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West UP moving towards paradigm shift

By Sidharth Mishra

The sun and shadows have been playing games with the weather in western Uttar Pradesh for the past fortnight, keeping the majority farming community more concerned about the agricultural produce than the political harvest. Just 100 kilometres away from the national Capital, Khatauli in Muzzafarnagar district is more famous as a favorite watering hole for tourists on way to Uttarakhand; but agriculturally, too, it is an important grain mandi (wholesale market).
With lush green fields, washed with the recent rains, the farmers here are looking forward to a bumper sugarcane and wheat crop this season. Though initially, there were issues regarding late sowing of the crops on account of demonetisation, the same has been overcome thanks to centuries-long existing farmer-trader network in the region. It is this network, which forms both economic and political axis of the region.
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BJP May Mar Its Chances In U'khand

By Sidharth Mishra

A decade ago, in the similar times, your reporter had traversed through the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to cover Assembly elections in the winter of 2007. We drove for more than 2000 kilometres through the hill roads, at times through sleet and rain, and extreme cold to understand poll nuances in a politically very sensitive state.
Till then, one had known Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari from a reasonable distance. I was yet to enter journalism when he last held office in Lucknow as Chief Minister. In the 1990s, one did follow his fortunes, especially as a rebel Congress leader, who floated a party with another veteran Arjun Singh. One did trail him in Nainital-Bahedi constituency during frequent Lok Sabha polls which were held in the 1990s, which he lost in 1998 but had won in 1996 and 1999.
Tiwari during the brief interactions during those campaign trails never gave any impression that he favoured a separate hill state carved out of Uttar Pradesh, for which the BJP was leading an agitation. Rather, he was opposed to the idea of the hill state.
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Mahatma shall ever remain Khadi’s ambassador

By Sidharth Mishra

In 2011, when Anna Hazare was running a quasi-political “nautanki” (a kind of folk theatre) before the annual staging of Ramlila, the nation’s best-known folk drama, at the historic ground in the national Capital, many compared him to Mahatma Gandhi. Your reporter in the Notebook columns had taken the position, going much against the flow of public sentiments, that a certain Anna Hazare, just because he undertook fasts at the drop of a hat, could not be compared to Gandhi.
During those days of soaring public passion generated by Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, a seminar was organised at Constitution Club to understand the genre and intent of the agitation launched by the farmer leader from Maharashtra. Your reporter was invited to put forth his point of view and was roundly heckled for acting as a ‘government’s stooge’, as he refused to swim with the tide. After much persuasion by the organisers, when I was finally allowed to have my turn at the microphone, I asked a question if anybody recalled Mahatma holding any major agitation in New Delhi.
Silence fell in the auditorium. Champaran, Dandi, Kheda, Noakhali - the names so closely associated with Mahatma, were all located at a distance of 1000 kilometres from Delhi, if not more.
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Man of many moments

By Sidharth Mishra

India’s long-serving cricket Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has decided to give up the job of skipper. Ever since he announced his decision last week, just ahead of the meeting of the selection committee, which chose the teams for the one-day internationals and T20 matches, articles eulogising his contribution have flooded the newspaper pages. Today’s Notebook will also be in the same genre.
In the autumn of 2007, I was in Dehradun to drop my daughter at her boarding school. To overcome the pangs of separation from our child that awaited us, we went out for a family dinner. Cricket was the last thing on our minds. Dehradun then used to be, and still is to an extent, a sleepy city. The restaurant was across the road (the arterial Rajpur Road) from our hotel.
As we came out from the restaurant, we saw a huge procession of cheerful bikers passing on the road, making us wait a while before we could cross and reach the hotel’s lobby. It was here that it sank into us that the Indian team under Mahendra Singh Dhoni had won the T20 World Cup beating arch-rivals Pakistan.
Dhoni was the hero of the moment as he had handed over the ball to most underrated, and rightly so, bowler Joginder Sharma to win the day for us.
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Generation change in UP politics

By Sidharth Mishra

The Election Commission will take time to decide which faction of the Samajwadi Party deserves to go to the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh with the cycle symbol. However, the ramshackle delegation which the party’s deposed President Mulayam Singh Yadav led the Election Commission to stake claim for the symbol was proof enough to show who commanded the support of the Samajwadi Party cadres. An isolated Shivpal Singh Yadav and the highly discredited political duo of Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh and his colleague Jaya Prada made up the delegation which Mulayam Singh led to the Nirvachan Sadan.
The reluctance of any prominent “Samajwadi” face to join the foursome clearly shows that the party satraps have decided to join the ranks either with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav or at least not annoy him by showing open support for the senior Yadav. Even a maverick leader like Azam Khan, the party’s Muslim face, has decided to play sober and peacemaker for now, indicating that he would use his position to buy peace with the aging patriarch for the rebellious son rather than counter latter’s moves.
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Year of consolidation for Modi

By Sidharth Mishra

It’s just three more days before the year ends. Prime Minister Narendra Modi can look back at 2016 with some satisfaction, and be at peace at least for the next three months before the results of the state Assembly polls in the four states of Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, and Uttarakhand come out. However, given the state of our federalism, it’s unlikely that even adverse results for the BJP in the aforementioned state polls would impact the government at the Centre much.
If we look back at the year, we do not see very many challenges which the government faced and have remained unresolved. The tasks which remain are the political battles to be fought at state level, where the issues vary from national one day to something very local the next day. With regional forces playing a dominant role in two of the major states going to polls, their focus certainly will be on local matters.
Both Akhilesh Yadav, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, are pushing hard to make the performance of their respective governments on the development front into a major poll issue. They, especially Akhilesh Yadav, who is in an adversarial position against BJP in the Uttar Pradesh, would want their personal charisma to do the talking and overshadow that of Narendra Modi.
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Restore trust in force brass

By Sidharth Mishra

Last week, soon after Lt General Bipin Rawat was announced the next Chief of Army Staff (COAS) superceding two officers senior to him, the armed forces family, consisting of the serving officers and the veterans, gave out a mixed reaction. In this era and time of social media, such reactions are easy to express but difficult to be comprehended.
One thing which your reporter understood going through inputs on various platforms was that the men in the uniform react differently to a situation depending on their years of service in the force. While for some appointment of Gen Rawat was celebration of their regimental, arm brotherhood, for others it was a case of “unnecessary” political interference.
The Army has largely maintained seniority as the main quotient among the serving army commanders and the vice-chief for elevating one among them as the COAS. In recent history, this has been seldom disrupted but for the instance of Lt General SK Sinha being overlooked and Gen AS Vaidya being elevated. Interestingly, Gen Vaidya was an Armoured Corp (9 Deccan) officer, who had superseded an infantry officer Gen Sinha (Gorkha Rifles).
Now we have a situation reversal,
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Do or die situation for Centre

By Sidharth Mishra

Another week has ended, and there has been no debate during the ongoing winter session of Parliament. The session so far has faced a near washout, and the treasury and opposition benches are pointing fingers at each other for the logjam saying that their voice is being muzzled.
BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani expressed his angst at the non-functioning of the House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that since he is not being allowed to speak in the Rajya or Lok Sabha so he has taken to addressing Jan Sabhas (public meetings) and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has said that if he speaks inside the house, there would be an earthquake. What’s stopping him to measure his speech on Richter scale is beyond your reporter’s comprehension.
Before one loses the sight of the cause that has led to the logjam, it would be worthwhile to tell the political class that across the spectrum they have not been of any help to the people suffering from the hardships caused by the demonetisation move. If the trumpeters of the government want us to believe that people are taking the hardships in their stride, they must be told that the patience is gradually wearing out.
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