HEAD LINE:

• Kashmir root cause of tensions: Gilani (HINDU)
• Congress terms BJP's suggestion an assault on Election Commission (HINDU)
• I am right in seeking Chawla removal: CEC (AA)

LEAD:

The Govt has taken a dim view of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N Gopalaswami's report to the President recommending the removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla especially its timing, barely weeks before the notification of general election highly placed sources have told 'The Indian Express'. The sources said it was very unlikely that the Centre would act on the recommendation. Plans to appoint a new CEC from within the present EC after Gopalaswami's retirement on April 20 remain unchanged, they said. Navin Chawla is expected to succeed the CEC. The Congress, which said it was studying the issue, on Sunday indicated its resolve to back Chawla all the way. AICC spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi also pointed out that Gopalaswami had been handpicked by the then Home Minister L K Advani to be Home Secretary before his appointment to the EC, and that there appeared to be a "remarkable congruence" between his views and the BJP's. Govt sources maintain that Gopalaswami had, by informing the Supreme Court that he had the authority to decide on fellow ECs and by sending an unsolicited view to the President asking for Chawla to be removed, departed from what his predecessor B B Tandon had told the Court in June 2006. (IE)

• New Delhi: Differences in the Election Commission had been there for some time. But it was the one over the dates to hold the Karnataka elections last year that proved to be the last straw. It was the split opinion on the timing of holding elections in the state that eventually led Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami to write a letter to the President recommending fellow Election Commissioner Navin Chawla's removal from the poll panel for his alleged partisan conduct. There was a two-way division in the Commission on the issue. Gopalaswami argued that the "elections to the state assembly must be completed before the spell of the President's rule there ended on May 19, 2008". Citing complaints of bogus and "missing voters from the voters' list" apart from the delimitation exercise (which necessitated revised electoral rolls for the entire state), the Congress, however, wanted elections deferred in the state. (IE)
• The controversy over the CEC's recommendation has redrawn political battlelines, likely to intensify ahead of the last session of Parliament beginning on February 12, before Lok Sabha elections. While the Congress and CPM have both called for the govt to reject the recommendation to sack election commissioner Navin Chawla, the BJP has indicated it might consider a legal resolution. The CPM, however, is with the Congress only so far as its demand goes. In a statement on Sunday, the politburo blamed both Congress and BJP for politicizing the EC and filling it with their ''pet bureaucrats''. Describing the CEC's silence from 2005 to 2007 as ''mysterious'' and his letter to the President as ''out of bounds'', it said the timing of the move raises doubts about members of the constitutional body ''playing politics'' ahead of the elections. (TOI)
• New Delhi: Perfume baron and chief of the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) Badruddin Ajmal has decided to launch a national political party the announcement in this regard is due on Monday in the Capital apparently to cash in on the "discontent" brewing among the Muslims, especially following the Batla House encounter. The party is likely to be called All India United Democratic Front. Sources close to Ajmal, whose AUDF won 9 seats in the last Assembly elections in Assam, said the new party will field candidates from several seats in the next Lok Sabha elections and was hoping to stitch alliances with "non-Congress, non-BJP forces", especially the Left and the Third Front. (IE)

MANMOHAN SINGH & GOVT

PM discharged, will work from home: After almost nine days in hospital, PM Manmohan Singh was discharged from AIIMS on Sunday morning. Singh, who will work from home, will be able to fully attend to official matters from February 22.(TOI)

BJP

The last Parliament session before the 14th Lok Sabha is dissolved is likely to witness a revival of the NDA vs UPA battle over the CEC's controversial demand for removal of his colleague Navin Chawla. The battle in the House is expected to spill over into the poll battleground, with BJP planning to take up the issue in Parliament when its opens on February 12. With the Left parties siding with the UPA on this issue after parting ways some months ago, the battlelines seem to be drawn, as each party and coalition formation goes into election mode. While BJP itself will not go to court, the Opposition does not rule out the matter leading to a legal wrangle. That the Opposition is not going to drop the issue even if it doesn't expect the govt to yield was clear from writings posted by Leader of Opposition L K Advani on his blog on Sunday. Joining the debate on the CEC's recommendation to the President for removal of one of his colleagues, Advani said the govt should accept the CEC's proposal without any delay. "The CEC's recommendation with regard to Navin Chawla be forthwith accepted by govt," Advani wrote in his blog. (TOI)

LEFT PARTIES

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday termed the suo motu recommendation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N. Gopalaswami to remove Election Commissioner Navin Chawla "out of bounds" and pointed out that it can damage the institution of the Election Commission. The party argued that the Commission played a vital role in the constitutional scheme and parliamentary democratic system. "Any suspicion that the members of this constitutional body are playing politics will harm the institution. The CEC's demand should, therefore, be rejected," the party's Polit Bureau said in a statement. It charged that while in power both the BJP and the Congress have had the narrow approach of putting in place their pet bureaucrats to man the Commission, which led to the denigration of the independent body. The CPI(M), the statement said, argued for urgent reforms in the Commission in 2006. This arose after the manner in which the Commission conducted elections to the West Bengal Assembly in May that year. It said that one of the steps that needed to be taken was to bar former members of the Commission from taking up politically appointed positions or contesting elections. (HINDU)

STATES

ASSAM

Assam State Election Commissioner Chandra Kanta Sarma has resigned from his post and sought a Congress ticket to fight the next Lok Sabha elections from the Mangaldoi constituency. The retired officer's eagerness to contest the general elections hasn't gone down well with CM Tarun Gogoi. ''When he met me on Friday, I told him that he has every right to contest the elections. But for that, I told him that he has to resign from the constitutional post,'' Gogoi said. Sarma said he resigned on Saturday and decided to contest the elections on Sunday. ''I sent my resignation to the Governor on Saturday. I am a free man now. I joined Congress on Sunday and also submitted my application for a party ticket. It's up to the Congress high command to decide." (TOI)

