BJP dumps Hindutva Taliban Pub attacker

It is election time in India and with parliamentary polls only days away, parties and groups are clutching at all straws. Whoever can bring in a seat or even a few votes is welcome. The BJP’s Hubli unit in north Karnataka was so desperate that it welcomed Pramod Muttalik of the 2009 Mangalore pub attack ‘fame’ to boost its Hindutva vote. State party chief Pralhad Joshi and former chief minister Jagdish Shettar ceremoniously inducted him into the party. They thought that Muttalik, the self-styled Ram Sene leader, ex-Bajrang Dal firebrand and protector of Hindu culture, would be good a catch. But the party’s central leadership, which wants to improve its image among Christians and other minorities besides general public, was quick to control the damage he could do to the party’s image. Manohar Parrikar, chief minister of Goa where the party is wooing lot of Christian voters was one of the first to ask the central leadership to throw out Muttalik clearly seen as a negative asset. Parrikar’s advice , tendered at Nagpur the party’s nerve centre, was immediately accepted by the central leadership. Muttalik was ejected from the party within five hours of his induction. Muttalik and his gang of molesters, who roamed the streets of Mangalore in the 2009 incident and beat up girls having a drink in a local pub on a Saturday evening, have the gumption to call themselves Sri Ram Sene , all in the name of Ram! Far from Ram’s sena they belong to Ravana’s sena for attacking defenceless girls. Far from being protectors of Indian culture, they are the enemies of Indian culture or any culture. They are the ‘Hindutva’ Taliban , disgracing the name of Hindu or any other culture or religion. Muttalik and his band, who hate pubs and Valentine Day celebrations in the name of their culture , belong not just to a single community. There are Muttaliks in other communities too. Shutting their eyes to things, places or traditions outside their own narrow vision, they refuse to understand what a place like pub means. It is a public house, as its name implies, where locals -- young and old, men and women -- get together for a chat or a laugh after a day’s work or during lunch break. It’s not a sin bin or a whore house as some of the mullahs, prohits, pandits and holier-than-thou politicians of the Taliban variety often shout from the top of their topis (hats). The nexus between the politicians and their ground forces under the banner of religious senas or jamats is all too naked, however much they might try to hide under their holy garbs. The BJP has done itself a piece of good service by ejecting Muttalik; other communities and political cliques who have their own Muttaliks, should also clean up their act and save themselves from such mindless extremists. ...........................................................................................................

Shifting loyalties colour India poll picture

India’s electoral politics never fails to surprise. The current bout ahead of the parliamentary elections is no exception. In fact it is already throwing up a bumper crop of surprises. Stalwarts of old parties when denied election tickets are jumping the ship for new boats and hopefuls of new outfits like Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are no less quick to shift loyalties if denied party ticket. The final results are as clear as mud while the ruling UPA combine led by the Congress party remains the target of attacks by all and sundry. Who will be the next prime minister or which group will lead the next ruling coalition is a wide open question. Veteran Scheduled Castes leader Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (L J P), who once quit as a minister in the BJP-led NDA coalition government over the role of Gujrat chief minister Narendra Modi in the 2001 pogrom against the Muslim minority in the state, has joined the current BJP-led alliance which is projecting the same Mr Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. He has bid good bye to his secular soulmate fomer Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. Yoga guru Ramdev has done a double shift in less than a week by expressing anger over BJP’s failure to allot party tickets to some of his nominees across the country, especially in Gujrat where Mr Modi is the sole arbiter. He has quickly seen the light and denied any rift with Mr Modi, blaming, as usual, the press for misrepresenting his words. Old war horse and anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare, guru of Yoga guru Ramdev, Kejriwal, ex-police officer Kiran Bedi and others, has fallen out with all of his protégés and they with him. Hazare has also fallen out with one of his new admirers, West Bengal’s mercurial chief minister Mamta Banerjee and she with him over lack of supporters and empty chairs at a rally in New Delhi. The BJP, which till a few days ago seemed to be the hot favourite of pollsters and private TV channels, has had its image tarnished by wide open internal splits, though not by many total walkouts. Party president Rajnath Singh who took over Lucknow parliamentary ticket annoyed local veteran leader Lalji Tandon so much that Tandon has refused to contest from any other seat offered by the party. So has cricketer turned politician and sitting MP Navjot Singh Siddhu whose ticket has been taken over by federal leader and outsider Arun Jaitley. But the arc light which overshadowed mere spotlights has been on Mr Modi’s grab of Varanasi (Benares) seat from the party stalwart and sitting MP Murli Manohar Joshi who has been summarily shunted to fight from Kanpur. More splits can be safely expected between the time of writing and the days ahead in the run-up to the grand 2014 general election festival from April 7 to May 16 to be conducted on nine days while the election machinery moves its forces to different parts of the country during the gaps. Notwithstanding all the confusion, the federal election commission conducted a marathon one-day voter registration drive on March 7 which took its officials and public by surprise—with an overwhelming response. It was a last-ditch exercise to include those left out because of various glitches, especially of internet form filling and non-working telephones. Nearly one million counters across the country operated by men and women worked the miracle. Over 74.5 lakh (7.4 m) potential voters turned out countrywide, including 1.7 lakh in national capital Delhi, more than five times the commission’s expectation of just 30,000 in the national capital. I was one of the lucky ones to file my papers (Form 6), having failed over the net and phones several times earlier. Why did I fail in my previous half dozen attempts to get my voting right restored after a mere change of address? I had only shifted from one flat to another in the same apartment block in the same old locality of New Delhi. Was it just an occasional glitch hitting the net and the telephone services? No. Going by the experience at offices like that of the Delhi Development Authority and others, one may not be far wrong in saying that our brand of e-governance is suffering from an epidemic of glitches. And it is not the fault of technology, nor is it the fault of our stars. The fault , dear Brutus, lies in our selves. Nor is it particular to India alone. Other countries too have faced similar glitches at the start of their experiments with net technology and over-dependence on answer-phone machines. I am reminded of the British experiment which I happened to share not too long ago. They have overcome the problem by putting a human face or voice at the end of the line, in case the customer fails after three or four dialling or clicking options. We can do it too and make a success of our e-governance. Congratulations to the Election Commission for putting men and women on duty instead of solely depending on internet and telephone networks in the run-up to the world’s largest election exercise covering nearly 820 million voters, more than the combined population of European Union and the USA. ................................................................................................................................................................

