three, the Congress maintained its hold over one,
one saw a tie and two returned a fractured verdict.

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress made marginal gains in the four
municipalities in Cooch Behar, but it was status quo in all except
Mathabhanga, where Trinamul and the CPM won 6 wards each.The toss of a
coin will decide who forms the board.

The Left retained Dinhata and Toofanganj, while the Congress emerged
the single-largest party in the Cooch Behar municipality but would
have to fall back upon Trinamul to again form the board.

The Dinhata results were particularly disappointing for Trinamul, as
it was from here that the party had made its first major breakthrough
by defeating the Forward Bloc on its home turf in the last Assembly
elections.

In Jalpaiguri, the Congress maintained its 2005 tally, winning 16 of
the 25 wards that went to polls on May 30.

In Malda district, the Left retained Old Malda, while Englishbazar saw
a hung verdict.

So what happened to the winds of change?

“While campaigning in north Bengal, Trinamul Congress leaders only
harped on Singur and Nandigram and highlighted their allegations about
the CPM’s terror tactics. These events have been taking place too far
away for the electorate here to sit up and notice,” said Sanjoy
Chakrabarty, secretary of the Jalpaiguri Welfare Organisation.

Another factor, Chakrabarty said, was Mamata rarely visited north
Bengal. “She visited the closed Kanthaguri tea garden in August 2007,
five years after it was shut down,” he said. Chakrabarty, however,
pointed out that north Bengal, except for Cooch Behar district, has
been a Congress belt. “The Left has retained the Old Malda
municipality and the Congress fared marginally better in
Englishbazar,” he added.

Other observers said Trinamul leaders never touched upon the situation
in the hills, closed tea gardens and the overall underdevelopment of
the region. “CPM and Congress leaders, like Nirupam Sen and Deepa Das
Munshi, were very prompt in raising these issues,” said an observer.

Trinamul district leaders blamed the leadership for the poor show. “We
had to put up with the money and muscle power of the CPM and the
Congress during campaigning,” said a senior leader in Cooch Behar.
“Very little was sent to us from Calcutta.”

Trinamul state committee member Babla Sarkar said the party would have
“certainly done better” in Englishbazar had the top brass concentrated
“a little more” rather than focus entirely on Calcutta and south
Bengal. “We had Partha Chatterjee campaigning for the party on one
occasion and it was clear he was just going through the motions,” he
said.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12518037.jsp

Eye on 2011, Congress expects Trinamul thaw
SANJAY K. JHA

New Delhi, June 2: The Congress central leadership feels the civic
poll results will smoothen the frayed relations with the Trinamul
Congress, now that Mamata Banerjee has demonstrated her supremacy in
Bengal politics.

The party is confident that the two UPA allies will contest the 2011
Assembly elections together. Senior leaders today dismissed all
speculation about a tacit Congress-Left understanding.

“These local elections have been a blessing in disguise. We now know
our strength and will take a more realistic position in the future.
Both of us now understand that our alliance is vital for the final
ouster of the Left from Bengal,” a senior minister told The Telegraph.

He said that Mamata’s struggle against the Left was “appreciated” by
at least three leaders at the top: Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and
Rahul Gandhi.

“These leaders don’t want a very strong Left in the country, whatever
their reservations about Mamata’s attitude are,” the minister said.

“The courtesy and civility shown to the Left does not mean we are
going to dilute our political struggle against them, particularly in
Kerala and Bengal.”

Party functionaries said that whatever reservations some in the
Congress had about Mamata would get diluted in the coming days since
she had displayed her mettle and shown the reason why the Congress
should play second fiddle to Trinamul in Bengal.

Sources said Pranab Mukherjee, who decides Congress policy on Bengal
and is perceived by some to be anti-Mamata, favoured fighting the
Assembly elections together. Mukherjee was prompt in congratulating
Mamata today and conceded that the Congress had done badly.

