Author: News Analysis India

The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress finds itself ship-wrecked on a 52-square metre sinking island infested with snakes and surrounded by crocodiles and sharks. That’s the grim picture for the Congress after the just-concluded general elections.

How could the 134-year-old Grand Old Party have done any better than its 52-seat tally, still three short of getting the leader of the opposition status, when it failed to open its account in 20 states and Union Territories (UTs) and could manage to get into double digits only in one state: Kerala? In sharp contrast, the BJP-led NDA won all the seats in 10 states and UTs, and polled more than 50 percent of votes in 15 states and UTs.

This raises the obvious questions about the survivability of the Congress party in general and Rahul Gandhi’s own future in particular. Yes, he offered to resign before the party’s apex decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC). But the 25-member CWC, dominated by loyalists of the Gandhis, rejected his resignation. Though media reports talk of Rahul still pushing the envelope of his resignation, the question is how would it affect the party anyway?

Amidst attempts to convince him to change his mind about stepping down as party president, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday held a meeting with his sister and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, and Congress communication head Randeep Surjewala.

Mr. Gandhi also separately met Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot at his 12, Tughlaq Lane residence. There may be more meetings in the evening even though there was no official word on it.

Though none spoke to the media, presence of both the Rajasthan leaders is being taken as an indication that Congress’ top leadership is reviewing why the party failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat in the State despite winning the Assembly elections just five months ago.

Upset with the party’s performance, Mr. Gandhi announced his decision to quit as party chief during last Saturday’s Congress Working Committee (CWC).

And in a rare outburst, Mr. Gandhi had blamed senior party leaders of putting their personal interest above party in these States. Theses leaders, the Congress chief pointed out, never moved beyond the seats of their sons.

While Mr Gehlot’s son, Vaibhav, unsuccessfully contested from Jodhpur, while Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s son, Nakul, won from Chhindwara and former Finance Minister P Chidamabaram’s son, Karti, won from Sivaganga.

The near wipe out of the Congress in the Hindi heartland — especially in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, where it is the ruling party — came under scrutiny of the CWC.

“The decimation of the party in the States where we are in power is a matter of serious concern. There is need for thorough introspection and corrective action,” Mr Surjewala had said at the official briefing soon after the CWC

In a big blow to Mamata Banerjee, two of her West Bengal MLAs and at least 50 TMC councillors on Tuesday defected to the BJP just days after the saffronparty made significant inroads in the state. A CPM MLA has also jumped ship to the BJP.
BJP leader Mukul Roy’s son Subhrangshu, who was suspended by the Trinamool for six years for “demeaning the party”, Trinamool MLA Tusharkanti Bhattacharya and CPM legislator Debendra Nath Roy are among those who have joined the saffron party.

They joined the BJP at the party’s headquarters in the national capital in the presence of BJP general secretary Kailash Vijaywargiya and Mukul Roy.
Mukul Roy is seen to be instrumental in engineering the defection of TMC leaders to the BJP. Political watchers believe that Roy is one of the key architects of the party’s best ever show in West Bengal, where TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is in power since 2011.
BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya had earlier announced that three MLAs and 50-60 councillors will join the BJP today and added that more defections are expected in the future.

This is perhaps the first time that the three members of the Gandhi family are terribly at odds. Rahul has reportedly been urged by mother Sonia and sister Priyanka to remain in office – they are completely against his quitting. Ahmed Patel, his mother’s closest aide, apparently warned him at today’s meeting that the Congress will split if a Gandhi does not helm it.

Rahul Gandhi so far has been inflexible. Sonia, who holds the distinction of the Congress’ longest-serving President, has given a giant hint about her feelings in a letter to her constituency Raebareli. She writes “I know that the coming days are going to be very tough, but I am fully confident that with the power of your support and trust, the Congress will meet every challenge.”

