Left withdraws support to UPA

From Kalyan Barooah NEW DELHI, July 8 – The UPA Government at the Centre plunged into its worst crisis till date, with the Left Parties withdrawing support over the nuclear deal, leaving the Dr Manmohan Singh Government high and dry. However, the Congress Party put up a brave front and declared that there was no threat to the Government. The Congress Party’s confidence followed Samajvadi Party’s unanimous support to the UPA Government.An upset Left said the time has come to pull the rug. Not content, the Left is also planning to request President, Pratibha Devisingh Patil to ask the Prime Minister to seek a vote of trust in the Lok Sabha to prove his government majority, when they call on her here tomorrow to submit the letter of withdrawal of support.In a day fast paced with political developments that saw almost all big and small players confabulating on the fate of Dr Manmohan Singh Government, leaders quickly picked up their calculators, to see if the UPA combine had the numbers to survive.The Left parties were first to set the ball rolling when it met in the morning at its headquarters to draft the letter to External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee. They accused the ruling Congress-led coalition of refusing to provide the text to the members of the Committee on Indo-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation and said the proposed meeting on July 10 would not serve any purpose in this context.It is critical for the country that the safeguards agreement was discussed with full transparency and not kept secret, said CPM general secretary, Prakash Karat.“Why is the Manmohan Singh Government keeping the draft of the IAEA agreement secret from the people,” the Left leader asked.The brief announcement by Karat-led the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi convene an emergency meeting of its senior leaders. In the evening, the all-powerful Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA) was held, which was presided over by Mukherjee, in absence of the Prime Minister, who is away in Japan. The meeting was convened to fix a date for the special session of Parliament. Indication was that the government could go in for a trust vote on July 28.The Congress Party later described the Left action as most unfortunate. “When the entire nation is mourning those killed in the Kabul blast, the Left has chosen to make the announcement. It is most unfortunate. They think their prestige is more important than the nation’s prestige,” chairman of the AICC media department, Veerappa Moily said, reacting to the Left’s announcement.Yet, perhaps the biggest set back was suffered by SP, when at least six of its MPs gave broad hints they might oppose the opportunistic alliance with the Congress. Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav announced in the morning that all was well in the party after a meeting of the party Parliamentary Board, only to be contradicted by his colleague, Jai Prakash in Lucknow that a section of them opposed the move.He said each of its 39 MPs is solidly behind the Indo-US Nuclear deal. He requested the Left parties not to join the communal forces.Fishing in troubled waters, BJP president, Rajnath Singh attacked both the Left Parties and the UPA and demanded that a special session of Parliament should be convened immediately and the Prime Minister should seek a vote of confidence. He said the BJP leaders would approach the President of India to direct the present government to seek the trust vote. His statement came after an emergency meeting of the party’s office bearers, here this evening, to discuss the current political scenario and draft its future strategy. The day also saw a war of words between the Congress, Left and opposition parties. The Left held the Prime Minister responsible for precipitating the crisis, when he declared that Government would very soon approach the IAEA to move forward on the deal. The four parties- CPI (M), CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP lost no time in firming up plans to pull out of the coalition government, which it was supporting from outside.Karat also released the draft of the letter to Mukherjee. Since the UPA has refused to provide the text of the Safeguards Agreements to the members of the UPA-Left Committee, no purpose will be served by having a meeting.Further, the proposal for a meeting on the 10th is rendered meaningless since the Prime Minister, while travelling abroad, has chosen to announce that the government will be going to Board of Governors of the IAEA “very soon”.Previously, the Left parties had decided that if the government goes to the IAEA Board of Governors, they will withdraw support, the letter said.Meanwhile, allies rushed to extend support, ruling out any threat to the survival of the UPA government. RJD president Lalu Prasad said the alliance has majority support and it will be proved in Parliament. Later, Union Agriculture Minister and NCP president Sharad Pawar also said that the government is stable. source: assam tribune

