Election News

The NCP despite having limited presence in Bihar, plans to contest as many assembly seats as practically possible. To widen its support base NCP chief and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is expected to make a whirlwind tour of the state prior to the assembly election scheduled in October-November.

"The party seriously wants to expand its base in Hindi heartland and this process will begin with the Bihar assembly polls," NCP general secretary Tariq Anwar told TOI on Tuesday.

He said the NCP is sharing power with the Congress in Mahrashtra and Goa and has considerable presence in Gujarat, north-east and Orissa. "We want to have an alliance with the Congress in Bihar also, but if the party will show no interest we will contest on our own strength," Anwar said.

Source: Times Of India By Faizan Ahmad NCP wants to tie up with Cong

She had then shared the dais with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) boss Lalu Prasad and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar as part of the Secular Democratic Front of which the CPM was also a member.

Gandhi's rally would be show of strength for the Congress that has been out of power in the state for the past two decades, and currently having only 10 members in the 234-member Bihar assembly.

"There are certainly winds of change in Bihar. And the rally will determine whether those winds are in favour of Congress," a senior party leader said.

The Bihar unit is leaving no stone unturned to make the public meeting a grand success.

Source: Hindustan Times By Aurangzeb Naqshbandi, Cong all set for Bihar blitz

It would enable the candidates to understand the problems of their constituents and connect with them. The move would also give them sufficient time for poll preparations.

The polls are  considered crucial for the Congress to re-emerge as the single dominant force at the Centre.

Congress managers believe that there is a strong existence of a Congress undercurrent in several parts of Uttar Pradesh where the party held sway for the first four decades after independence and was voted out of power in 1989. At present,

the party has 22 legislators in the 403-member state assembly.

Congress general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh said the poll preparations have already begun with the party appointing 10 observers who would be given charge of at least 40 assembly constituencies.

Source: Hindustan Times By Aurangzeb Naqshbandi Cong to name candidates one year before polls

Senior party leaders and Union ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, C P Joshi, Anand Sharma, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Krishna Tirath and Bharatsinh Solanki are being sent to the state to hold meetings organized by the party's state unit to boost the morale of the Congress workers.

Union minister and AICC general secretary, in-charge Bihar, Mukul Wasnik will visit Gaya and Jehanabad on July 3 and address district-level convention of party workers. Wasnik would also visit Ara and Buxar on July 4 and Bhabhua and Sasaram on July 5 to attend the workers' conven-tion there.

Scindia will visit Vaishali and Patna on July 7 while Jaiswal would visit Siwan, Gopalganj and Bettiah on July 13 and 14. Union minister Sachin Pilot would visit Arwal, Jehanabad, Nalanda and Bakhtiyarpur on July 16 and 17 while Union minister Krishna Tirath would visit Khagaria, Saharsa and Madhepura on July 14 and 15 where she would address party workers.

Source: Times Of India By Alok Mishra Congress gears up for polls

AICC members S. Ahmed and Jagdish Thakral, who represented the three-member state election authority at the meeting, announced the schedule before the District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents at Rajiv Bhawan here. State election authority chairman S. Chopra, could not make it to the meeting.

Accordingly, booth committee elections will be held on July 5, block committee elections on July 10 while DCC polls on July 21.

Though the date for the election of the PCC president has not yet been fixed, the process is likely to be completed within July 31, Thakral said, an observation shared by incumbent PCC president Bhubaneswar Kalita.

Kalita is currently heading the "ad hoc" body though his three-year term ended in 2008.

Source: The Telegraph July date for Assam PCC elections

In her "Letter to Congresspersons" in the latest issue of party mouthpiece Congress Sandesh, Sonia said, "The Congress has launched mass contact programme in the country with special attention on Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Our workers must concentrate on reaching out to the people especially in rural and remote parts of the country so that the party's focus on the common man genuinely addresses their needs."

Sonia said the party workers should take the social welfare schemes to the grassroots. "It is the duty of our party workers to ensure that all schemes promulgated by the UPA Government at the Centre are fully implemented at the grassroots. Our workers can become the vehicles for the success of all our social development programmes. They must create awareness on the rights, such as Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, Right to Information and the Right to Education, which have become law. They should also monitor the implementation of these programmes at the village and grassroots level and take the lead in exposing any loopholes or corruption that can mar the impact of these programmes," Sonia has written.

Source: The Pioneer Sonia asks party to regain ground in UP, Bihar

Referring to the recent developments, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said, "It is not as if Bihar Chief Minister has recused himself from the circle of questions. After all he ran the Government for four years eight months with the help of the BJP."

