Man's world in BJP When Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced that the BJP would give half its tickets to women candidates in the assembly polls later this year,all eyes fell on the party unit in Chhattisgarh,part of MP until 2000. Nothing of that kind has,however,happened in Chhattisgarh; male dominance has prevailed again. State BJP president Ramsevak Painkra declared that women members are given adequate importance and there is no proposal yet to give them 50 per cent of the tickets. This raised expectations that women members would raise the demand,but BJP Mahila Morcha national president Saroj Pandey,the Durg MP,steered clear of controversy. Women should be given as many tickets as possible,but the right to give the tickets rests with the chief minister, she has been quoted as saying. Peace in Congress The usually divided state Congress received a much-needed shot in the arm before the elections when AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh recently joined the partys Parivartan Yatra whose objective is to oust the BJP government. For Singh,a former chief minister of MP,it was a homecoming and an occasion to meet many former colleagues. Chhattisgarh Congressmen,often seen plotting against each other,buried the hatchet as he became the nucleus around which they moved for two days. We have realised that internal feuds weakened us. We are now more united and will easily overcome the tiny edge BJP had in polls, said Shailesh Nitin Trivedi,the partys media convener. Ban extension The Chhattisgarh government has extended the ban on the CPI(Maoist) and six associated outfits by another year. The CPI(Maoist) was formed in 2004 after the merger of the PWG and the MCC and the state government banned it the following year under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act,2005. Under the Act,a ban or its extension on any organisation is effective for not more than one year at a time. The maximum punishment for being a member of an organisation so banned is life imprisonment. Other than the CPI(Maoist),the outfits baned in Chhattisgarh are the Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangh,the Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangh,the Krantikari Adivasi Balak Sangh,the Krantikari Kisan Committee and the Mahila Mukti Manch.