PM to release Vision 2020 on July 2

PM to release Vision 2020 on July 2

KOLKATA, June 19 – Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will unveil ‘Vision 2020’, a document aimed at the socio-economic development of the North-Eastern region, in New Delhi on July 2, Union Minister for Development of North-Eastern region Mani Shankar Aiyar has said. The ‘Vision 2020’ was prepared after three years of uninterrupted consultations with 50,000 common people of the North East and a host experts and institutions to take care of the shortcomings in the region Terming the vision document as an ‘Aam Aadmi (common man) document’, DoNER Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said it would require Rs 13 trillion for the implementation of Vision 2020 in the region. The document had been endorsed by the North Eastern Council and Chief Ministers of the region, he told members of the four industry chambers at an interactive session on N-E development, last evening. Aiyar said if India wanted to match the GDP growth of China, then it will have to consider the contribution of the North-East where growth potential was immense. –PTI

Showcase for Sonia

Showcase for Sonia

It was not the Prime Minister who was going to be in town for the day. It was Sonia Gandhi, Congress president and the appointer of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As an elected Congress MP of the Lok Sabha, Congress president and member of the dynasty, it is she who commands the allegiance of all Congressmen — not the Prime Minister of the country. It is to her that all chief ministers run to have their problems solved and to make exaggerated claims of their achievements. And it is she who tells them when to drop which minister for crimes small and big — not the Prime Minister. Had Manmohan Singh got elected to the Lok Sabha, things may have been somewhat different. But his having to rely solely on our State to remain a member of the Rajya Sabha without really belonging to this State has not exactly endeared him to the people. Be that as it may, Sonia Gandhi had to begin her election tours a trifle early for the Lok Sabha elections next year, and there was every reason to begin with Asom not merely because she was going in alphabetical order, but also because there are so few Congress-run States left in the country. It made sense to begin with a Congress-run State rather than with a State where the Congress was in the opposition. Besides, had the Congress in Asom not hit the headlines recently with Ripun Bora trying to bribe a CBI investigator? And had not Sonia Gandhi advised Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to drop all ministers in his cabinet against whom there are criminal charges? The fact that the Prime Minister rarely sends instructions on disciplinary measures to Congress chief ministers could not have escaped anyone's notice. Be that as it may, Sonia Gandhi's presence was badly needed in Asom now because the Ripun Bora affair has come as a huge black mark for the Congress. This is not to suggest that the Congress has great respect for the eternal values that our ancestors swore by. The truth is that the Congress has created a new value system for itself. Put in a single sentence it is: Whatever you do, for God's sake do not get caught. There are so many others in the Congress who have committed crimes and bribed investigating officers. But they have been careful not to get caught red-handed. Ripun Bora's crime (as far as his party is concerned) is that he got caught while paying a hefty bribe and thereby shamed his party. He has set the alarm bells ringing for some other ministers of Mr Gogoi's cabinet who also have charges of serious crimes against them. He has made matters extremely difficult for a chief minister who promised a transparent government and lost no time in introducing the Right to Information Act. It must be very hard on him that his ministers have let him down. As such Sonia Gandhi's arrival at this juncture was a windfall of sorts, considering that she is thought to be such a vote-reaper in Congress circles. It did not matter one bit to the Congress that hundreds of buses had to be requisitioned to get enough people for the farmers' rally causing great inconvenience to commuters, or that the failure to get enough farmers for the rally resulted in the farmers' rally being converted to a women's rally. Nor did it seem to matter that people were stopped for about an hour by policemen along the route that her convoy was supposed to take. But what took one's breath away was the half-page advertisement in some newspapers about Asom being on the ‘‘fast track of progress and development’’. As an attempt to showcase the Tarun Gogoi government, it was a record of all the inconsequential things that the State government had done but there was no mention of the total collapse of law and order in North Cachar Hills district where the Black Widow left a gory tally of soft targets, or of the huge chunks of Asom's territory ceded to Nagaland, or the rapid increase of flesh trade in the State, or government-induced alcoholism among the youth or of the deplorable state of education and health care in the rural areas. Obviously, no one expected this government to talk about the large-scale illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis into Asom, and it did not. How thoughtful of a transparent government! Source: sentinel assam editorial 15.06.08