The sources said Mukherjee had always wanted an alliance for the civic
elections, and it was the party’s district leaders who threw a spanner
in the works with their unreasonable demands.

The Congress general secretary in charge of Bengal affairs, K. Keshava
Rao, played down the strains in Congress-Trinamul ties. “The ultimate
aim is to fight the Left. We are together at the national level and
will fight the Left together in the Assembly polls,” he said.

The party’s official reaction was in tune with this sentiment.
Spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said: “Local factors override… civic polls
and not much should be read into the failure to fight these elections
together. Our fight is against Left misrule and we will fight the
Assembly elections together.”

Asked whether seat-sharing talks for the Assembly elections could get
similarly derailed, he said: “That is far away. Our senior leaders
will sort it out when the time comes. But we are together now and will
remain together.”

The Congress, however, expects Mamata to tone down her rhetoric now
and begin to show greater respect to coalition compulsions at both the
state and national levels.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100603/jsp/nation/story_12517954.jsp

...and I am Sid Harth
cogitoergosum
2010-06-05 16:11:49 UTC
Permalink
There Goes the Neighborhood: Sid Harth


Capitalists of the world rejoice. Former socialist country, India, is
jumping headlong in capitalism. Contrary to the rumors spread by vile
forces, one among them is the Times of India group of publications
that UPA government is becoming a socialist state, the reality is
otherwise. The capitalists of India and their kissing cousins, NRIs
are scouring the length and breadth of India to dig deep and wide for
black gold, coal, oil and gas. They are breaking all objections,
wherever such objection persists. They are also bending backwards to
please local politicians to rule in their favor. In return, such
rulers
are breaking all legal and moral rules to accommodate the invading
capitalists. It is a win-win situation for all. before any actual
digging could be started, the capitalists dig deep in their pockets
and
pour all kinds of fancy favors, funds and hidden and unaccounted black
money to please all spectrum of political warlords. Such is the sweet
symphony played in India. No undue note heard.

INDIA BUSINESS NEWS

JUNE 5, 2010, 3:15 A.M. ET.
Limits Set on India Listed Firms .
By JOHN SATISH KUMAR

MUMBAI--All listed companies in India will have to ensure that they
are at least 25%-owned by the public, the government decided Friday in
a move likely to saddle the market with about $34 billion in shares.

But companies with a public holding of less than 25% will get ample
time to comply with the Securities Contracts Rules amendment: They
will have to increase the level by a minimum of 5% a year.

The current public-holding requirement is 10%.

However, larger companies--those which will have post-initial public
offering capital of more than 40 billion rupees ($900 million) --will
be allowed to list with a 10% public share holding.

They, too, will then have to raise the public's share to 25% by at
least 5% annually, the government said.

The statement didn't specify when the new rule will come into effect.

"This will definitely help the government's divestment agenda and also
lead to a series of follow-on offerings," said Raamdeo Agrawal,
managing director of Mumbai-based Motilal Oswal Securities.

"It is good that investors will get a chance to own shares of quality
companies," he added.

In July 2009, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's budget speech
proposed reducing founders' stakes in all listed companies to 75%,
with the remaining 25% going to the public.

SMC Capitals then estimated that there were 180 listed companies in
India with more than 75% shares owned by their founders. Of these, 152
were private while the other 28 are government-owned.

It estimated that, if all the 180 companies were to bring their public
float ratio to 25%, more than 1.59 trillion rupees of shares would
then come to the market.

But analysts Friday said there isn't cause for concern.

"Investors shouldn't get worried regarding the larger float absorption
in public sector companies because, given the quality of these
companies, index weightages will readjust and increase the stock
weightages in the Sensex, Nifty and other indexes," said Religare
Mutual Fund Chief Executive Saurabh Nanavati.

The change will "improve liquidity and increase transparency," he
added.

