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LUCKNOW: Mandal and Kamandal cards (caste and communal) are being aggressively played by political parties in remaining 89 assembly seats of eastern UP. Stakes are very high for senior politicians like PM Narendra Modi, Mayawati of BSP and SP-Congress alliance by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi. Never before in independent India, any prime minister devoted so much so time in any assembly polls as PM Modi is doing in UP.

After the five phases of voting, campaigning in Uttar Pradesh assembly election has become more intense and murkier. Bahujan Samaj Party, the main opposition in UP Assembly is now openly asking Muslim voters to vote for its candidates. Earlier Mayawati used the word ‘minority’ for Muslims, but now she has freed herself from any hesitation. The ruling Samajwadi Party has now roped in Lalu Yadav to campaign for its alliance candidates after initial hesitation by Akhilesh to invite the charismatic leader from Bihar for addressing election meetings.

In a highly startling move and typical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s one man NDA Government out to disrupt the well established social and economic norms, recent instance being demonetizations of high denomination notes that destabilized socio-economic activities of people of India having lined them up helplessly before ATMs and banks to withdraw their own money ostensibly to cleanse the national economy of black money operations (parallel economy) and rendering poor, farmers, labourers unemployed, small and medium industry closed down under the cover of ultra nationalism, exemption to donations to religious and charitable organizations from income tax has been withdrawn in the Union Budget 2017-18, which our motivated media failed to notice in this era of paid and fake news.

After the recent report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reproving the Modi Government for its November 8 decision of demonetizing high denomination notes which it contended has dampened consumption and activities across the real sectors of the Indian economy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) did not pass any overt strictures on demonetization (Demo). With the government repeating parrot-like that the accompanying pain people suffered was stoically borne by them in the national interest of sucking out black money virus from the economy, the OECD deftly noted that “implementing the demonetization has had transitory and short-term costs but should have long term benefits”.

The Narendra Modi government appears to have succeeded in persuading the ghar wapsi and love jehad brigades to pipe down for the time being. Modi even personally ticked off the gau-rakshaks or cow vigilantes after they were video-taped lynching a group of Dalit youths for skinning a cow, their traditional occupation.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in Kerala is feeling the heat literally and politically.

Strange things are happening in Madhya Pradesh. Vyapam whistleblower Ashish Chaturvedi has sought protection from Chambal ex-dacoits and several top BJP leaders, including veteran former chief minister Babulal Gaur, has accused state government of serious irregularities in Kshipra river clean-up project and demanded probe.

Maratha strong man Sharad Pawar seems to be losing his touch going by the recent adverse civic poll results in Maharashtra. His Nationalist Congress Party was the worst- hit among the players. Pawar, who had seen many highs and lows has been synonymous with power politics, both in Maharashtra and the national politics. After his first election to the Maharashtra Assembly in 1967, Pawar has never lost an election and had completed his fifty years in politics recently.

“All is fair in love and war”, and in politics, particularly electoral. This is happening in UP assembly polls. In their no-holds-barred campaigns, some political parties and their affiliates claiming to be the biggest champions of India’s unity and integrity are ironically trying to polarize India’s diversity by injecting communal virus in the country’s bodypolitic. Hypocrisy, opportunism and sycophancy have become their modus operandi to achieve their dubious political objectives.

Corporate hospitals and private clinics have become a national shame in a country where nearly 40 per cent of the population are poor and over 90 per cent live without medical cover. Private hospitals are fleecing patients, in connivance with doctors, drug manufacturers, medical devices suppliers and, often, with the central and state administration. They make money, but offer no guarantee for cure. The private healthcare system has become so corrupt and ruthless that it has reached a diseased proportion by itself. Lack of government spending on healthcare, huge gap in the doctor-patient ratio, fewer opportunities for post-graduate medical education, attractive target-oriented pay packages offered to doctors by private hospitals, nursing homes and clinics and drugs-and-devices marketing kickbacks given to hospitals and doctors feed the viruses to the disease. All low cost government hospitals, including Delhi’s prestigious AIIMS and Saftarjung Hospital, are highly overcrowded, bursting into their seams, giving private hospitals absolute freedom to financially exploit patients with impunity.