Poll Notes: Mamata Banerjee as hostage?

What did Mamata Banerjee propose in Vajpayee Cabinet during IC-814 hijack episode?

Former BJP leader and Union Minister Yashwant Sinha caused a flutter by flying to Kolkata and formally joining Trinamool Congress. Asked if he was not sticking his neck out in case Trinamool lost the election, he told an interviewer that he was confident it was returning to power with a thumping majority.

Didn’t he divulge a cabinet secret by recalling that Mamata Banerjee, as a union minister in 1998, had offered herself as a hostage to bring back the hijacked plane and passengers from Kandahar? It was now part of history and has no longer any bearing on national security, he reasoned.

It was very courageous of her to make the offer and he believed people need to know this aspect of her. Does he think Mamata Banerjee will play a pivotal role at the national level after the assembly election ? “If she returns with a thumping majority in Bengal, she will have to play that role, whether she likes it or not and whether we like it or not,” said Sinha, never known to mince his words.

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Imperfect Voters’ list?

Before every election, there are complaints about missing names, duplication and the same name and address appearing in different constituencies. It remains a mystery why the Election Commission of India, touted as the world’s finest, is unable to come up with flawless revised voters’ lists before each election. This time too the leader of opposition in Kerala, Ramesh Chennithala claimed discrepancies in the voters’ list.

He cited a name from the list in Uduma constituency in Kasaragod and said her name was repeated five times in the list with the same photo and the same address. “Likewise, in Kazhakootam constituency, 4,506 fake voters have been detected, 2,534 in Kollam, 1,436 in Trikaripur, 4,611 in Koyilandy, 6,171 in Nadapuram, 3,525 in Koothuparamba and 4,750 in Ambalapuzha. It is due to the hard work of some UDF workers that this has now come out,” he claimed.

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Cash in TN, drugs in Bengal

At the beginning of this week, with elections barely three weeks away in TN, Kerala and Puducherry and two weeks before the first phase in Assam and Bengal, ECI posted that it made a record seizure worth Rs 331.47 Crore which included cash, liquor, drugs, freebies and precious metals. Over 38.5% of the seizure worth Rs 127.64 Crore, was made in Tamil Nadu.

While in Tamil Nadu, bribery in the form of cash and precious metals is high, in Assam, the highest value seized was in the form of liquor (Rs 17.25 crore). While ECI has seized a total of Rs 5.72 crore in cash, liquor, drugs, freebies, and precious metals from Puducherry, in Kerala, the figure stood at Rs 21.77 crore. Tamil Nadu is closely followed by Bengal with a total seizure worth Rs 112.59 crore, the biggest contributor being in the form of drugs valued at Rs 47.40 crore.

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Rice and reality check

Even as AIADMK campaign vehicles with LED screens streak across Tamil Nadu, propagating the state government’s achievements, a ruling party MLA had a rude shock in a Madurai village. As he moved with his hands folded to greet the women lined up with plates or ‘thalis’, he smiled as he expected the women to perform the traditional aarti.

But the women thrust the plates with rice for him to see clearly the yellowed and black grains. A woman asked, "How can we eat this? Aren't we humans too? We are loyal AIADMK voters but now what's the point in voting for the ‘two leaves’ symbol when we don't get back anything in return? "