The new General Secretary of the CPI, Mr Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, has once again raised an old theme — the grand reunification of the Left parties, especially the CPI and the Marxists, CPI(M). Hailing from Andhra Pradesh, Mr Reddy, perhaps has his task cut out on his home turf. The two left parties have divergent stands on the issue of separate statehood for Telangana. While his CPI is in favour of division, the Marxists favour Vishalandra (united Andhra Pradesh).
Will he take up the challenge of building a consensus on the burning issue of Telangana, at least among the Left parties to begin with in AP? In the past, especially during the rule of Mr N.T. Rama Rao and recently with Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, the Left parties came together to fight the Congress in the State.
The West Bengal Chief Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee recently took stock of her 11-month old government's achievements. The result, as declared by her, is ‘excellent'.
She claimed that 90 per cent of the agenda set for the full-five year term have already been implemented. “Only 10 per cent of the election promises are yet to be delivered,” she proudly announced. Apparently in search of new agendas, her government would now set up its TV and print media so as to silence criticism from “a section of the media”.
Sadananda Gowda relieved
The BJP High Command as well as the Karnataka Chief Minister Mr D. V. Sadananda Gowda will be extremely relieved following a Supreme Court panel ordering a probe into former Chief Minister, Mr B. S. Yeddyurappa's mining deals.
Party insiders say that this development will make Mr Yeddyurappa rethink his strategy to take the High Command head-on. But the issue is how long will this pause last. His detractors are betting on the possibility of a frustrated Mr Yeddyurappa acting rashly, so that he stops being of any significance in the political set up in the state for a long time to come.
Plans are also on to take advantage of the situation to complete the cabinet expansion quickly before Mr Yeddyurappa can think of another strategy to hold back the expansion.
Misplaced priorities
The latest report submitted by the office of Comptroller and Auditor General, on the state of revenue and finances in Maharashtra, rocked both Houses of the State Legislature. Treasury benches took strong exception to the leaking of the report by a BJP MLA to the media before it was tabled. The tabled report gave a detailed description about siphoning of government resources and flouting of norms by ministers and bureaucrats. The auditor pointed out that land grab by trusts controlled by powerful politicians and their cronies were rampant. However, what was most surprising was that the Maharashtra Government, rather than seriously looking into the charges made in the report, decided to commence a CID investigation into the leaking of the report by the BJP.
Contributed by Somashekar Mulugu, Pratim Ranjan Bose, K. Giriprakash and Rahul Wadke