Independent investment advisor S.P. Tulsian said: "Since companies are
only required to dilute 5% annually, there isn't likely to be a
deluge. Companies with inflated valuations will now correct to more
realistic levels," Tulsian said.

Some prominent names that have a public float lower than 25% are Wipro
Ltd. with 79.32%, Steel Authority of India Ltd. with 85.82%, Reliance
Power Ltd. with 84.78%, NMDC Ltd. with 98.38%, MMTC Ltd. with 99.33%,
Jet Airways (India) Ltd. with 80%, Essar Shipping, Ports & Logistics
Ltd. with 83.71% and DLF Ltd. with 88.55%, according to stock exchange
data.

Write to John Satish Kumar at ***@dowjones.com

Bloomberg

India May See $53 Billion Share Sales on Public Holding Rule
June 04, 2010, 6:11 PM EDT

By Rajhkumar K Shaaw and Manish Modi

June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and Reliance Power Ltd.
are among a sixth of the top 3,000 listed Indian companies that may
need to sell $53 billion of shares after a new government rule raised
the minimum public holding.

Companies must increase shares held by the public to a minimum 25
percent by selling at least 5 percent annually, according to an e-
mailed statement from the government’s Press Information Bureau
yesterday.

The rule may prompt equity sales of about 2.5 trillion rupees among
companies including state-owned ONGC, India’s biggest energy explorer,
and Reliance Power, owned by billionaire Anil Ambani, according to
data compiled by Bloomberg. The step will also boost government
efforts to reduce stakes in its companies and cut the budget deficit.

“The aim of the government is to have a market that is efficient and
liquid, and not susceptible to volatile movements due to thin
volumes,” said Jitendra Sriram, who helps manage $800 million as head
of equities at HSBC Asset Management (India) Pvt. in Mumbai. “A
limited float is susceptible to manipulation. The government wants to
encourage a wider minority participation to increase the depth of the
market.”

Budget Speech

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had proposed in his July 6, 2009,
budget speech that a rule requiring a public float of at least 25
percent for listed companies should be enforced uniformly, including
on state-run companies.

“The move is good for the markets as it will lead to better price
discovery and transparency,” said Tarun Bhatia, director of capital
markets at Crisil Research in Mumbai. “I think the government has
given companies a fair timeframe to increase public shareholding and
the market should be able to absorb it.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is seeking to complete
share sales in state companies such as Engineers India Ltd. and Steel
Authority of India Ltd. to raise a record 400 billion rupees this
year.

Mukherjee has pledged to shrink the deficit to 5.5 percent of gross
domestic product in the year that began April 1, from a 16-year high
of 6.9 percent in the previous 12 months.

Government Companies

The top ten among the 526 companies that will need to sell shares are
government owned. The shares, if sold at yesterday’s prices, will be
worth 1.7 trillion rupees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The government has put itself in a situation where follow-on public
offers become the rule and norm,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, chief
strategist at SMC Capitals Ltd. in New Delhi. “Until now,
disinvestment plans have remained a choice for the government.”

State-owned Coal India Ltd., the world’s biggest producer, plans to
raise as much as 130 billion rupees in a share sale in July, two
government officials said in April. The sale may now take place by
September when market conditions improve, Coal Minister Sriprakash
Jaiswal said June 2.

“All I can say right now is that the Coal India offer won’t be
affected,” Disinvestment Secretary Sumit Bose said yesterday after the
announcement.

For new share sales, if the post-issue capital calculated at offer
price is more than 40 billion rupees, the company may be allowed to
sell 10 percent of its equity and comply with the 25 percent public
shareholding requirement by increasing the float by at least 5 percent
a year, the government said in the statement.

Delayed Sales

At least 29 companies delayed or canceled equity sales worldwide in
May as Europe’s debt crisis triggered the biggest decline in emerging-
market stocks since October 2008.

“It may be difficult for all share sales to go through as there will
be tightening in liquidity,” said S. Thiagarajan, director finance at
NMDC Ltd., India’s largest iron-ore producer. “With so many offers
there may be erosion in share value.”