The letter was written on May 24, the day before Gandhi offered to quit. Congress leaders who I spoke to before writing this column say that Gandhi had discussed his determination to quit with his mother and sister. Top leaders present at the Congress Working Committee on Saturday, where Rahul Gandhi made his stand clear, told me that while Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was overwrought and emotional, Sonia Gandhi did not say a word.

Priyanka said her brother could not alone shoulder the blame for the election disaster. After her sibling finished speaking, she accused party leaders of not following his lead in the campaign – by ignoring his cue on the Rafale scandal, for example. “He got no support from all you. He fought alone and made Modi nervous. But, why did none of you back him and expose the government?” she reportedly said.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (seen here with Jyotiraditya Scindia at the CWC) has reportedly urged her brother Rahul Gandhi to remain in office

Sonia Gandhi has a one-line response to her son’s desire – the Gandhis do not quit public responsibility. She has reportedly said he has a huge legacy to live up to and must not duck the responsibility of ensuring that India’s oldest political party does not splinter.

Rahul Gandhi’s charge that the top leaders of the Congress only focused on perpetuating their family dynasties by putting up their sons for election and focusing on their campaigns while the Gandhi family got the flak as fifth-generation dynasts has become something of a conviction with him.

Two days after the Congress Working Committee ‘unanimously rejected’ party President Rahul Gandhi’s offer to reign, it appears that the leader is unlikely to change his mind about stepping down. Rahul Gandhi met with Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Ahmed Patel on Monday and conveyed that the party would have to find a new President as he would not give into pressure to continue in the top post.

Telegraph’s Sanjay K Jha also reported that Rahul Gandhi had insisted that the new President should be from outside the Congress’ first family, ruling out the idea of his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Vadra taking over. NDTV areported that despite their initial reluctance regarding his resignation, Sonia and Priyanka later agreed with Rahul. They both were of the opinion that Congress needed ‘a change of guard and a total reset’.  

One leader who was present at Saturday’s CWC meeting and quoted by Telegraph stated that Rahul had, however, made it clear that he would not be abandoning the party. “The essence of his argument, however, got lost in the concerns over his resignation. He said I am not going anywhere; I am going to fight harder. If you believe in my leadership, I don’t need any post to prove myself,” said the leader, who added that Rahul had said he would carry on with intense political campaigning while a new party chief looked after the organisation’s affairs.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is based on many stunning results. None is probably so compelling and puzzling as its phenomenal win in West Bengal. Almost all commentators, including the authors of this article, had underestimated the BJP’s performance by a wide margin.

From a seat count of two in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has increased its tally to 18 in 2019. Equally, if not more, impressive is the increase in its vote share from 16.8% in 2014 to 40.25% in 2019.

In this article, we provide some preliminary attempts to this make sense of BJP’s unprecedented victory in West Bengal. We do so by looking at the pattern of BJP’s vote share gain across regions and by studying the relationship between BJP’s gains and losses of the AITC (All India Trinamool Congress) and the LF (Left Front, comprising the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Revolutionary Socialist Party and All India Forward Bloc).

Our analysis highlights three factors that, in combination, led to these results. First, there was an unmistakable electoral wave in favour of the BJP. Second, the BJP could partially consolidate its gains in north Bengal. Third, and most importantly, the BJP gained (and the AITC lost) is a major way in the western part of the state – the Jangal Mahal area. Most commentators have so far focused on the first and second factors; we want to argue for the importance of the third.

Our argument is based on an analysis of vote shares of the key parties in West Bengal. We rely for our analysis on data provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on it website. Hence it is important to note a caveat at the very outset: any possible problem in the ECI data would automatically make our analysis incorrect.

Table 1 summarises the information we use for our analysis – it gives data on the winning party, BJP’s vote share and AITC’s vote share across all parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019.