JHARKHAND

Jharkhand appears headed for fresh Assembly elections with consensus eluding the UPA over selection of a chief-ministerial candidate to lead an alternative govt in the state. Acknowledging the stalemate, railway minister and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav said: "There are no sign of any alternative govt in Jharkhand. The existing signs point towards holding fresh elections after dissolving the Assembly." Interestingly, just a fortnight back, Mr Yadav had said, "The President's Rule is not the solution and hoped that an alternative govt would be formed." This was days before the President Rule was imposed. Sources say that the RJD, which had then rejected the JMM's chosen successor Champai Soren, is in no mood to support even two other names suggested by JMM chief Shibu Soren as his successor now.(AA)

KERALA

Setting the stage for a new Communist party in Kerala, a state-level 'Left Coordination Committee' of the scattered CPI(M) rebels and local communist outfits in various districts was formed on Sunday in Shornur in Palakkad. The timing of its formation assumes significance against the backdrop of the crisis engulfing the CPI(M) after the CBI named party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan as an accused in the SNC Lavalin scandal. Former CPI(M) state committee member Appukkuttan Vallikunnu, who was expelled from the party after the state committee meeting in 1998, is the chairman of the coordination committee. Its convener is M R Murali, whose rebel outfit the People's Development Committee recently served a humiliating defeat to the CPI(M) in municipal bypolls in Palakkad. The co-ordination committee has representatives from eight out of the 14 districts in the state. (IE)

MADHYA PRADESH

Former CM, sitting Lok Sabha MP , and a well-known BJP veteran Kailash Joshi is acutely unhappy at the prospect of being denied a renomination for the prestigious Bhopal seat. Blame it on his younger colleague Sushma Swraj, who is also eyeing the same seat. Mr Joshi has shown his displeasure to the entire party leadership from Mr L.K. Advani to Mr Rajnath Singh. Yet another dark horse in the race is the ambitious state BJP vice-president A.M. Dave. State BJP sources said the good man that he is, the main reason why party bosses don't think twice before short-changing Mr Joshi is that they know he isn't a troublemaker, and will never think of challenging the directive from above. He belongs to no lobby. (AA)

MAHARASHTRA

The Anti-Naxal Squad (ANS) at Gadchiroli was combing the thick forests of Dhanora in Ghadchiroli district of Maharashtra on Sunday for Naxals after 15 policemen were lured into the jungle and killed by the militants. Reports from the district said 15 members of a police party, including a police sub-inspector, were trapped and slain by Naxals after a fearsome battle. The Naxals were armed with sophisticated weapons like AK-47 assault rifles. The Naxals had surrounded the Gyarapatti Katgul police party, which had entered the jungle on a tip off about the presence of a few of the militants. But the tipoff turned out to be a trap and the waiting Naxals surrounded the police from all sides and started firing at them. The attack on the police party is said to be in retaliation to the arrests of 15 Naxals last week by the ANS in Ettapalli taluka in a surprise raid. (AA)

RAJASTHAN

Rajasthan has requested the Centre to allocate an additional Rs.600 crore to the State for implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, in which the State has already achieved a leading position. State Chief Secretary D.C. Samant pointed out at a consultative meeting in New Delhi over the week-end that Rs.4,100 crore had been spent on NREGS till December 2008, while the expenditure by the end of this financial year was expected to touch Rs.5,700 crore. The meeting convened at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi to discuss the measures for executing the Union Govt's economic initiatives was presided over by the Cabinet Secretary. Mr. Samant said Rajasthan had spent 70 per cent of its Plan targets till December and would achieve all the targets allocated under various schemes on time. Similarly, there has been a significant progress in the implementation of the Central and Centrally sponsored schemes. (HINDU)

UTTAR PRADESH

The Uttar Pradesh CM and BSP president, Mayawati, on Sunday set in motion her party's strategy to replicate the success of the social engineering formula in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in the State. She underlined the need for Dalit-Brahmin unity, whose most eloquent testimony has been the party's success in the 2007 Assembly elections. Considering that the Dalits and Brahmins once constituted the main support base of the Congress and the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, Ms. Mayawati attacked the two parties, accusing them of misleading the Dalits and Brahmins. At a Brahmin convention of the BSP here, the CM said the unity of the party's core cadre of the Dalits and the Brahmins was crucial for the success in the forthcoming elections. Ms. Mayawati said once the BSP came to power at the Centre there would be no shortage of funds for the development of Uttar Pradesh as the purse strings were with the Centre.(HINDU)

OPINION

Judges must make their assets public: 'Transparency and accountability are the foundations of your democratic polity. Judges too, like other constitutional functionaries, should declare their assets' An unprecedented event occurred on January 19, and due to the usual national brouhaha over usual things, this was reported and covered only in passing. The Supreme Court of India and bear with me for repeating the obvious the apex law court in the country, the final word on any legal issue regarding citizens of India, with sentencing power of life and death over citizens, unlimited financial jurisdiction, and the last word on interpretation of the Indian Constitution, filed a petition in a lower court. Yes, the Supreme Court filed a petition in the Delhi high court challenging an order passed by the Central Information Commission asking the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to disclose if judges of the apex court have disclosed their assets to him. Acting upon this petition filed by the CPIO of the Supreme Court, Justice Ravindra Bhat of the Delhi high court stayed the order passed by the CIC, and issued a notice to the CIC, and the original RTI petitioner Subash Chandra Agarwal. (AA, Jayanthi Natarajan)