NMDC, in which the government sold an 8.38 percent stake in March, has
a 10 percent public holding.

India’s Sensitive Index declined 3.5 percent last month, the first
drop since January, as overseas investors sold a net 94.4 billion
rupees of equities, the most since October 2008, following the
collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

--With assistance from Pooja Thakur, Abhishek Shanker, Vipin V. Nair
and Hemal Savai in Mumbai. Editors: Abhay Singh, Sam Nagarajan

To contact the reporters on this story: Rajhkumar K Shaaw in Mumbai at
***@bloomberg.net; Manish Modi in New Delhi at ***@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Linus Chua at
***@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-04/india-may-see-53-billion-share-sales-on-public-holding-rule.html

Bloomberg

Ziff Davis Bought by Vivek Shah, Great Hill Partners (Update2)
June 04, 2010, 6:46 PM EDT

add to Business Exchange (Adds Shah’s experience at Time Inc. in
fourth paragraph.)

By Alex Sherman

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Ziff Davis said it has been acquired by ex-Time
Inc. executive Vivek Shah and Great Hill Partners in an acquisition
intended to build a digital media company geared toward helping
consumers decide what to buy.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Ziff Davis, based in New York,
owns nine media properties and produces consumer- electronics and
technology content for the Web and digital devices such as smartphones
and tablet computers, the company said today in a statement.

The Wall Street Journal reported the purchase price as less than $150
million, citing people familiar with the matter.

Shah, who spent 14 years at Time Inc., will be chief executive officer
of the company. Shah created CNNMoney.com while at Time and was
president of Fortune and Money magazines.

“Ziff Davis is an incredible foundation” for building a new digital
media enterprise, he said in the statement. More than 7 million people
a month view Ziff Davis content, the company said.

Great Hill Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, owns several
media companies including Spark Networks, which runs JDate.com and
AmericanSingles.com, and Evolve Media Corp., which represents
companies that sell ads online.

Ziff Davis properties include PCMag.com, GearLog, CrankyGeeks, Smart
Device Central and TechSaver.com. The company filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy in March 2008 as advertising revenue dwindled.

--Editors: Elizabeth Wollman, James Langford

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Sherman in New York at
***@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at
***@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-04/ziff-davis-bought-by-vivek-shah-great-hill-partners-update2-.html

Bloomberg

ArcelorMittal, Rivals Plan $30.4 Billion Mills in Indian State
June 03, 2010, 2:32 PM EDT

By Abhishek Shanker and Jay Shankar

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker,
Posco and five rivals may spend a combined 1.42 trillion rupees ($30.4
billion) to build plants in southern India, after investments were
stymied in other states.

ArcelorMittal plans to invest 300 billion rupees in the state of
Karnataka, Chairman Lakshmi Mittal said yesterday at a media
conference in Bangalore. Posco, Asia’s most profitable steelmaker,
plans to invest 320 billion rupees for a 6 million metric ton plant,
said V.P. Baligar, the state’s principal secretary. ArcelorMittal will
build a similar-sized mill, the state government said in a statement.

Karnataka, whose capital Bangalore is a hub for the global computer-
services industry, is seeking investments to exploit its iron-ore
resources. It’s competing with states including Orissa and Jharkhand,
where projects worth more than $80 billion have stalled because of
protests by villagers and approval delays.

“Karnataka may face fewer problems convincing its people to give up
land because of the high literacy level, but land valuation may be a
hurdle,” said Alex Mathews, head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas
Financial Services Ltd. in Kochi, southern India.

JSW Steel Ltd., India’s third-largest, may invest 151.3 billion rupees
and Bhushan Steel Ltd. 279 billion rupees, the local government said
in a statement yesterday. Essar Steel Ltd., India’s fourth-biggest
producer, plans to invest 220 billion rupees to build a 6 million
metric ton plant, Chairman Shashi Ruia said at a Karnataka investor
conference yesterday. The mill, to be located in Bagalkot, may start
in the year ending March 31, 2015, spokesman Manish Kedia said.

