Brushing aside Raj Bhavan code of conduct, Haryana Governor says: back PM

Without mentioning any party by name but clearly referring to the BJP’s ‘‘aman aur vikaas’’ ‘‘Aman se hi vikas hota hai. Vajpayee ne aman par pahal ki hai. Aap unke saath sahyog karein’’ he said.

The Indian Express is in possession of a recording of the speech.

The 72-year-old Babuji, as the Governor is known, was sent to Raj Bhawan immediately after he had joined the BJP after a five-decade-old career with the National Conference on the eve of last elections.

INLD leader and Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala is believed to have taken strong exception to the speech, particularly where the Governor quoted Persian poet Sheikh Saadi’s famous, ‘‘Aazmooda ra aazmoodan Himakat ast’’ and translated it from Persian for the benefit of the audience. ‘‘Testing those tested once is foohardy.’’ When asked about the propriety of this speech, the press secretary to the Governor told The Indian Express: ‘‘The Governor had not sought support for Vajpayee in electoral terms but in his efforts to persue peace—rest is all matter of interpretation.’’

The Governor’s pinpricks were darted towards other parties, too. For example, as Babuji suggested that the ‘‘rich, royals and zamindars (landlords) should be barred from contesting elections,’’ it was an apparent attack on Rao Randeep Singh, the blue-blooded Congress candidate from Mahindergarh (in which Rewari falls).

‘‘The contestant should be a commoner like the voters,’’ he said. Further advising Dalits to ‘‘ponder before you vote,’’ the Governor said: ‘‘You should forget and forgive smaller issues and keep in mind major issues (read peace and progress).’’

The Governor, in his 30-minute speech, however, did not name any party.

Another one-liner from Governor’s speech, ‘‘Let’s not at the end have ten claimants standing for one post of India’s Prime Minister.’’ Referring to the lack of unity among Dalits, Governor used a rather ‘‘borrowed’’ expression from the BJP and Sangh Parivar. ‘‘In the past the invaders have taken advantage of our disunity and looted Somnath temple.’’

NDA slipping, 272 doesn’t seem to be a cakewalk agency, to conduct fieldwork for aseries of opinion and exit polls to gauge the voting intentions of the electorate as well to seek their views on a range of subjects and personalities.

Nine large states went to the polls in Phase I on April 20. Of those, nine, polling covered all the seats in two states, namely Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. In the other seven, voting is being conducted in two phases, with the Phase II voting to be held on next Monday, April 26.

The national projection in this report is based on a three-fold aggregation. The projections for Phase 1 are based on exit polls, while those for Phase 2 are computed from the results of opinion polls.

The first 32 out of 80 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in the union, vote on April 24. Thus, there is no exit poll in Uttar Pradesh and the findings are based entirely on opinion polls.

But some words of caution. All polls are subject to margins of error. The sampling error in this poll differs across the different states, with the highest range of error not exceeding 3 per cent.

In the opinion poll, a total of 55 Lok Sabha constituencies were covered, while in the exit poll, 60 Lok Sabha constituencies were polled. In the first phase of elections, 142 seats went to the polls, while in the second phase on Monday, April 26, another 137 seats will be going to the polls.