With six days to go for state assembly polls in Punjab, political parties have intensified their campaign in the state. The outgoing ruling alliance of the Shiromani Akali Dal [ Images ] (Badal) and Bharatiya Janata Party [ Images ] is banking on Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and L K Advani [ Images ] to retain power in the state.

Meanwhile, the Congress led by its state president Captain Amarinder Singh with the help of Congress President Sonia Gandhi [ Images ], Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi [ Images ] and other senior leaders are leaving no stone unturned to topple the Akali-BJP combine.

The BJP is making desperate attempts to save its face in Punjab [ Images ] after its ministers had to resign from the Cabinet on charges of corruption. Five years ago, Prakash Singh Badal and the BJP joined hands to throw Captain Amarinder Singh out of power. Now, they find the tables turned on them.

For Rediff Realtime News on the Punjab elections, click here!

"We are winning the elections and the Captain seems to be buying time from the Congress party. We will get more seats this time than we did last time. The BJP should also do well," Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal told a crowd of 7,000 in Patiala district.

He denied that he was being pitched for the post of CM. "One thing that I have been making clear is that once we regain power Sardar Prakash Singh Badal would continue to be the chief minister, as we need his experience in adminisstration. After all he is the tallest leader of the state," he told rediff.com.

However, the Congress seems to have an edge in Punjab.

Gandhi who addressed several public meetings in the state this past week has asked pointed questions on the development claims made by the Akali Dal-BJP alliance. "Explain what development the Akali-BJP government had carried out in the state in the past five years. This government had proved to be most inefficient one and Punjab had seen total decline on all fronts during the last five years," she said.

She charged the state government with using only Rs 526 crore out of Rs 5,000 crore sent to the state for distribution under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. She called the bluff of the ruling alliance by telling the crowd the 'atta-daal scheme' of the state government was 100 per cent financed by the Centre. And still the Akali-BJP government was trying to claim credit for it".

Meanwhile, Captain Amarinder Singh is striving hard and hopping from constituency to constituency to ensure that the edge the Congress has over the Akali Dal-BJP alliance is not lost because of weak management of the polls by party workers. He has been in touch with the party high command to chalk out the election schedule.

He hopes to bag at least 60-plus seats to ensure that the Congress has a smooth victory.

However, the Congress too has a problem at hand. It has to deal with substantial number of rebels who were denied tickets. Leading the bandwagon of rebels is Malvinder Singh, the brother of Captain Amarinder Singh.

"In the 117-seat assembly to get a clear verdict you need to have 60 seats. At the moment, neither the Congress nor the Akali Dal-BJP seems to be getting a clear majority. There are 35 seats that are decided under a margin of 1,000 votes.

he real importance of the BJP president, Mr. Lal Krishna Advani's announcement at the recent party national executive meeting in New Delhi has gone unnoticed. The "Swaraj to Suraj Yatra" he plans to undertake is at best a political exercise to take his message of "Su-Rajya" (good governance) to the people. The means being used for this purpose has understandably lost some of its novelty and therefore, apprehensions of a muted response are not entirely misplaced.

What, however, is of interest is Mr Advani's audacious attempt to co-opt Subhas Chandra Bose in the pantheon of proponents of Hindutva and make him the mascot of his Yatra. If the Yatra is successful, then not only does the BJP stand to gain electorally, but Subhash Chandra Bose will be freed from the confines of political myth-making that has reduced him to callendar lithographs which adorn living rooms in provincial Bengal and the dimly lit offices of Forward Bloc in Calcutta.

In a sense, the appropriation of Subhash Chandra Bose by the BJP is a posthumous homecoming for a nationalist who believed that rashtrabhakti is a synthesis of religion and nationalism, of the spiritual and the political. In the early decades of this century, when others were looking up to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for inspiration, Bose was looking elsewhere for guidance: His search for a religious philosophy that would spur political activism led him to explore the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and the writings of Aurobindo Ghosh. The latter made a lasting impression on his mind, providing his political activism with a religious side.

The profound Impact that Aurobindo Ghosh had on Subhash Chandra Bose is reflected in his autobiography: "In my undergraduate days, Aurobindo Ghosh was easily the most popular leader in Bengal... a mixture of spirituality and politics had given him a halo of mysticism and made his personality more fascinating to those who were religiously inclined... We felt convinced that spiritual enlightenment was necessaly for effective national service..."

