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Poll panel SLP to challenge Patna HC verdict

New Delhi: The Election Commission will file a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court on Wednesday challenging Patna High Court's decision which asked the commission to see if polls for Lok Sabha seats where criminal candidates have fought elections from jails could be countermanded. On April 30, the high court bench, headed by chief justice Ravi S. Dhawan, had asked the EC to take a decision before announcement of final results. The court had observed that democracy was for gentlemen and not criminals. Deputy election commissioner A.N. Jha said the SLP will be filed tomorrow. The high court had delivered its verdict on a petition filed by Janata Dal (United) candidate from Siwan parliamentary constituency Om Prakash Yadav.

Chautala, Farooq hint at 'Third Front' (Go To Top)

           Faridabad: Hinting at the emergence of a 'Third Front,' Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday called upon the electorate to vote for smaller parties, so as to strengthen their bargaining power in the post-election scenario. ''The BJP and the Congress are both unlikely to get a majority in the 14th Lok Sabha. Hence the role of parties like the INLD and the NC will be of great importance,'' Chautala, who heads the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) said. Indicating the formation of a 'Third Front,' Abdullah said that his party, the INLD and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have agreed in principle to work for a secular, non-BJP, non-Congress government.'' He lashed out at the BJP's moves of mending fences with Pakistan. "Vajpayee is trying to make peace with those elements whom he fought in Kargil a few years ago," Abdullah said.

Vajpayee, Sonia shift focus to West Bengal, MP (Go To Top)

          Kolkata: Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Congress president Sonia Gandhi will campaign in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh today. Vajpayee will address a rally at Kolkata before moving onto Bhind in Madhya Pradesh and thereafter to Lucknow to cast his vote tomorrow. Sonia will address rallies in Jalpaiguri and Raigang from where senior Congress leader Priya Ranjan Das Munshi is contesting. Security has been beefed up in view of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation's attack in Jalpaiguri district in which one woman was killed and two others were critically injured. Sonia will also be going to Jangipur in Murshidabad for a rally in support of West Bengal Pradesh Congress President Pranab Mukherjee. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani will visit Bijnore, Ratupura and Anoopshahar in Uttar Pradesh. Advani will also address two meetings in the evening in Delhi - at Purani Police Chowky of Bapa Nagar and at Town Hall in Chandni Chowk.

EC may meet to discuss Chapra report (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: The Election Commission is likely to meet today to discuss its team's report on charges of large-scale rigging and violence in Bihar's Chapra Lok Sabha constituency. This is the constituency where RJD President Laloo Prasad Yadav is contesting against Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy. Declining to disclose contents of the report it would submit to the EC, the team members KJ Rao, adviser to the EC, and principal secretary Ananth Kumar said that they had received very serious allegations of violence, rigging, collusion of the local administration with the booth-grabbers and other electoral malpractices. Rao said, "We are satisfied with the way our inquiry has proceeded and I think it has gone on the right direction." In New Delhi, EC sources said its team is likely to submit its report in two to three days and the commission is likely to take a decision this week on the demand for countermanding the election in Chapra. Rudy and his party BJP have demanded re-poll in the entire constituency.

Where villagers shut doors on candidates (Go To Top)

          Aamachal (Kerala): As the election campaign reaches its last phases, more villages have threatened that they would boycott polls protesting against the apathy of the authorities to their civic problems. Residents of Aamachal village in Kerala have put up a board in front of every house barring the candidates from entering the area to seek votes. Villagers said they were forced to put the hand-written boards which says "Don't come here to seek votes" as they were totally disappointed with the elected representatives. For them no party makes the difference.

          "This is applicable to all parties, be it the Congress, Left and the BJP. It seems that nobody is interested in solving our issues. Even after we put up these boards, nobody asked us what is the reason," said Sudhakaran, a voter. The villagers said the sitting lawmaker of Chirayinkeezhu, under which the village falls, Varkala Radhakrishnan of the Left Front had not kept the promises of providing water and roads to the village. They said the farmers had not even received any compensation from the authorities for the crops damaged in heavy rain recently. Twenty constituencies of Kerala alongwith 162 other constituencies across the country will poll on May 10, in the last of five-phased elections. Eighty-three other constituencies are voting on Wednesday. The ruling BJP, which has so far failed to open its account in the state, is trying hard to exploit the resentment of the voters to its advantage. However, the opinion polls suggested that the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left front is slightly ahead of the faction-ridden Congress party.

Vajpayee must disclose his successor: Sonia (Go To Top)

          Ratua (Bengal): Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said the people had the right to know who would succeed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as he had recently said his successor's name had been finalised. "If Vajpayee knows who his successor is, the people have a right to know who it is," she told an election meeting at the Samsi College grounds here in North Bengal's Malda district.

           The Congress president, in her brief 11-minute speech, said it had become very difficult to understand what Vajpayee was saying 'these days' as "the Prime Minister says something different and contrary every day." Stating that crores of rupees had been spent on 'India Shining' advertisements by the BJP, she asked "but what is the real achievement?" The NDA's achievement, Gandhi alleged, was record corruption in the past six years, including the infamous Coffin Scam. Sonia said that BJP stalwarts who had distanced themselves during the freedom struggle could never do anything good for the people. She alleged it was the BJP which had opposed all development projects taken up during the prime ministerships of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Turning to the Left Front government in West Bengal, she said it was more concerned about clinging to power than serving the people.

Sonia in Bengal; Survey swing for NDA (Go To Top)

         Jalpaiguri: Congress president Sonia Gandhi campaigned for her party in West Bengal on Tuesday even as the latest opinion polls showed the ruling federal alliance recouping some losses from earlier rounds and inching closer to a majority. The latest opinion polls show Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the coalition, picking up seats in three northern states, results that soothed financial markets, which fear a hung parliament. Sonia Gandhi, who has been campaigning all over the country in a bid to save the fortunes of her sagging party, blamed the non-Congress government for poor development in the impoverished region. "Development has been hampered. Law and order has weakened. Poverty and unemployment are on the rise. There is no question that the federal ruling alliance led by the BJP and other non-Congress government are responsible for it," said Gandhi.

          Two surveys published late on Monday and on Tuesday said the BJP and its allies would win 48-56 of the 83 seats up for grabs on Wednesday, up from 41 in 1999. The Congress would win 12 to 20 seats compared with the 20 they won in 1999, the surveys by NDTV and Star TV said. Based on those findings, the ruling alliance could win between 245 and 279 seats, marginally better than the low point of 235 forecast by one of the two surveys last week.

         Meanwhile, Congress party members protested outside the office of a regional magazine in Mumbai, for publishing a provocative photograph of Gandhi with Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani. Chitralekha, a Marathi language magazine spoofed on Gandhi, in the latest edition showing her morphed picture in a western wedding dress, embracing Advani. The protestors burnt an effigy of the officials of the magazine and demanded the arrest of the editor of the magazine. "You have seen the photographs...any person in India will be hurt after seeing this photograph. Sonia ji is leader widely loved and respected. This is an insult. The magazine has fallen to lowest levels," said Zeeshan Ahmed, a protestor.