The Hindu : Coop. movement is Cong. strength in M.P.: Arjun Singh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 27, 2003

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Coop. movement is Cong. strength in M.P.: Arjun Singh

By Lalit Shastri

BHOPAL APRIL 26. The cooperative movement in Madhya Pradesh has received a shot in the arm with the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, approving at the State-level cooperative convention held here yesterday the senior Congress leader, Arjun Singh's statement that the party has continued to retain its winning edge after being defeated in the 1977 elections due to the strength it has been drawing from the cooperative movement.

Mr. Singh's observation followed by his appreciation of the role being played by the Madhya Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister, Subhash Yadav, for strengthening the cooperative movement in the State is being viewed with special interest in Congress circles here. Mr. Singh, it may be recalled, had put his entire weight behind Mr. Yadav's candidature for the Chief Minister's post after the party had won the 1993 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.

At yesterday's rally, Mr. Singh had a word of praise for his "colleagues'' spearheading the cooperative movement in the State which had helped the Congress and Indira Gandhi return to power in 1980 and win 1993 polls. Mr. Singh said that it was only through the "cooperative endeavour'' that the Congress has been able to retain its base in Madhya Pradesh.

Mr. Singh was himself the architect of the "tendu leaf policy'' as the Chief Minister between 1980-85 under this policy, the entire tendu leaf trade was brought under cooperatives and the tendu leaf pluckers were freed from the clutches of middlemen and traders.

Following this initiative, the Congress had also won the 1985 State Assembly election under Mr. Singh's leadership. The BJP, which had come to power in Madhya Pradesh in 1990 riding on the "loan waiver'' plank, could not return to power for the second term after the post-Ayodhya riots since the then BJP regime led by Sunderlal Patwa had tried to change the tendu leaf policy to suit the traders' interests. The Arjun Singh supporters point out that the spirit of tendu leaf policy now gets reflected in the Madhya Pradesh Government aiming at ensuring the tribals' right over "Jal-Jungle-Jameen'' (water, forest and land).

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Coop. movement is Cong. strength in M.P.: Arjun Singh