The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
House to vote in TN battle today
Palaniswami says he has numbers to win trust vote; OPS has only hope as one MLA crosses over
VOTING AT 11 AM, MLAS TO BE BROUGHT FROM RESORT
THE STAGE is set for Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, a loyalist of AIADMK Chief V K Sasikala lodged in Bangalore prison, to prove the majority of his government on Saturday.
When the Assembly goes for the trust vote at 11 am, there is a parallel with history — nearly 30 years ago, after the death of party founder M G Ramachandran in 1988, a similar show of strength split the party between MGR’S widow Janaki Ramachandran and the late J Jayalalithaa, the then propaganda secretary of the AIADMK.
A day after the Palaniswami government was sworn-in, the political scene in Chennai today was relatively calm after almost 10 frenetic days. Palaniswami was given 15 days time by governor in-charge C Vidyasagar Rao to prove his majority. However, he decided to seek the vote of confidence on Saturday itself.
His (read: Sasikala’s) camp claims to have the support of 124 MLAS of the party’s 134. The House has a strength of 235.
As the Sasikala camp, headed by Palaniswami and guided by T T V Dinakaran, deputy general secretary of AIADMK, seems to have a safe majority to face the floor test, the rival camp headed by O Panneerselvam, which claims to have the support of 10 MLAS, met Speaker P Dhanapal today.
The team led by former education minister K Pandiarajan, MLAS who switched over to Panneerselvam’s camp including S Semmalai and Shanmuganthan, did not reveal details of the meeting. Some of the leaders claimed that MLAS would change their mind and support Panneerselvam when they leave the private resort where they have been holed up ever since the crisis began.
AIADMK’S Mylapore MLA R Nataraj, a former DGP rank official, was the lone MLA who switched over to the BJP PRESIDENT Amit Shah takes the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election as seriously as the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
UP is his obsession — he began scripting his poll strategy in June 2015 when he travelled across the state and met hundreds of aspirants. Over the last 12 months, not a single day has gone by when he hasn’t worked on his “UP file.” He believes the BJP is set for a clear majority — even if not many in his party agree.
Excerpts from an interview to The Indian Express on the campaign trail:
Are you hoping to repeat in 2017 the social engineering you created in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 Lok Sabha elections? Are you trying to consolidate it?
That consolidation process is over. We have done it through the Modi government’s projects for poor, women, exploited and backward classes. Demonetisation consolidated it even more. This election in UP will certify it.
In Gujarat, Narendra Modi was a Hindu poster-boy; then he became hero of the Gujarati middle class. Now Modi talks about the poor when the Opposition attacks him on demonetisation. Modi uses the language of Indira Gandhi when she said “Main kehti hoon garibi hatao, woh kehte hain Indira hatao.”
Indira Gandhi gave the slogan but didn’t remove poverty. We work on the ground with passion and we will. Living in Delhi, you can’t imagine what a poor woman goes through without a toilet in her house, what is life like without power or without cooking gas or what difference it makes to the family without any bank account. The Modi government has taken steps in these four sectors and shown concrete results. First time after independence, Modi government has gone to villages (under Ujjwala scheme) to distribute LPG to 2 crore BPL card holders. If they have jobs, people will buy gas and get toilets. Where are the jobs?
Why do you assume the BJP government, under Modi’s leadership is just for five years? The BJP government has got a long tenure. People want the Modi government for a long time to come. They want the leadership of Modi. And my question to you is: until jobs are generated, should we not build toilets, provide cooking gas?
Toilets and gas cylinders are obvious needs.
Why don’t you ask someone why until today these things are not provided? Do you agree or not that providing toilets, power and gas is a good thing?
But it’s not enough.
If it is not a big achievement then why couldn’t any government deliver on this in the last 70 years? Kar nahi payi kyonki na niti thi, na neeyat thi. We have policy and intention, both. No economy in the world can give jobs to 50 crore people. Where will these forces work? Who will be their employers? We have opened up the new horizon of self-employment for 4 crore people. For a country with a population of 120 crore, self-employment is the best option. It is impossible to have 120 crore jobs.
When Modi and someone like you shifted to Delhi, the expectation was that businesses will have a smoother run. To many, it’s difficult to accept that when Modi is in Delhi, country’s growth rate hasn’t touched even 7.5%.
We will win UP and make UP grow above 10% and country will, also, get higher growth rate due to UP. This is why it’s very important to win UP. Once we win UP, after March, you will see change in India’s growth rate.