Peaceful voting in fourth round of West Bengal polls

KOLKATA: Singur and Nandigram voted peacefully on Tuesday as 58% polling was recorded till 1 pm in the fourth phase of West Bengal assembly elections for 63 constituencies spread over four districts.

Elections are being held in three districts - Howrah, Hooghly and East Midnapore - and parts of Burdwan, with an electorate of around 1.26 crore set to choose representatives from among 366 candidates.

Hooghly has 18 seats, Howrah and East Midnapore 16 each. Voting is being held in 13 of the 25 seats in Burdwan district.

Crucial rural belts like Hooghly district's Singur and Nandigram in East Midnapore saw high polling with no report of any violence.

There was a vote boycott in two booths of Amta in Howrah district over local issues.

"Till 1 pm, 58% polling was recorded," Additional Chief Electoral Officer NK Sahana said. Voting began at 7 am and will continue till 5 pm.

"At least 54 electronic voting machines had to be replaced after they developed mechanical snags," Sahana said.

Two presiding officers - one in the Arambagh area of Hooghly district and another in Burdwan - were removed following allegations of partiality, he said.

A Trinamool Congress polling agent was arrested when he arrived at a polling booth in East Midnapore district as he had a pending non-bailable warrant against him, an official said.

"Voting is on peacefully. There are no reports of any untoward incidents," said an official at the state police control room here.

There are 15,711 polling booths out of which about 5,000 have been declared super sensitive.

Among the star candidates in the fray Tuesday are state industries minister Nirupam Sen, agriculture minister Naren Dey, higher education minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, information and culture minister Soumendranath Bera and fire and emergency services minister Pratim Chatterjee.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is contesting from 46 constituencies, the Communist Party of India (CPI) six, Trinamool Congress 59, Congress four, Forward Bloc seven, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 63.

Singur had witnessed violent protests by the Trinamool-led opposition between 2006 and 2008, as they encashed on the peasants' resentment against land acquired by the state government for Tata Motors' Nano small car project. The company later shifted the plant to Gujarat.

In Nandigram likewise, the government's abortive bid to set up a chemical hub had triggered violence.

In the first three phases of elections, polling was conducted in 12 districts covering 179 of the state's 294 assembly seats.

The six-phased polls for the 294-member assembly, which started April 18, will end May 10. The counting of votes will be held May 13.

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Jairam Ramesh clears Posco project

NEW DELHI: The Rs 54,000 crore Posco integrated steel plant got the final clearance from Union environment and forests ministry on Monday. Jairam Ramesh gave the nod for the pending forest clearance to the state government, paving the way for the Korean steel giant to acquire the forest land required for the project.

In January, Ramesh had put one last condition before the state government to acquire the forest land. He had asked for an assurance from the state that no rights of people existed on the land under the Forest Rights Act. The state sent its assurance but Ramesh, having received evidence to the contrary, asked the Naveen Patnaik government to come back again with clarity.

The state government wrote back to the Centre on April 29 claiming that the resolutions of the two villages – Govindpur and Dhinkia -- opposing the plant and claiming community rights over the forests were illegal. Ramesh moved quickly to decide in favour of the state government, dismissing the village resolutions that he had a copy of.

For long under pressure from the PMO on the project, passing the order in favour of the state government, Ramesh noted, "Faith and trust in what the state government says is an essential pillar of cooperative federalism." He decided to pass the buck for adhering to the Forest Rights Act to the state saying, "The primary responsibility for implementing the Forest Rights Act is that of the state government."

Ramesh had earlier bent backwards to accommodate the project by rejecting the recommendations of three of his own committees, including a statutory one. All three had recommended that the provisions of FRA had not been followed and that the project should be rejected. Orissa, on the other hand, continued to claim that no one had rights over the land it wanted to hand over to Posco. Ramesh discarded his own directive which required village councils to pass resolutions in favour of the project when the state government was unable to furnish them.

Attempting to pre-empt criticism over his bending rules and regulations, Ramesh said, "The implementation of both the FRA and the August 2009 guideline is a learning and evolving process since we are still in largely unchartered territory." The August 2009 order by Ramesh made it mandatory for the state government to submit village resolutions in favour of the project that Orissa failed to.

In his order, Ramesh said, "I would expect that the revised MOU between the state and Posco would be negotiated in such a manner that exports of raw material are completely avoided."

Suggesting that an understanding had been built between the Centre, state and the Korean company on the issue, Posco India vice-president Vikas Sharan reportedly told agencies on Monday, "There were no plans for export of iron ore from the project and now also we do not intend to do any exports."

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Lokpal Bill drafting put on fast track

NEW DELHI: Prickly issues like the inclusion of the PMO or the judiciary within the ambit of the Jan Lokpal Bill were left out in favour of a broader discussion on the proposed legislation by the joint drafting committee on Monday.

These and other controversial issues could come up in the May 7 meeting.

The joint drafting committee met for the first time after a slew of corruption charges had rocked civil society members and father-son lawyer duo of Shanti and Prashant Bhushan. However, sources said that these controversies were not discussed.

Civil society representatives submitted two documents to the government outlining "principles and objects" for the proposed law. HRD minister and government representative on the committee Kapil Sibal said, "The civil society members on the joint drafting committee presented a document with respect to the objects of the bill as well as a document that enunciated the general principles underlying the bill.''

The committee has agreed to meet on May 7, 23 and 30 to discuss the bill. The committee may meet on a daily basis next month to complete drafting the bill by June 30. This will help the government introduce the bill in the monsoon session.

Sibal said, "The talks were very good. The civil society members and we will think about the proposals given by both sides and discuss them in our next meeting. But today's meeting was very good, very cooperative. There was no difference of opinion.''

Prashant Bhushan said the focus of Monday's meeting was the basic principles behind the Lokpal Bill. "The discussion was on essential features, objects and reasons of the bill, which has been prepared according to the main provisions of the UN Convention against Corruption," Bhushan said. The documents also highlight the need to set up an effective anti-corruption mechanism so that the faith of the people in the system remains intact, sources said.

Sources said civil society members impressed upon the government members in the panel that India as a signatory to the UN convention is bound to establish an effective system to tackle corruption.

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Arunachal identifies CM copter crash site

ITANAGAR: The Arunachal Pradesh government on Monday said it has zeroed in on an area in West Kameng district bordering Bhutan from where a helicopter carrying chief minister Dorjee Khandu disappeared. Following inputs from ISRO and IAF, the government has identified a 66 sqkm area in West Kameng district bordering Bhutan to trace the missing chopper.

The four-seater single-engine Pawan Hans helicopter went missing on Saturday after taking off from Tawang with Khandu, his security officer, Yeshi Choddak, Yeshi Lhamu, sister of Tawang MLA Tsewang Dhondup and crew members Capt J S Babbar and Capt T S Mamik on board.

Imagery data collected by ISRO and IAF are being analysed and by all agencies for the forces on ground to carry out their search operation in the Nagajiji area of West Kameng, power minister and government spokesman Jarbom Gamlin said on Monday.

"The metallic objects spotted by ISRO satellite images might not be the wreckage of the chopper. Everything will be clear once the teams reach the spot," he added.

Union minister of state (in PMO) V Narayansami said it was not possible for the search teams to move more than one km an hour because of the hostile terrain.


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