Raw Material Costs

ArcelorMittal shares fell 1.2 percent to 23.87 euros in Amsterdam
yesterday. Posco gained 3.4 percent to 475,500 won in Seoul.

JSW Steel climbed 1.5 percent to 1,070.15 rupees and Bhushan Steel
gained 2.2 percent to 1,327.90 rupees in Mumbai yesterday. The key
Sensitive Index rose 1.7 percent.

Steelmakers worldwide are seeking access to mines to build plants as
raw material costs soared with the economic recovery. Karnataka has
reserves of 11 percent of India’s hematite iron ore, used in
steelmaking, according to the mines ministry. The ore is mainly spread
across the districts of Bellary, where ArcelorMittal has planned its
unit, and Bagalkot.

India Demand

Demand for steel in India, the world’s second-fastest growing major
economy, last year rose 7.6 percent, helped by rising sales of cars
and spending on infrastructure such as roads and ports. Rising incomes
helped Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., the nation’s biggest carmaker, post
its highest monthly sales in May.

Steel consumption is likely to grow 9 percent this fiscal year, G.K.
Basak, executive secretary at the steel ministry’s Joint Plant
Committee, said in an interview in April.

NMDC Ltd., India’s largest iron-ore producer, aims to set up a 5
million ton plant at a cost of 92 billion rupees, Chairman Rana Som
said at the investor meet. Adhunik Metaliks Ltd. plans to invest 55.7
billion rupees on a 2.2 million ton mill in Karnataka, the Kolkata-
based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

Karnataka’s government may be in a better position to secure land
rights for the steelmakers as it doesn’t have to deal with the
presence of Maoist rebels, unlike other states, Geojit’s Mathews said.
The rebels operate in 11 of India’s 28 states and have killed more
than 7,500 people since 1998.

Stalled Projects

ArcelorMittal’s projects in the states of Orissa and Jharkhand have
been slowed by protests, Mittal said yesterday. The company had
initially planned to build two $10 billion factories in eastern India.
In October 2005, it said it plans to set up a factory with a final
capacity of 12 million metric tons in Jharkhand. The following year,
it announced another plant of the same size in neighboring Orissa
state.

“The progress of land acquisition is very slow in Orissa and Jharkhand
and lot of milestones have to be achieved in these two states,” Mittal
said yesterday. “Hopefully the project in Karnataka will go at a
faster speed.”

Posco has secured permission to acquire 88 percent of the land needed
for its $12 billion factory in Orissa, spokeswoman Choi Youn Joung
said on Jan. 4. Talks are on with residents for the remaining land,
she said.

Karnataka’s state government is in the process securing about 5,000
acres of land required for ArcelorMittal’s mill, township and
ancillary units, Baligar said on May 28. The government doesn’t expect
any opposition from the local population as it plans to acquire “dry
and waste land only” from farmers, he said.

Land acquisition has yet to start, Mittal said yesterday.

--Editors: Indranil Ghosh, Abhay Singh

To contact the reporters on this story: Abhishek Shanker in Mumbai at
***@bloomberg.net; Jay Shankar in Bangalore at
***@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Hobbs at
***@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-03/arcelormittal-rivals-plan-30-4-billion-mills-in-indian-state.html

Bloomberg

Essar Plans to Spend $4.7 Billion in India Steel Mill (Update1)
June 03, 2010, 4:27 AM EDT

(Adds location, time details in second paragraph.)

By Jay Shankar and Abhishek Shanker

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Essar Steel Ltd., India’s fourth- biggest
producer, plans to invest 220 billion rupees ($4.7 billion) to build a
steel plant in the southern state of Karnataka, Chairman Shashi Ruia
said.

