.story-content span .story-content p .story-content div color:#000!important;font-family: open sans Arial!important;font-size:15px!important ALSO READ East turns Right? 10 takeaways of Tripura Meghalaya Nagaland poll results Poll Results LIVE: Hung Assembly in Meghalaya Cong single largest party Meghalaya saves Congress the blushes party may now try political courtship Northeast Assembly election results 2018: BJP read the tea leaves right span.p-content div id = div-gpt line-height:0;font-size:0 The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday expanded its footprint further in India s ethnically and religiously diverse Northeast by ousting the Left Front government in Tripura and was on its way to forming a coalition government in Nagaland. But Meghalaya threw up a hung Assembly with the incumbent Congress emerging as the single-largest party. With the BJP s improved performance in the Northeast it now runs governments in Manipur and Assam as well the Narendra Modi government will now need to face the challenge of delivering on the contentious Naga Accord. In Nagaland the BJP had contested the polls with the Neiphiu Rio-led Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP). On its own the BJP won a creditable 11 seats and 14.6 per cent if the votes. With its ally NDPP winning 15 seats the alliance fell short of the halfway mark. However Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said his party would form a coalition government with the Naga Peoples Front which won 27 seats four short of a majority in the 60-member Assembly. In Meghalaya the incumbent Congress won 21 seats. The National People s Party a BJP ally won 19 and the BJP won 2. The BJP improved its vote share to 9.6 per cent. However Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Ahmed Patel landed in Shillong to reach out to smaller parties to explore the possibility of forming the government and prevent a repeat of Goa and Manipur where the party had emerged the single-largest party but was beaten by a fleet-footed BJP in government formation. Until 2016 the BJP never had a government in any of the northeastern states. Efficient election management and electoral tie-ups made the BJP win the Assam Assembly polls in 2016. By the end of that year behind-the-scenes work helped it form the government in Arunachal Pradesh. While the Congress emerged the single-largest party in Manipur in the 2017 Assembly polls the BJP had reached out to smaller parties to form the government in that state. As the results trickled in on Saturday the Tripura verdict brought much cheer to the BJP leadership. It had defeated its ideological enemy the CPI (M) which has won elections successively in the state since 1993. The Congress vote share collapsed from 36.53 per cent in 2013 to 1.8 per cent. The alliance of the BJP and Indigenous People s Front of Tripura (IPFT) was on course to win 43 of the 60 seats. The BJP along with its allies will now have governments in 21 states. But a jubilant party chief Amit Shah said the BJP s golden era would be when its wrested West Bengal Odisha and Karnataka from rival parties. The Karnataka Assembly polls are scheduled for April-May. Aware that the BJP and its ally the National People s Party might struggle to cobble a coalition Shah ruled out the possibility of his party engaging in horse-trading in Meghalaya. Where is the question of tod-phod (horse-trading). The Congress does not have a majority there he said. Shah said the wins were an endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi s leadership. Assam minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma said Tripura s outgoing chief minister Manik Sarkar could take shelter in West Bengal Kerala or neighbouring Bangladesh. In a statement the CPI (M) said the BJP utilised massive deployment of money and other resources to influence the elections . It said the BJP was able to consolidate all the anti-Left votes and virtually appropriated the erstwhile main opposition party the Congress. The CPI (M) politburo thanked the 45 per cent of Tripura voters who voted for the Left parties. The defeat for the CPI (M) comes at a time of an internal battle between former party chief Prakash Karat and current chief Sitaram Yechury. The party conclave in Hyderabad in the later part of April is set to discuss the party s attitude towards electoral understandings with other secular democratic parties for the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP s wins in the Northeast tie well with its plans to compensate any losses it might suffer in northern India by winning seats in some of its electorally weaker areas.