Net lesson ahead of India’s 2014 poll

By Subhash Chopra....... Last Sunday’s ( 7 March) voter registration drive by the Election Commission took officials and public by surprise—with an overwhelming response. It was a last-ditch exercise on both sides. Over 74.5 lakh (7.4 m) potential voters turned out countrywide, including 1.7 lakh in Delhi, more than five times more than the commission’s expectation of just 30,000 in the national capital. I was one of the lucky ones to file his papers (Form 6), having failed several times earlier. Why did I fail in my previous half dozen attempts to get my voting right restored after a mere change of address? I had only shifted from one flat to another in the same apartment block in the same old locality of New Delhi. Was it just an occasional glitch hitting the net and the telephone services? No. Going by the experience at offices like that of the Delhi Development Authority and others, one may not be far wrong to say that our brand of e-governance is suffering from an epidemic of glitches. And it is not the fault of technology, nor is it the fault of our stars. The fault , dear Brutus, lies in our selves. Nor is it particular to India alone. Other countries too have faced similar glitches at the start of their experiments with net technology and over-dependence on answer-phone machines. I am reminded of the British experiment which I happened to share not too long ago. They have overcome the problem by putting a human face or voice at the end of the line, in case the customer fails after three or four dialling or clicking options. We can do it too and make a success of over e-governance. Back to my own encounter with our net-phone services. On clicking the Election Commission’s site I was advised to fill 8A form which I did as per the instructions. After correctly providing my constituency and locality, I was stumped when asked to provide the Constituency Part Number. Those not able to do so were asked to ring 4848, the number which mostly sounded either engaged or too busy or dead. Then I thought of actually going to the nearest local Election Commission office whose address I found on the internet. On reaching the address (c22/23, Qutab Instititutional Area, Udyog Sadan ) I was stumped again to find that no such office existed there. The commission, like so many other public authorities, had not updated its computerised information. Since advice is free in India, somebody who claimed to know asked me to go to Pushp Vihar area office. Instead I took another auto to the Mehrauli area office which did not cover my particular area, but an officer there gave me the telephone number (1950) of Delhi’s chief electoral officer for pucca/ correct information. For two consecutive days I rang that number only to be met with a recorded message or a ringing tone but without anybody ever picking up the phone to answer with a human voice. Lo and behold, the next day’s newspapers contained Election Commission’s announcement to open 11,700 centres in Delhi (9.3 lakh centres across the nation) on Sunday with actual men and women block officers on duty to help applicants get on the voting rolls. I finally made it and am hoping to receive my polling card, thanks to actual human beings answering the queries instead of the ever ringing but seldom answering gadgets in our internet and phones services. I congratulate the Election Commission for putting men and women on duty instead of solely depending on internet and telephone networks, in the run-up to the world’s largest election covering 814 million voters, more than the combined population of European Union and the USA. But God help thousands of offices across the country – internet, telephone, municipal, hospital and other government offices supposed to be serving millions of hapless citizens , the real end-users! Let all public offices take a leaf out of the Election Commission’s book and put men and women behind the machines and not give the modern internet and telephone technology a bad name. .............................................................................................................................................................. Subhash Chopra is a freelance journalist and author of ‘India and Britannia-- An Abiding Affair’ and other writings.