The plant will have annual capacity of 6 million metric tons, Ruia
said today at a global investor conference in the state capital of
Bangalore. The mill, to be located in Bagalkot district, will be
commissioned in the year ending March 31, 2015, spokesman Manish Kedia
said today.

Essar plans to add steel capacity as India spends 1.74 trillion rupees
to set up road, port and power infrastructure by March. Steel demand
is expected to grow at 9 percent this fiscal year as higher income
pushes up demand for housing, cars and appliances, G. K. Basak,
executive secretary of the steel ministry’s joint plant committee,
said on April 6.

Essar aims to double production capacity to 14 million tons this
calendar year, Chief Executive Officer Malay Mukherjee said on Feb.
16.

--Editors: Indranil Ghosh, Andrew Hobbs

To contact the reporters on this story: Jay Shankar in Bangalore at
***@bloomberg.net; Abhishek Shanker in Mumbai at
***@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Hobbs at
***@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-03/essar-plans-to-spend-4-7-billion-in-india-steel-mill-update1-.html

Bloomberg

Sasol, Tata in $10 Billion Coal-to-Motor Fuel Venture (Update2)
June 02, 2010, 8:54 AM EDT

(Updates with Sasol shares in the sixth paragraph.)

By Anoop Agrawal and Rakteem Katakey

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Sasol Ltd., the largest producer of motor fuel
made from coal, plans to spend $10 billion in India in partnership
with the Tata Group on a block awarded last year, following similar
investments in Indonesia and China.

The South African company plans to produce 80,000 barrels a day of
motor fuel by 2018 from a coal block in the eastern state of Orissa,
Mark Schnell, president of the company’s Indian unit, said in an
interview in Mumbai today. Sasol and India’s Tata Group own equal
stakes in the venture, he said.

“It’s going to be a mega project of the magnitude of $10 billion by
the joint venture,” Schnell said. “At this stage, the focus is on
understanding the resource and making sure of the economics of
building a plant here.”

Rising incomes in India are driving vehicle sales, boosting fuel
demand in the world’s second fastest-growing major economy. The South
Asian nation’s energy use may more than double by 2030 to the
equivalent of 833 million metric tons of oil from 2007, according to
the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

“That is a tremendous amount of money and a project like that will
become viable at very high crude prices,” said Victor Shum, a
Singapore-based senior principal at U.S. energy consultants Purvin &
Gertz Inc. “If the alternative of producing fuels from crude oil is
cheaper, then a refinery would make more sense.”

Sasol gained 50 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 276.75 rand as of 2:36 p.m.
in Johannesburg, where the FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index fell 0.6
percent.

Energy Security

Sasol and the Tata Group were awarded the coal-to-liquids project in
Orissa, the Indian company said in March last year.

“We feel that this is a right step toward securing energy security for
the country,” the Tata Group said in a statement then.

India’s Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. said in March last year it was
allotted a coal-to-liquids block in Orissa. The project would produce
80,000 barrels of fuel a day from coal and is estimated to cost 420
billion rupees ($8.9 billion), including mining and a power plant.

India’s production of gasoline climbed 32 percent to the equivalent of
about 422,800 barrels a day and diesel output rose 12 percent to about
1.4 million barrels a day in the year ended March, according to
Bloomberg calculations from data on the Petroleum Planning and
Analysis website.

Sasol, based in Johannesburg, is considering increasing the capacity
of a similar plant in China with Shenhua Group Corp. by 13 percent to
90,000 barrels a day, Chief Executive Officer Pat Davies said March 8.
The cost of the plant with Shenhua is less than $10 billion, he said.

The South African company signed a memorandum of understanding with
Indonesia for the possible development of an 80,000 barrel-a-day coal-
to-fuel plant in the Asian country, Sasol said in December. In January
2009, Bukin Daulay, head of coal and mineral research at Indonesia’s
energy ministry, said Sasol could spend $10 billion on the plant.