The landslide victory that the Bharatiya Janata Party got in the northeastern state of Tripura has rattled Kerala the most. The saffron party s first ever victory over the Communists has not only shaken the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) but also the Congress-led opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) in the southern state. The two fronts which have been ruling the state alternately for the last three decades were contenting themselves that the secular-minded people of Kerala will not allow BJP to sell its Hindutva agenda in the state. Thiruvananthapuram-based political analyst Jacob George said the BJP had exploded this myth in the Assembly elections by ending the quarter-century communist rule in Tripura and taking the party close to power in the two minority-dominated states of Nagaland and Meghalaya. BJP supporters hold up a placard of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after party s victory in Tripura Assembly elections results in Agartala on Saturday. PTI He pointed out that the saffron party had achieved this without playing the communal cards that it used effectively to conquer the Hindi belt. Jacob attributed BJP s success to its master campaign tactics and willingness to join hands with anybody including divisive forces. BJP wiped out Congress in Tripura by buying its top leaders and then made inroads into the Communist bastions by highlighting the raw deal the people received from the 25 years of Communist rule. If the party adopts the same tactics in the state it will be able to capture power in Kerala Jacob told Firstpost. Dhanraj another political analyst pointed out that the saffron party was able to make inroads into all regions of Tripura including the Bengali belt by projecting an alternate development agenda that would bring jobs to youths and better living conditions to the common man. BJP in Kerala has been focusing its attention on political issues so far. The party will be able to sway the youths and the middle class if it presents a credible development agenda before the people who have been voting for either front in the absence of a third alternative he added. BJP national president Amit Shah who is considered as the architect of the party s victories in at least a dozen states has signalled that his next target is Kerala. Dhanraj feels Shah may adopt the same strategy he has experimented successfully in Tripura in Kerala too. This will be catastrophic for both the fronts since they have not been able to break the development jinx in the state. Both have been resting on the laurels of the past achievements on the social front. With these achievements showing signs of crumbling in the absence of corresponding growth in the productive sectors disenchantment against the two is mounting among the people he added. The BJP has not been able to cash in on this as it did not have a leader with a wider appeal. The party s national leadership is trying to solve this problem by cultivating leaders like Alphonse Kannanthanam who belongs to the minority community which accounts for 46 percent of the population in the state. Political observers believe that he was promoted as a union minister with this objective in mind. The two dominant fronts have been going easy thinking that the BJP will affect the other. The optimism of the Congress was based on the calculation that BJP s alliance with Bharatiya Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) a new outfit of the lower caste Ezhavas will affect the CPM the most. The party believed that the alliance would take away the CPM votes since Ezhavas constituted the major chunk of the Communist cadre. But the local body elections in November 2015 and the Assembly polls in May 2016 proved its calculations wrong. The Congress was relegated to the third position in most places where the BJP made advances. This is one reason why the state unit of the CPM is opposing any understanding with the Congress tooth and nail. Jacob said that if the party does not recognise the danger posed by the BJP Pinarayi Vijayan will be last Communist chief minister in Kerala as predicted by Shah. The state leadership of CPM has been following a strategy of weakening the UDF by wooing its constituents. While the party has already brought the Janata Dal (U) out from the UDF it is trying to bring the Kerala Congress (M) which quit the Opposition coalition in the wake of the Assembly election into the LDF fold before the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The state leadership of the CPM believe that they will be able to continue in power as their counterparts in West Bengal and Tripura did earlier if the Congress is crushed. However a large section of the cadres believes it will pave the way for the BJP to capture power in the state. Party general secretary Sitaram Yechury who advocated electoral adjustments with the Congress and other secular parties to defeat the BJP and its communal agenda had viewed this as the result of parochial thinking on the part of the state unit. Terming it as suicidal at the state conference of the party last month Yechury had warned the state leaders not to consider the party as Communist Party of Kerala Marxist. Defending his line Yechury told the comrades that CPM was not what they perceive in Kerala and added that the party could not take a political line for the entire country based on one state or one group. Jacob believes that the huge setback the CPM has suffered in Tripura may force the state unit to have a rethinking on the stand they had taken on the political line at the central committee meeting at Kolkata in February. If they fail it will be described as another historic blunder at the coming party congress at Hyderabad in April he added. Jacob said that there was strong resentment among a large section of the cadres about the adamant stand the state unit had taken on the political line. Many of them believe that it is part of the widening power equations in the party than based on the ground realities. Jacob feels that the resentment will grow following the ignominious defeat the party has suffered in Tripura forcing the state leadership to change their stand. Indications in this regard came when CPM Ernakulam district secretary P Rajeev conceded that the party may have to think of strategies to check the BJP without affecting its support base in the state. Jacob thinks that the CPM as well as Congress will face extinction in the state if they were not ready to take a united stand to counter the BJP surge.