It is, therefore, not surprising that he should have also been influenced by Bankim Chandra Chattergee's construction of nationalism. And like Aurobindo Ghosh, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Indian nation for him extended beyond the geographical to the devotional plane. During his college days he discovered the wretchedness of not India but "impoverished Mother India."

A quintessential Hindu

Curiously, his view of the other India, the one which appears so distant from Hauz Khas village and is ignored by the votaries of "globalisatlon" who derive masochistic pleasure from the rapacious behaviour of free market economics and pine for Kentucky Fried Chicken, is not different from that of the BJP. For, "the picture of real India", which Subhash Chandra Bose described as "the India of the vlllages where poverty stalks the land, men die like flies, and illiteracy is the prevailing order", is also the India which the BJP believes should receive priority over that India which revels in rejecting anything that carries the label "Made in India", including Hindu spirituality and religious philosophy.

In his book, 'Brothers Against The Raj', Leonard A. Gordon writes about Bose's quest for a religious philosophy to serve as the core of nationalism and sustain his political activism: "Inner religious explorations continued to be a part of his adult life. This set him apart from the slowly growing number of atheistic socialists and communists who dotted the Indian landscape." And It was this "religious exploration" that set apart Subhash Chandra Bose from Jawaharlal Nehru for whom "this was vain quest". Although Bose scrupulously avoided publishing his faith or his quest, he remained firm in his belief that "Hinduism was an essential part of his Indianness", his Bharatiyata. In other words, he subscribed to what is now considered politically incorrect--cultural nationalism or, call It If you must by its other name, Hindutva.

This did not, however, make him a bigoted Hindu, nor did It propel him towards Hindu orthodoxy. Commenting on "definite Hindu streak in Bose's dislike for Gandhi", Nirad C. Chaudhuri records in his memoirs, 'Thy Hand! Great Anarch', "He was in no sense a bigoted or even orthodox Hindu. But he had grown up in the first two decades of the twentieth century in Bengal,where, owing to the influence of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda, there was a fusion of religion and nationalism, so that the nationalist feeling had a pronounced Hindu complexion and Hinduism a pronounced political character".

After two months of hectic negotiations, the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday announced its seat-sharing formula with the Republican Party of India (Ramdas Athavale group) with a promise to give the latter a share in the pie of the country’s richest civic body.

The Sena and the RPI have come together for the second time, after the 1967 civic polls when RPI was a single unit. The Sena will contest 135 seats, BJP 63 and RPI 29. In 2007, the BJP had 72 seats and the Sena 155. Since the alliance with RPI was a proposal mooted by the Sena after Athavale spoke to Sena chief Bal Thackeray, the latter has given up 20 seats - including a seat where they have a corporator but its reservation has been changed from OBC to Women (SC).

The RPI has got three seats it had won in 2007 and it will largely be fighting against Congress and Samajwadi Party corporators. The Sena has given two seats won by Arun Gawli’s Akhil Bhartiya Sena (ABS) in Byculla to RPI.

Athavale, who was insisting on one more seat from Sena till Wednesday night, has now been pacified with the promise of a post in the civic body and hopes of more during the 2014 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The Sena has asked Athavale to deal with miffed Dalit Panther leader Namdeo Dhasal, who did not attend the press conference.

“This alliance was necessary and historical... and a dream of many years... The decision is not just for elections. We have come together to fight the corrupt Congress government,” Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said.

The BJP and BSP on Monday disrupted proceedings in the Rajya Sabha demanding inclusion of life of freedom fighter Rani Avantika Bai in the school curriculum leading to two adjournments.

The Upper House was first adjourned for 15 minutes as BJP joined the protest by BSP members, who said the government had rejected their demand in this regard.

Rani Avantika Bai was a Lodhi warrior-queen in the princely state of Ramgarh, now in Madhya Pradesh. She had fought against Britishers in 1857 and sacrificed her life.

Trouble began after Ganga Charan (BSP) said during Zero Hour that in reply to his question earlier this month the government had expressed inability to include the life of Rani Avantika Bai in the school syllabus.

He said government's explanation was that school students were already overburdened. Joined by his party colleagues and BJP members, he asked how freedom fighters can become burden.