Asked whether the Congress is open to an alliance with the JD(U) if it splits with the BJP, Tewari said that a senior party leader has already replied on it. AICC general secretary incharge of Bihar Mukul Wasnik had said that the party will go solo in Bihar Assembly election. "(Nitish) Kumar's real communal face has been exposed during the national executive meeting of the BJP," Wasnik said on Monday addressing party workers in Kishanganj, Bihar.

The Congress said that with the BJP's alliance partners in NDA deserting it before State Assembly election, the NDA had ceased to exist. "In 2004, people of India rejected NDA. In 2009, the rejection was decisively reiterated. In Orissa, the Biju Janata Dal decided to part ways with the NDA. In Jharkhand we saw the BJP making a spectacle of itself in the scramble for power. One thing has become absolutely clear, the NDA as an alliance has ceased to exist. It may exist on paper but in reality, it is almost finished.

The rap that Nitish Kumar had given to the BJP clearly shows the alliance is over," Tewari said. Since people have rejected communalism, NDA's allies are now "scurrying for cover", the Congress spokesperson said.

TRS president K Chandrasekhara Rao told a party meeting in Hyderabad on Wednesday that his request to the Congress and TDP -- to ensure unanimous election of the 12 MLAs who had resigned for the sake of Telangana -- had been misconstrued as a weakness.

"However, now that the Congress and TDP have decided to contest, I will not make any more requests to them. Their decision has exposed their real anti-Telangana faces and the people were also waiting to teach them an unforgettable lesson," he said.

Rao exuded confidence on the TRS sweeping all seats as its MLAs had made a sacrifice by resigning for the sake of Telangana State. "People have made up their minds to re-elect them," he said.

His reaction came a day after State Congress president D Srinivas met AICC president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and told the media that the party leadership had given him the go-ahead to start preparations for the poll. Srinivas, who was personally in favour of contesting the elections, also met AICC general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh.

Source: The Pioneer By Omer Farooq Congress, TDP set to contest

The Congress on Monday announced the names of 39 central observers for the state.

The observers include over 10 MPs and about a dozen legislators, who would stay in districts they are allotted and work as the ears and eyes of the high command. Significantly, not a single woman leader figured in the list of observers.

According to insiders, the elections are going to be tricky mainly because the JD(U)-BJP combine is not cohesive while RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has not been able to expand his party's constituency outside Yadavs. On the other hand, the votes of minorities and upper castes would split into two to three parties, they feared.

If the BJP's Hindutva line and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's attempts to become a main campaigner would weaken Mr Kumar and his JD(U), Mr Lalu Yadav continues to be the main target of the ruling combine. Even the Congress does not want to ally with him after realising that he is still a liability politically.

Source: The Asian Age No woman in list of 39 Cong observers

Sharma was a sitting member of the Upper House from Himachal Pradesh (his term expired on April 2) but he could not get re-elected from his home state as the Congress does not have sufficient strength in the state assembly to ensure his victory.

The Congress was, therefore, looking for an alternate slot to accommodate him so that he could be retained as a minister. According to the Constitution, a minister, who is not a member of Parliament, has to get elected within six months. Initially, the party had considered nominating him either from Maharashtra or Haryana but it eventually decided on Rajasthan where the Congress has the numbers to win three seats. The Congress had to drop former Union Minister Santosh Bagrodia in order to renominate Sharma from Rajasthan.

With Sharma's candidature, all Union ministers whose Rajya Sabha terms were expiring, have now been nominated. Information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni has been renominated from Punjab while environment minister Jairam Ramesh has been fielded once again from Andhra Pradesh.

Source: The Tribune by Anita Katyal Rajya Sabha Polls: Anand Sharma Congress nominee from Rajasthan

The two parties are believed to have reached an under- standing at a meeting between Chiranjeevi and Congress pres- ident Sonia Gandhi on Saturday.

The Congress had sought out Chiranjeevi not only to avoid a contest but also to counter any attempt by the loyalists of Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy to resort to cross voting in the elections.

Gandhi had two days ago invited Chiranjeevi for talks after it became apparent that Jagan was in defiant mood.

Jaganmohan, son of former Andhra chief minister late Y.S.R. Reddy, had defied the Congress high command direc- tive and gone ahead with his `Odarpu yatra', a tour to con- sole families of those who com- mitted suicide in the wake of his father's death in a helicop- ter crash last September.