ALSO READ No NPA during PM Modi s rule: BJP Slogan Congress Mukt Bharat never aimed at one party: PM Modi PM hails state BJP for rising vote share in Bengal bypoll Rajasthan MLA attacks Modi hints at new party Rajasthan BJP to woo people for PM s rally with yellow rice span.p-content div id = div-gpt line-height:0;font-size:0 The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday said not a single loan given under Prime Minister Narendra Modi s rule has become a non-performing asset (NPA).Addressing a press conference here Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said These days the Congress has been asking too many questions about the NPAs. We have categorically said that not a single loan given under our rule has become NPA. Presenting figures the Union Minister further stated that the NPAs increased manifold under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. In 2008 the total advance given by the banks was Rs. 18.6 lakh crore. During the subsequent six-year rule of the UPA till March 2014 it rose to Rs. 52.15 lakh crore. Out of these advances 36 percent loans were identified as stressed assets. Now the stressed asset has risen to 82 percent out of that advances made in the UPA government Prasad said. There was one economist prime minister (Dr. Manmohan Singh) and one super economist was his finance minister (P. Chidambaram). The truth is that on the one hand there was no NPA during Prime Minister Modi s rule; and on the other hand advances increased but did not reflect in records under the UPA rule. As a result the stressed asset of 36 percent actually became 82 percent Prasad added.He also said that entire banking system in India went haywire under former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh s rule due to all kinds of interference in it. The BJP would like to say with a full sense of responsibility that under the so-called economist Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh the entire banking system was completely sought to be derailed because of interventions patronage and pressure Prasad said.The Union Minister said since Modi government came to power in 2014 the politics of confusion fear and concoction is the basis of the Congress campaign against it.(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Narendra Modi government s procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France under a deal in 2016 is actually cheaper than the one negotiated by the previous UPA government top government sources told The Indian Express. The report quoted sources as saying that the Rs 526 crore or approximately Euro 79 million per aircraft which the Opposition has been talking about is actually based on Rafale s 2007 bid at the then exchange rate. File image of a Rafale fighter jet. Wikimedia Commons Alleging a scam the Congress has been asking the government whether the per aircraft price of Rafale according to international bids opened on 12 December 2012 comes to 80.95 million (Rs 526.1 crore) as against the Modi government s per aircraft negotiated price of 241.66 Million (Rs 1 570.8 crore) as per current exchange rates. The UPA government floated a tender in 2007 for purchase of 126 MMRCA for the Air Force and post negotiations two of them Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon remained in the reckoning. However the deal could not be finalised by the UPA regime. Asked why NDA government did not go for Eurofighter Typhoon as it had offered a 25 percent price cut the sources said several European countries were involved in manufacturing of Eurofighter and France was preferred for the inter-governmental deal. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had also retaliated to the Congress allegations and said that the party was looking for a scam every day to throw mud on the corruption-free NDA government. The Congress wants to equate their corrupt and scam-hit UPA government with ours. So it is looking for a scam every day. Here we go there is one pick it up and throw mud and it is for us to keep wiping it and saying we are clean. I am sorry it is somewhat not so responsible way in which you want to criticise the government she had said. Sitharaman had also said there was no controversy over the Rafale deal as there was no deal under the UPA government. Let s get this out of our system that they (UPA government) had the deal and it was much better. Where was the deal under the UPA? There was just no deal. With inputs from PTI
KANPUR: Kanpur Dehat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rahuldev Agnihotri and his son thrashed a toll plaza employee in Uttar Pradesh s Akbarpur city. The incident took place on February 28 after Agnihotri was trying to cross the toll without paying and the employee did not let their vehicle pass through. In the CCTV footage one can see Agnihotri and his son forcefully entering the plaza and slapping the employee. Further details on this issue are awaited. In a similar incident months ago Vijay Charel husband of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA was caught thrashing a toll plaza employee in Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh. Vijay is the husband of Sangeeta Charel the BJP MLA from Sailana constituency. (ANI)
