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COVER STORY  CURRENT ISSUE FEBRUARY 02, 2004 | |
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| e-2004 POLL MALL | |||||||||
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| The prime minister and the leader of Opposition are in battle gear, political parties are desperately seeking partners-Elections 2004 is heading for a stormy showdown. | |||||||||
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when Taruvai Subbayya Krishnamurthy takes over as the 13th chief election commissioner on February 7 succeeding J.M. Lyngdoh, he will be the fifth non-IAS/ICS officer to head the commission. The following day, Union Home Secretary N. Gopalaswami will join as election commissioner completing the panel along with B.B. Tandon. Krishnamurthy's forerunners in the non-IAS/ICS category include S.P. Sen Verma (1967-72), S.L. Shakdher (1977-82), R.V. Peri Shastri (1986-90) and V.S. Rama Devi (for a fortnight in November-December 1990). Appointed to the EC in January 2000, Krishnamurthy will be in office till May 2005. An IRS officer, he does not have any political leanings, though he has impressed his political bosses, including former finance minister P. Chidambaram with whom he served as additional secretary. Though CECs from the IAS have drawn attention for their work, the contribution of non-IAS CECs has not been any less; Peri Shastri helped draft rules and expand the commission. Krishnamurthy is set to maintain the tradition. -By Lakshmi Iyer | |||||||||
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| DIGVIJAY SINGH
In the end, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh's promised 10-year sanyas lasted less than 10 weeks, proving him more wily than his guru Arjun Singh. Now the guru and shishya, both sporting the loser tag, will work in the CWC to remove all obstacles in their paths. Perhaps together. That should worry the charmed circle around Sonia Gandhi. | |||||||||
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| BJP CHIEF MINISTERS MEET
It has been a while since the BJP dared to publicise a meeting of its chief ministers. For, till recently, the party's chief ministers had been a dwindling tribe. But January 21 was different. As Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Uma Bharati (Madhya Pradesh), Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan), Manohar Parrikar, (Goa), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), Gegong Apang (Arunachal Pradesh) and Arjun Munda (Jharkhand) trooped in, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee may have savoured a moment of personal satisfaction. But soon enough he was drawn back into the hustle of pre-poll preparations. While number-crunching was a mandatory exercise, the focus, expectedly and unanimously, was on development in the states ahead of the polls. So the party, that recently parted ways with Mayawati, formed a new alliance with BSP-bijli, sadak and paani. Not surprisingly, at the meeting attended by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, party President M. Venkaiah Naidu and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, it was Finance Minister Jaswant Singh who returned with a bagful of wish lists. -By Rajeev Deshpande | |||||||||
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