Free power not getting votes: States

Chief ministers of several states today said free power was not necessarily the route to electoral victory with only one ""Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh ""admitting that reversal of a policy of providing free power cost his party dearer in the Lok Sabha elections.

Speaking at a panel discussion organised by India Today, all chief ministers present at the meeting, agreed that the Forest Conservation Act, especially the interpretation of a 'forest' as arrived at by the Supreme Court in 1988, needed to be reviewed.

Several chiefs ministers disagreed with the central policy of bypassing the state government in providing funds directly to panchayats and pointed out that if states were to be split up into smaller entities, the division of assets and liabilities had to be equitable.

Moderated by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, the chief ministers of Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh and former chief minister of Orissa, JB Patnaik, and Amar Singh, representative of UP chief minister and rural development minister of Kerala, KV Thomas, attended the conclave.

On the issue of whether good economics was also good politics and specifically free power, while AP Chief Minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy defended the decision on the grounds that farmers should not think they are beggars and when they were distraught, they needed to be subsidised, both Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati said that it was not free power that was the issue but the quality of the power.

Former Chief Minister of Orissa, JB Patnaik said that Orissa was a pioneer in power reform and did not believe in free power. This view was echoed by Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh who said his state was surplus in power but had never provided power free cost.

Amarinder Singh said that when his party had no option but to partially withdraw the facility of free power - because the state couldn't afford it - it lost the election. Former Planning Commission NK Singh, in an intervention in the question and answer session called for a policy on basic issues like power, cutting across party lines, preventing the politicisation of such an important issue.

On the issue of forests, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said his state had suffered because with 44 per cent vforest cover, infrastructture could not be developed in the state on account of protection to forests provided by the Forest Conservation Act. Um Bharati said Madhya Pradesh faced similar problems and sought some flexibility for state governments to take decisions regarding cutting of forests. Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling echoed this view. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh said it was the Supreme Court's interpretation of a forest that needed to be reviewed. He said half of Bhopal came under a revenue forest and the nagpur airport could not be developed because it had a revenue forest on its land.

Most chief ministers and former Chief Ministers opposed direct funding for panchyats bypassing state governments on the grounds that it diluted the state government's 'power" (prabhutva), except Uma Bharati who said she welcomed it.