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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.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Power does strange things to politicians. It makes them change their well-known stances overnight, without batting an eyelid as it were. It is a different matter that in most cases they are forced to retract their statements subsequently and end up with egg on their faces.

Mumbaikars did not settle the contentious issue of who would rule them. It was the issue of lording over the Mumbaikars that had forced the divorce and separated the couple. No doubt the BJP and its supporters are quite elated at the significant gain of the party, the fact must not be denied that this cannot be attributed to ideological victory. The saffron party preferred to follow in the footsteps of the Congress and rely on its recipe.

With Uttar Pradesh elections at halfway through, Rahul-Akhilesh alliance, according to all sources, appear to have an edge. But elections are elections and most experienced of poll predicators can not make exact poll forecast. Some pollsters say honours seem evenly divided between BJP, BSP and SP-Congress. But the handicap for the BJP is said to be widespread impact of note bandi.

LUCKNOW: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mayawati ,Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi have mobilized all resources to for an aggressive campaign in remaining 142 seats in last three phases of polling in the state.

BHOPAL: It was the biggest show of strength by the Congress after it lost power in 2003. More than fifty thousand party workers were arrested on February 22 when they tried to march towards the Vidhan Sabha which they declared they wanted to 'gherao'. But the Congress spokesman K.K. Mishra claimed that more than a lakh party workers were expected to join the demonstration but about fifty thousand could not reach Bhopal because they were stopped by the police at the five entry points on some or other excuse. Party workers started reaching Bhopal from early morning. More than a thousand reached the residence of the PCC Chief Arun Yadav, at 5 am. The spokesman claimed that the massive show was the result of the united efforts made by all the important leaders of the party.

Concerned as the BJP is over the stiff challenges which it is facing in the assembly elections, its worries will be multiplied by the party’s setback in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) poll.