UP likely to dominate first part of session
Developments in Uttar Pradesh could dominate at least first part of the Winter Session of Parliament as four major parties — the Congress, BJP, BSP and the Samajwadi Party — have already started the state election campaign.
Prominent leaders of these parties, including half-a-dozen Union ministers of the Congress from UP, may not able to devote much time to Parliament.
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi will begin his tour of the state on Tuesday from Barabanki. “Mr Gandhi’s visit may be extended to six days. After visiting Barabanki, Bahraich, Balrampur and Shravasti, he will hold an election meeting at Kushinagar which will be his last stop,” UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi said.
At every district, he would meet party workers at the block level to feel the pulse of the common man ahead of the 2012 state Assembly polls, she said.
If the announcement of bifurcating Uttar Pradesh into four states could certainly be raised and discussed in the two Houses of Parliament, speculation about dissolution of the Assembly would generate more heat in the state and in Parliament as well.
The Mayawati-led BSP could be cornered inside Parliament by the Congress, BJP and the Samajwadi Party under different reasons, from alleged corruption in the schemes being implemented under the NREGA and weavers’ problems.
But the BSP sources said the party would counter the attack inside and outside Parliament effectively.
The Congress and the BJP cannot criticise the Mayawati government’ decision on smaller states as these parties are in favour of such states. They might oppose the mechanism of the decision but cannot afford to oppose it.
The Congress had bifurcated Punjab by creating Haryana state and spilt Assam.
If the Congress has created Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP created Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand and has been openly pleading for separate Telangana and Vidarbha states.
On alleged corruption in NREGA, the BSP would asked Union minister Jairam Ramesh to bring a white paper on it in general and the Congress-ruled states in particular. “Why is Jairam silent on corruption in NREGA schemes in Maharashtra, Andhra, Haryana, Rajasthan, Assam and Kerala?” a senior BSP leader asked.
BSP sources said the Congress-BJP-SP combine cannot put the BSP in the dock on the corruption issue after it dropped corrupt ministers from the Cabinet and denied tickets to the party MLAs facing corruption charges.
The Congress and the BJP have also dropped corrupt ministers from the Cabinet, removed CMs after they were alleged to have been involved in corrupt practices, they pointed out.
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