Sasol, which produces more than 40 percent of South Africa’s motor
fuel, uses technology first employed by Nazi scientists and refined by
apartheid-era engineers. The company plans to build new coal-to-fuel
plants in the U.S., China and India.

--Editors: John Chacko, Alex Devine.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anoop Agrawal in Mumbai at
***@bloomberg.net; Rakteem Katakey in New Delhi at
***@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Amit Prakash at
***@bloomberg.net; Hari Govind at ***@bloomberg.net.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-02/sasol-tata-in-10-billion-coal-to-motor-fuel-venture-update2-.html

Bloomberg

Hinduja May Spend $12 Billion on India Power Plants (Update2)
June 02, 2010, 7:52 AM EDT

(Updates with comment from co-chairman in fifth paragraph.)

By Ruth David

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- India’s Hinduja Group, controlled by billionaire
brothers Gopichand and Srichand Hinduja, plans to invest as much as
$12 billion on power projects in the world’s second-fastest growing
economy.

The privately held group plans to develop 10,000 megawatts of power
projects in five years, Co-Chairman Gopichand Hinduja said at a press
conference in Mumbai today. The estimate includes a 1,040 megawatt
power plant already built in the state of Andhra Pradesh, he said.

India produces about 10 percent less electricity than it needs. The
country must spend $1 trillion on infrastructure such as roads, ports
and power plants in the five years to 2017 to help accelerate economic
growth to 10 percent and cut poverty, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
said in March.

The Andhra Pradesh power plant took the group 13 years to complete,
Hinduja said. India needs to streamline approvals to attract
investors, Hinduja said.

“To make infrastructure more appealing to foreign and domestic
investors, there should be accountability at every level of the
project, and a responsibility to stick to timelines,” he said.

The group is studying power plant locations in the states of Uttar
Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, he said. It will announce two power
plants “very soon,” Hinduja said without elaborating.

--With assistance from Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai. Editors: Abhay
Singh, Sam Nagarajan

To contact the reporter on this story: Ruth David in Mumbai at
***@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Philip Lagerkranser
at ***@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-02/hinduja-may-spend-12-billion-on-india-power-plants-update2-.html

Bloomberg

Reliance Power Examines Setting Up Plants in Four Indian States
June 01, 2010, 8:22 AM EDT

By Natalie Obiko Pearson

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Reliance Power Ltd., owned by billionaire Anil
Ambani, is considering setting up natural gas- based plants in four
states in India after the country’s Supreme Court backed brother
Mukesh Ambani in a row over fuel supplies.

Various state governments have shown interest in Reliance Power
locating large, gas-fired power projects after the Supreme Court’s
judgment, the company said in an e-mailed statement today.

“We are examining all options, including Uttar Pradesh, Andhra
Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat,” according to the statement, which
didn’t give more details.

India’s top court said May 7 Reliance Industries Ltd., controlled by
Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, should negotiate gas sales afresh
with Anil’s Reliance Natural Resources Ltd., which sought to buy the
fuel at a discount to a state-set price in accordance with a family
agreement. Reliance Industries, the operator of India’s biggest gas
field, said the fuel couldn’t be sold at less than the government-set
rate.

Reliance Power currently plans to develop two gas-based projects for a
combined capacity of 10,280 megawatts, according to its website. The
project includes a 7,480-megawatt plant planned at Dadri in northern
Uttar Pradesh state.

The company may scale down the Dadri plant due to disputes over
acquiring land and set up units with a combined capacity of 8,000
megawatts at different locations, the Economic Times reported today,
citing an unidentified person.

Reliance Power currently plans to build 16 power plants with a total
capacity of 33,780 megawatts, including seven coal- fired plants and
seven hydroelectric plants, according to the website.

--Editors: John Chacko, Jane Lee.

To contact the reporter on this story: Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai
at ***@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Clyde Russell at
***@bloomberg.net.

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