Chiranjeevi's nod came after Gandhi requested him not to field any PRP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections.

aurangzeb.naqshbandi@hindustantimes.com

Source: Hindustan Times By Aurangzeb Naqshbandi RS POLL: PRP May Support Cong,  Sonia Asks Chiranjeevi Not To Field Candidate, Decision in 2 Days

The Congress can now heave a sigh of relief as Gowda had earlier written a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi, reque- sting her to support the JD(S) candidate this time to recipro- cate his gesture on previous two occasions in 2004 and 2008.

Gowda's letter was seen as "pressure tactics" to force the Congress into accepting some of his demands, including sup- port on two seats in the leg- islative council.

By writing the letter and floating party general secretary Danish Ali's name, a senior Congress functionary said Gowda was trying to bargain hard for one more council seat.

The Congress had initially agreed to support the JD(S) only on one seat.

"We knew from the begin- ning that Danish was just a dummy candidate. In fact, Gowda was pushing the names of some industrialists for the seat," the Congress leader said.

aurangzeb.naqshbandi@hindustantimes.com

Source: Hindustan Times By Aurangzeb Naqshbandi Gowda Agrees To Support Congress In RS Elections

The seats falling vacant include those held by Union ministers Ambika Soni and Jairam Ramesh and Congress general secretaries BK Hariprasad, Mohsina Kidwai and Oscar Fernandes. The party also has to find a slot for Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, whose term expired on April 2. The Congress does not have the numbers to get him re-elected from his home state, Himachal Pradesh. Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist Satish Sharma also has to be accommodated as the party is in no position to win his seat in Uttarakhand.

While Ambika Soni and Mohsina Kidwai are set to get another nomination from Punjab and Chhattisgarh, respectively, for Anand Sharma it is a toss up between Rajasthan and Maharashtra. The controversy-ridden Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is expected to be renominated from Andhra Pradesh. Although leaders from Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have conveyed their unhappiness over the induction of "outsiders", their protests may well be overlooked.

Besides Ramesh, other members retiring from Andhra Pradesh include JD Seelam, V Hanumantha Rao Girish Sanghi and N Janardhana Reddy. The ruling party can comfortably win three seats but will have to muster support from its allies like the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which has seven MLAs, to get the fourth. Of these, Seelam is likely to be renominated as he belongs to Scheduled Caste. Former minister Renuka Chaudhary and Andhra Pradesh Congress committee president D Srinivas are among those who are lobbying for a seat.

Source: The Tribune By Anita Katyal Rajya Sabha : Congress Begins Selection Process

Its nominees Jaggan Daggar, Mahender Singh and Dheerender won from wards 1, 9 and 34, respectively.

With the results going in favour of the ruling Congress, it seems that the party has been able to surmount the "anti-incumbency" factor. Despite the campaign by the Opposition, the voters decided to repose their trust in the Congress and the policies of the government.

Congress leaders went on tp say that the voters have particularly expressed confidence in the "clean" image of the Chief Minister.

In Faridabad, the wife and son of Minister of State, Shiv Charan Sharma turned victorious. Dharamveer Khatana, husband of the outgoing Mayor, Brahmvati Khatana, also won. All of them are pro-Congress.

Chief of the district unit of the INLD, Anita Goswami, won from ward 31. In Hodal and Palwa, where polling percentages were 85 per cent and 71 per cent, the Congress emerged miles ahead of its opponents.

Both civic bodies fall in Palwal district where the Congress had lost all three assembly segments to the INLD in the assembly electionslast year.

In the 31 member-Palwal Municipal Council the Congress- backed candidates won in 21 wards. The remaining wards were won by the INLD. The president of the Haryana unit of the BJP Krishan Pal Gurjar has alleged that the ruling party misused its position and rigged the elections in a number of wards in Faridabad.

Ajit Rattan Singh, senior vice-president of the block Congress, today released a list of 24 candidates of the party before mediapersons here.

Levelling allegations of ignoring committed party workers against Kanda, district Congress president Hoshiari Lal Sharma and block Congress president Bhupesh Mehta, he claimed that the new list had the support of MP Ashok Tanwar, former minister LD Arora, former State Planning Board chairman Ranjit Singh and CM's former aide KV Singh.

However, both Ranjit Singh and KV Singh denied knowledge of any such list.

In an identical reply, both leaders said HPCC chief Phool Chand Mullana had categorically stated that the party was not contesting the municipal poll on the party symbol.

They said they would support the candidates who believed in the policies and programmes of the party.

Source: The Tribune By Sushil Manav Civic Poll: Chinks deepen in Cong