The spatial pattern of the data is summarised in four maps. Figure 1 shows the spatial pattern of the seats won by different parties in 2014 and 2019; Figure 2 and 3 show the patterns of BJP’s and AITC’s vote share, respectively, in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls; and Figure 4 shows the spatial pattern of the change in BJP’s and AITC’s vote share between the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019. Finally, Figures 5 and 6, depict the relationship between BJP’s gain and losses of the Left Front and AITC. Together, the data presented in Table 1 and visually summarised in the figures can help us in making some sense of the results.

Changes in vote share across parties

The first thing worth noting is the massive scale and scope of the BJP’s victory. One way to see this is to look at the penultimate column in Table 1 or turn to the first panel in Figure 4. In noparliamentary constituency did the BJP witness a decline in its vote share between 2014 and 2019.

The lowest increase of 3.93 percentage points came in Baharampur, and the highest increase of 42.15 percentage points was witnessed in Purulia. Of course, both these constituencies are outliers in terms of the increase in BJP’s vote share. All other constituencies saw an increase of between 9 and 35 percentage points – with 19 constituencies witnessing an increase in BJP’s vote share by more than 25 percentage points.

Another way to highlight the scale and scope of BJP’s victory is to compare its vote share change with the AITC’s and Left Front’s vote share change.

BJP leader Mukul Roy described Trinamool Congress (TMC) president Mamata Banerjee’s offer to quit as the West Bengal chief minister following her party’s drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls as nothing but a drama to stay in the news. Banerjee would never step down from the chief minister’s post as she was more keen on relishing the powers of the chair, he said.

“Mamata Banerjee offering to quit is nothing but a drama. She said all these only to stay in the news headlines. To whom did she submit her resignation? She herself is the party (TMC). Has anybody seen her resignation papers?

“I think she submitted the resignation to herself and then rejected it on her own,” the BJP leader mocked while speaking to reporters here.

“She (Banerjee) is more keen on relishing the powers of chief minister and will never resign unless the people of West Bengal use their democratic rights to throw her out,” Roy, who was Banerjee’s right-hand man before joining the BJP, said.

Perhaps no other speech that Narendra Modi has made since he became Prime Minister in 2014 has been so widely appreciated as the one he delivered at the meeting of the newly elected MPs of the National Democratic Alliance on Saturday in the Central Hall of parliament. It indicated that he wants to change the substance, idiom and image of his second term in office.

Both admirers and critics could see the difference between Campaigner Modi and Captain Modi. After all, he had led the most polarising campaign in the history of parliamentary elections. But having won the renewed mandate, Modi, who will be sworn in as India’s PM for a new five-year term on Thursday, has struck a new, distinctly de-polarising tone.

His speech was truly praiseworthy on many counts – above all, on his new outreach to Indian Muslims. What he said on this count – and, more importantly, whether his actions match his fine words – will determine how history will judge the Modi Legacy.

There were two noteworthy points in his message to Muslims. First, he affirmed the need to win the ‘vishwas’ (trust) of Muslims. “Minorities”, he said,”have been deceived in the country through an imaginary fear created for the purpose of votebank politics. Humein is chhal ka vicchched karna hai. Humein vishwas jeetna hai (We have to pierce this deception. We have to gain trust.)” Second, he sought to drill a hole in a deeply-held belief and prejudice in his own ideological fraternity – namely, that Muslims are not “Us”, they are the “Other”. He said, “Ab hamara koyi paraaya nahinho sakta hai. Jo humein vote dete hain, woh bhi hamare hain; jo hamara ghor virodh karte hain, who bhi hamare hain. (Now we cannot see anyone as an outsider. Those who voted for us are ours. Those who severely oppose us are also ours.)”

Why has Modi undertaken this new and uncharacteristically direct outreach to Muslims? And why now? The second question is easily answered. Now that he has won a bigger and far more emphatic mandate, which is almost entirely a mandate for Modi and not for the BJP, he feels far more self-confident of steering his party and his government in the direction he wants. He does not even feel constrained by the ideological rigidities of the Sangh Parivar in this respect. The Sangh Parivar has to accept his line – and not the other way round. It is worth recalling here that, as Gujarat’s three-term Chief Minister, he had tamed the all-powerful Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other affiliates of the RSS in the state.