The Congress on Saturday termed the BJP s 20-page pictorial booklet expose charging the ruling party of ruining Bengaluru a lie. The party said the pictures were from Mizoram and Nepal. The Bharatiya Janata Party caught lying again! While Congress is working towards providing the best amenities for Bengaluru s citizens BJP is busy defaming and lying about the city tweeted Congress state unit s working president Dinesh Gundu Rao. While a picture claiming to display the garbage menace in the capital city Bengaluru was taken in Kathmandu by the American website npr.org another picture showing potholes was reportedly shot in Mizoram. Reacting to the Congress allegations that his party was lying BJP state spokesman Vamanacharya said the ruling party has lost its face after the booklet was released and was hence finding loopholes. Sometimes different pictures might look alike but the content of the booklet is entirely true. Congress has lost its face after the chargesheet was released by us and is now only looking for loopholes Vamanacharya told IANS here. BJP state unit in-charge and Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday had released the booklet listing the omissions and commissions of the ruling Congress government that allegedly ruined the city. Since the Congress came to power in 2013 Bengaluru has turned into a garbage city a crime city and a rape city from what it was known for greenery salubrious climate and IT prowess Javadekar had said. The Congress has made the city a hell to live in he had remarked. The BJP was demanding an answer from the ruling Congress for its maladministration that led to the city s infrastructure being ruined he asserted.
BHUBANESWAR: This is unprecedented such extensive preparation and arrangements may have never been made for any assembly bypoll in Odisha said Superintendent of Police Jai Narayan Pankaj in way summing up the three weeks of campaigning in Odisha s Bargarh district. Polling for the Bijepur assembly constituency will take place on Saturday. Results are to be announced on February 28 and could settle how 2019 fares for Naveen Patnaik s Biju Janata Dal and its new challenger the Bhartiya Janata Party. The district administration has decided to notify as critical 155 or more than half of the total 281 booths which will be provided with armed policemen. Pankaj who was appointed to the district earlier this month along with a new collector Yamini Sarangi pointed out that in 2014 when polling had last taken place in this constituency there were only 21 critical booths. Now you can understand how serious we are to ensure a free fair and transparent election he said addressing a press conference on Friday. In short the seat was thrice won by the Indian National Congress whose popular MLA Subal Sahu died last year. Sahu had in 2014 beaten veteran BJD leader Prasanna Acharya. His widow is now BJD s candidate while BJD leader waiting in the wings all these years has been snapped by the BJP. The saffron party which hopes to unseat Patnaik in 2019 did impressively well from this region in the rural polls last year. It needs to prove this wasn t a blip on account of the Congress sleepwalking through the 2017 panchayat polls. There was no let-up either in the BJD or the BJP s exhaustive and expensive efforts to win this https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/kkmyntra/about bypoll possibly the last before the next general and assembly elections. Five CRPF companies will be joined by 36 platoons of state police to ensure the polls take place without any more drama. Late on Thursday night the brother of the state Labour Minister and local leader Susant Singh traveling with three others was fired upon and injured in an attack that the party blames its political opponents for. A month before campaigning began unidentified men had opened fire on the house of a local BJP leader. Money and liquor have been seized and the Chief Election Officer of Odisha Surendra Kumar has received one and sometimes multiple complains almost every other day. Kumar wasn t spared either. The BJP has accused him of taking sides. The party whose campaign has been spearheaded by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan accused the CM s officers of misusing state machinery. The BJD in turn accused Pradhan of using his Ministry to shut a petrol pump. Earlier in the week slippers were thrown at the 71 year old leader CM who was spending two days in the district already hosting half his MLAs. Ironically the lowest point in the campaign may have been carried out by a random individual known to act nutty. Following the incident a nondescript village found the reserved Patnaik making a late night visit to plead for his candidate. Meanwhile the Congress which had thrice won this seat insists it is not a bystander. It s leaders claimed to be working overtime to make up for the delay in announcing their candidate. Said Congress leader Srikant Jena The question to ask is why is Naveen Patnaik so desperate to win this seat. After all his father whose footsteps he wants to follow in never campaigned for a bypoll.
No comments:
Post a Comment