Even while Deputy Chairman A Rahman Khan asked for order, the BSP members trooped into the well. Khan adjourned the House for 15 minutes.

When it re-assembled, some BJP members again trooped into the well as their Deputy Leader SS Ahluwalia demanded that HRD Minister Kapil Sibal should be immediately called.

BJP members resorted to slogan shouting, "Insult to freedom fighters will not be tolerated."

Both Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla and Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said they would convey the sentiments of the agitated members to the HRD Minister. But it did not satisfy the Opposition and BSP.

Khan said there was a translation mistake in the reply and it would be corrected. However, BSP and BJP insisted on a specific commitment from the government on their demand. Amid din, Khan adjourned the House till 2 pm.

After two months of hectic negotiations, the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday announced its seat-sharing formula with the Republican Party of India (Ramdas Athavale group) with a promise to give the latter a share in the pie of the country’s richest civic body.

The Sena and the RPI have come together for the second time, after the 1967 civic polls when RPI was a single unit. The Sena will contest 135 seats, BJP 63 and RPI 29. In 2007, the BJP had 72 seats and the Sena 155. Since the alliance with RPI was a proposal mooted by the Sena after Athavale spoke to Sena chief Bal Thackeray, the latter has given up 20 seats - including a seat where they have a corporator but its reservation has been changed from OBC to Women (SC).

The RPI has got three seats it had won in 2007 and it will largely be fighting against Congress and Samajwadi Party corporators. The Sena has given two seats won by Arun Gawli’s Akhil Bhartiya Sena (ABS) in Byculla to RPI.

Athavale, who was insisting on one more seat from Sena till Wednesday night, has now been pacified with the promise of a post in the civic body and hopes of more during the 2014 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The Sena has asked Athavale to deal with miffed Dalit Panther leader Namdeo Dhasal, who did not attend the press conference.

“This alliance was necessary and historical... and a dream of many years... The decision is not just for elections. We have come together to fight the corrupt Congress government,” Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said.

Athavale said he had broken his long alliance with the Congress as it used to forget RPI after coming to power and hoped that the Sena would not do the same. “We are satisfied with the seat sharing; both parties had to face difficulties to give us seats. We had asked one more seat yesterday but due to a local combination, there are difficulties in getting that seat. We then took a decision that the alliance should not break due to seat sharing. Our aim now is 2014.”

The Sena and the BJP have exchanged three seats, including ward number 134 in Chembur over which there were fights within the BJP earlier this week. The BJP has given ward numbers 71, 134 and 192 to Sena and got 62, 110 and 206 in return. Though neither party had won these seats in 2007, they are being exchanged to accommodate leaders affected due to change in reservation.

BJP state president Sudhir Mungantiwar said the alliance was reached to best protect the interest of Mumbaikars. “We will show them the Khadakwasla way. We will not let the Cong-NCP enter Mumbai.”

Gujarat gov wins UNPSA (United Nations Public Service Award)

We feel privileged to inform you that this year’s United Nations’ Public Service Award (UNPSA) has come to our country. The Chief Minister’s Office of Gujarat has been recognized by the UNO through this award (2nd place) for its contribution “towards improving the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of public service”. This award has come in recognition of Gujarat Chief Minister’s ICT based grievance redressal system called ‘SWAGAT’ (State Wide Attention on Grievances by Application of Technology). This system was adjudged by the United Nations to be a global model for improving Transparency, Accountability and Responsiveness in Public Service. This online grievance redressal system is conceptualized, developed and implemented by the Chief Minister’s Office itself. It is running successfully for last seven years and has been a boon for the users who are the common people of the State. For us, this award is a continuing journey towards excellence.

Vijaya Nagar, Hubli

The town of Hubli was swathed in saffron owing to the Path Sanchalan or Route March held as part of Hindu Shakti Sangama. The Sanchalan received an overwhelming response from citizens. It was carried out in different parts of Hubli and Dharvad, with 4 different groups consisting of 5000-8000 Swayamsevaks in each. 3 otherSanchalans also joined in a confluence at the Kitturu Chennamma Circle, Hubli.

Thousands of citizens teemed on both sides of the entire stretch of roadway to welcome Swayamsevaks with flowers, slogans and saffron flags. Slogans of Vande Matharam and Bharat Mata ki Jai reverberated eternally.