To know the answer to the first question, we should look at the compulsions as well as opportunities before Modi on both domestic and foreign policy fronts. The domestic compulsion is that with the voters’ expectations from him having soared sky-high, he has to perform to their satisfaction – especially on the economic front. The economy is not in a good shape. The demand for employment is pressing and widespread. The distress in agriculture remains unmitigated. And even though price rise was not much of an issue in the just-concluded elections, the likelihood of a spurt in oil prices (due to war-like tensions between USA and Iran) could add to the common people’s woes. In this situation, Modi understands the critical need for domestic peace, which can be breached by hardliners among his own supporters, making Muslims feel insecure. His words “Ab hamara koyi paraaya nahin ho sakta hai” is clearly directed at them.

The Varanasi visit comes three days before he takes oath after being re-elected as Prime Minister for a second term.

An LED screen was installed at the entrance of temple which live-streamed visuals from inside when he offered prayers. The chief priest performed a ritual with PM Modi.

PM Modi won from Varanasi by a huge margin of 4.79 lakh votes. He not only retained his seat, but also saw his victory margin increase by nearly a lakh votes as compared to 2014.

In a video message ahead of the May 19 polling, PM Modi had called himself a “Kashivasi (a resident of Varanasi)” and termed the city his guiding spirit.

PM Modi on Sunday met his 98-year-old mother in Ahmedabad. While there, he also held a rally and addressed the people of his home state, which he ruled as a Chief Minister for 13 years. He repeated that the election had a pro-incumbency wave. “After the sixth phase of polling, I had said that it’s 300 plus for us. When I said it, people mocked me. But the results are for everyone to see,” he said.

The BJP handed out a crushing defeat to the Congress and other opposition parties by bagging 303 out of 542 Lok Sabha seats that went to polls.

To facilitate refund investors from chitfund company Pearl Agrotech Corporation Limited, the Collector Dr. Basavaraju S. on the directives of the District Panchayat, all the district panchayat offices and all the zonal offices of Raipur municipal corporation have been started.

The last date of application for SEBI has been increased from April 30 to July 31. Collector Dr. Basavaraju S. has said that the applicants of Raipur district who have not been able to apply till date have been required to submit necessary documents in the service center for all the municipal zonal offices, district panchayat raipur or related district panchayat offices for their refund till July 31. Can be present online and apply online.

     The CEO of the District Panchayat said that in Raipur district, 3 thousand 362 people have so far submitted applications for obtaining claim amounting to 20 million 20 lakh 24 thousand 710 rupees. In this, 306 people of the Arang Janpad Panchayat have applied to them that 77 lakh 61 thousand 634 rupees have been deposited to PACL and Rs. 1 crore 76 lakh 54 thousand 912 have to get the claim amount. Similarly, 1221 people of Abhanpur Janpad Panchayat have applied for application that they have deposited 4 crore 17 lakh 32 thousand 360 rupees and they have to get the claim of 8 crore 42 lakh 79 thousand 946 rupees.

      897 people of Raipur have applied in which they have deposited Rs.3772 lakhs 18 thousand and they will get the claim of 6 crore 45 lakh 43 thousand 956 rupees.
In Beirgon, 255 people have deposited 87 lakhs, 22 thousand rupees and they have to get 90 lakhs of claimed and in Tilda district, 622 people have deposited 1 crore 37 lakh one thousand 220 rupees and they have to get Rs 2 crore 26 lakh 31 thousand 196 claims, 61 people of Dharsinva Janpad Panchayat have deposited 21 lakh 89 thousand 918 and they have 39 Millions of rupees 14 thousand 700 are required to get the claim.

    CDO said that the applicants who had not been able to apply till now had been present in these service centers with their PACL certificate and voucher, pen number, canceled check, applicant’s photo and bank account passbook at the time of the office for their refund. You can apply for free online application.