Opinion Charging wildly

However,the article,says it was “undeniable” that the Uttar Pradesh government has unleashed terror on the farmers in Bhatta-Parsaul without compensating them at the market value. It says that these recent wild charges are being deliberately allowed to overwhelm the real issue of land grabbing. “Rahul Gandhi along with Digvijaya Singh and Jayanthi Natarajan are like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza tilting at the windmill,” it says. Digvijaya Singh,it says,“made wild charges against Mumbai police during the 26/11 debate saying that the slain policemen called him up just before their death. One wonders why Osama bin Laden didn’t call him up when US Navy Seals attacked and killed him?!” It says:“The same lessons are now being learnt by others in the Congress party. Even after making ridiculous charges against the Mumbai police,Digvijaya Singh has not been held responsible for chicanery. Now Rahul Gandhi,under his tutelage and with abundant support from veteran Congressmen like Manish Tewari and Jayanthi Natarajan,is hoping to get away with wild charges.”

Planting suspicions

An Organiser article likens the controversial Jaitapur nuclear power project with the Enron project which had triggered a political row in the 1990s,saying that like the French now,the Americans had then mounted enormous pressure on the government over Enron.

Questioning the Manmohan Singh government’s keenness on the Jaitapur project,it says: “It is said that Singh has given his word to Nicolas Sarkozy,the French president,though neither the size of the project nor its finances have yet been finalised. Sarkozy came here last year,dumped this huge project on Singh’s head and went away.”

The article argues that very little is known about the project — except that it is going to be financed by the French and that the capacity will be around 9900 megawatts. “We have,in fact,Enron combined with Bofors all over again. Enron was also backed by the US government and its ambassadors in Delhi were breathing down our necks all the time,” it says. “Why a project costing Rs 100,000 crore should be kept under wraps is itself a big mystery. Nobody has seen the design of the power plant,except government scientists who dare not speak against the government… We do not know how many units there will be,of what capacity,who will fabricate the plant,and what proportion of the cost will be paid for by India…The plant has been cleared by the environment ministry,but the report has not been published.”

Matters of states

Panchjanya has dedicated a full page to the election results in Assam. A report from Guwahati says that the re-election of the Congress government was likely to result in an increase of illegal immigration from Bangladesh,which would be detrimental to the situation in the state. Alongside the report,it carries an interview with Dhirendranath Bezbaruah,former editor of The Sentinel newspaper published from Guwahati. Bezbaruah says that for the Congress government in Assam,the term “minorities” has become synonymous with Bangladeshi illegal immigrants. He says that nine districts in the state now have Muslim majorities because of this immigrant population.

In another article,the journal has lambasted Karnataka governor H.R. Bhardwaj,saying that he has been setting new records in the misuse of a constitutional post.