The inevitable

A victory with a record majority that won Sonia Gandhi her seat back owed its genesis to a new campaign manager...

A victory with a record majority that won Sonia Gandhi her seat back owed its genesis to a new campaign manager; one who has now emerged as a national leader with indisputable ability to win over people. In launching a full-scale campaign despite the certainty of victory, Rahul Gandhi demonstrated that reward is much sweeter when the effort is intense. After all, few leaders could muster the courage to campaign door to door and hold public meetings in 45-degree heat.

As it turned out, the weather was the smallest deterrent in an atmosphere charged with political buoyancy and infectious enthusiasm, a generations-old family trait Rahul clearly seems to have inherited. One such parallel I vividly remember comes from my accompanying Rajiv Gandhi on election campaigns; he would campaign hard till 4 in the morning, rest for about two hours and get ready to hit the road again at 6 a.m. Day after day.

While Rahul literally left no stone untouched as he walked down to the last village in Rae Bareli, the opponents barely moved their limbs. The BJP’s high profile candidate Vinay Katiyar ran his campaign entirely from Lucknow, using Pramod Mahajan’s delicate condition as an excuse. It is another matter that he never visited Mumbai once while Mahajan was alive. What matters is that he lost his security deposit. The Samajwadi Party had its own sources of motivation that forced 40 of its cabinet ministers to camp in the city and try everything they could to disrupt the inevitability. However, even an outrageous offer of money for votes from the Chief Minister’s brother was no good.

A victory margin of 4 lakh plus is remarkable in the face of a mere 43 per cent of votes polled as the unbearable heat was a major influence. Had the polling been the usual 55-57 per cent, the margin would have crossed six lakh. Priyanka Vadra has given her brother 11 out of 10; even the opposition would find it difficult to disagree with her.

The victory also has a lesson for the Congressmen in Uttar Pradesh. If their leader has demonstrated hard work as the route to success, it is high time they woke up from their slumber.

Minority Report

Of all the religious minorities in India, the two-million strong Bahais are perhaps the most inconspicuous. The beautiful Lotus Temple in Delhi is one of the rare symbols of this progressive religion, whose fundamental aim is to promote concord and harmony. A cruel irony is in play for the more than three lakh Bahais in Iran, as a recent report by a United Nations official severely indicts that country’s regime for singling out and persecuting Bahais. A secret note by Ayatollah Khamenei details his order to identify all followers of Bahais and monitor their activities. Iran’s television and newspapers have already earned notoriety for mounting huge propaganda, incriminating the Bahai practices and principles. The followers are feeling increasingly vulnerable and the situation is perceived as critical even by the UN.

The Bahai followers worldwide have urged their respective governments to take up the matter with Iran. Prominent Bahai followers in India, led by former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee’s wife Zena Sorabjee, have contributed to the campaign and written letters to several MPs, including me, to garner support. I hope that the Indian government grows sympathetic of their concern and approaches the matter with Iran in a suitable way.

Faulty line

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Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav blames the Centre’s holding up of supply for the beleaguered state of electricity in UP. Either he does not know the truth or he is deliberately misleading his own people. UP today has an allocated share of 3140 MW from the central-owned power units in the Northern region, which is the most any state gets from the Centre. The state has also routinely pocketed the highest share of the unallocated quota from central power units, which means the state gets a whopping 4014 MW from the central units, again the highest for any state in India.

In blaming the Centre for all its troubles, the state government is desperate to hide its inability to add fresh generating capacity in the state. Uttar Pradesh added only 116 MW of new capacity during the Ninth Plan, and the first four years of the Tenth Plan have seen a mere 210 MW capacity added. As if mere inefficiency was not enough, the government committed the huge felony of actually withdrawing at the last stage a fresh proposal to add 1000 MW capacity in Anpara. The project required Japanese funding and the centre had given its go ahead. No reasonable explanation was given by the state for the sudden volte face.

The thermal power stations in Uttar Pradesh have seen a yearly decline in their performance, where their average plant load factor today is a mere 55.7 per cent, compared to the national average of 73.6 per cent. A mere matching of the national average could easily provide another 1000 MW to the state.

(The writer is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha)