Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s allegation – that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had used the Navy’s aircraft carrier INS Viraat as a personal taxi for going on a family vacation – has been strongly rebutted by the Congress. It is PM Modi, the Congress said, who uses Air Force jets as his “own taxi”, paying “as low as Rs. 744” for trips during the election. The Prime Minister, the party said, is “scared’ of his “own sins” and is pointing fingers at others.

Citing a media report at a press conference today, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “You have made Indian Air Force jets your own taxi! You have paid as low as Rs. 744 for using IAF jets for election trips!” Mr Surjewala said.

The media report, based on an RTI, said the BJP paid Rs. 1.4 crore to the IAF for 240 “non-official domestic trips” made by PM Modi since the start of his tenure as prime minister till January 2019. “In some cases, the amount paid seemed to be quite low. For example, the BJP paid Rs. 744 for a trip by PM Modi on January 15, 2019,” the report said.

At a rally in Delhi yesterday, PM Modi had said “Rajiv Gandhi and his family” had used the aircraft carrier INS Viraat to go on a vacation.

Even his in-laws were on board, he said, and that “Navy personnel were put on service of Rajiv Gandhi and his family while they were vacationing at the island”. INS Viraat, he said, “was also stationed at the island for 10 days during that time”.

Union minister Arun Jaitley on Friday launched a blistering attack on Congress over Sam Pitroda’s remarks on the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, saying it was reflective of a “lack of remorse”. The finance minister also dared Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to sack “his guru” for the statement.

Pitroda had kicked up a storm when asked about the 1984 riots in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, saying “hua toh hua”. As the BJP latched onto his statement in the middle of a slugfest over Rajiv Gandhi’s legacy, Pitroda sought to clarify his comment.

Truth is being distorted, lies are being amplified through social media and targeted People are systematically being intimidated. However, truth will always prevail and lies will be exposed. It is just a matter of time. Have patience,” he tweeted.

In a series of tweets, Jaitley slammed the grand old party and said that it is a matter of disgrace that the Congress has “no remorse” over the 1984 massacre. “Will the Congress President oust his ‘Guru’, who rubbishes the genocide of India’s most patriotic community in 1984?” he wrote.

BJP chief Amit Shah too lambasted Pitroda on Twitter. “Agony of the entire Sikh community. Suffering of all those Sikh families killed by Congress leaders in 1984. Attack on Delhi’s secular ethos. All summed up in these three words by Sam Pitroda – Hua To Hua. India will never forgive #MurdererCongress for its sins.” 

Union minister Prakash Javadekar said Pitroda’s comments were “shocking” and nobody could have expected it.

“Genocide was a gruesome thing that happened to India. At that time, (then prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi justified it by saying that when big tree fails, earth tremors,” Javadekar said. “The science says exactly the opposite that when earth tremors, big tree falls. This is what science is.”

The BJP leader accused the Congress of toying with public sentiments. “Pitroda was Rajiv’s colleague and Rahul’s guru. If the guru is like this, how will the ‘chela’ (disciple) be? This is what is Congress doing… completely insensitive of public feelings.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday dared West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to arrest him for chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’, a day after three people were taken into police custody in Ghatal Lok Sabha seat for allegedly mouthing the slogan as her convoy passed by.
A video showing Banerjee fuming at some villagers in West Midnapore district for chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ along a highway on Saturday afternoon has gone viral on social media.

Addressing a rally here, the prime minister also slammed CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury for his “derogatory” remarks against Ramayana and Mahabharata.
“It has become a fashion for communists to use derogatory language against Hindu religion,” he said.
Yechury recently branded religious epics Ramayana and Mahabharata as specimens of Hindu violence.
The Ramayana and Mahabharata are “filled with instances of violence,” the CPI(M) leader had said.

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today declared that she has not returned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s calls to discuss Cyclone Fani, as she “does not want to share dais with expiry-PM”.  Earlier today, PM Modi had accused Ms Banerjee of “playing politics” over cyclone relief, triggering a political storm over the superstorm that left a trail of devastation across Odisha and parts of Bengal over the weekend.

At a rally in Bengal’s Tamluk today, PM Modi said he had tried to dial the Chief Minister before the cyclone hit as he felt “worried” about the people of Bengal.

“I tried to talk to Mamata Didi before the cyclone hit, but such was her arrogance that she refused to talk to me,” said the Prime Minister, who held an aerial survey of the affected areas in Odisha and met its chief minister, Naveen Patnaik this morning.

He underscored the point in a Hindi tweet later. “I waited, expecting her to call me back. But she did not. Still, I called her again.  I was worried about the people of Bengal, and wanted to speak to Mamata Didi. But Didi did not speak to me the second time either,” it read.

Speaking at a rally from Bengal’s Bishnupur, Mamata Banerjee said she could not take the call as she was in Kharagpur, a town near Kolkata, to monitor the ground situation, while the Prime Minister was out campaigning.

But to clarify her stance, she added, “I don’t want to share dais with expiry-PM as elections are on” – “expiry PM” being the term she coined to underscore her claim that the Prime Minister’s term in office has expired and he won’t come back in power.

Later, at a rally in Jhargram, she said PM Modi was supposed to address a rally in the neighbourhood earlier today.

“Instead, he lands at Kalaikunda and wants to hold a meeting on cyclone damage. But why should we attend? He is coming for campaigning and he wants to hold an official meeting, and then say that he had called but the state did not respond. Please be informed that during election, I will not share any platform with him. I do not consider him prime minister now. When the new prime minister comes, we will speak with that person,” she added.

The controversy was triggered by media reports that Ms Banerjee was upset that the Prime Minister had called Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and not her to get feedback on the state’s preparedness ahead of the cyclone.

The Election Commission (EC) Friday cleared Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in four complaints of alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), of which at least one decision was not unanimous.

The disagreement in the poll panel was on Shah’s speech in Nagpur on April 9 when he likened Wayanad, the second seat from where Congress president Rahul Gandhi is contesting, to Pakistan. The Commission’s decision favouring Shah, was taken by a 2-1 majority, The Indian Express has learnt.

(And this Rahul baba, for the sake of his alliance, has gone to such a seat in Kerala where when a procession is taken out, you cannot make out whether it is India or a Pakistan procession. You cannot make out, to such a seat he has gone).”

Shah said this in an apparent reference to a large number of Indian Union Muslim League flags (green in colour) seen during the procession when Gandhi filed his nomination papers from Wayanad on April 4.

“The matter has been examined in detail in accordance with the extant advisories, provisions of the Model Code of Conduct and after examination of complete transcript of speech of six pages sent by DEO (District Electoral Officer) Nagpur, Commission is of the view that in this matter no such violation of MCC or ECI’s instructions is made out,” states the EC’s reply to Congress leader Randeep Surjewala on the party’s complaint regarding Shah’s Nagpur speech.

With the EC’s clean chit in this case, there are now at least three decisions pertaining to complaints of alleged MCC violations by Modi and Shah that had one Election Commissioner registering his dissent.

 In the heat of election campaigning in Uttar Pradesh, the formal introduction of another member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, Avantika Nehru, went largely unnoticed.

Congress’ political arithmetic notwithstanding, Avantika Nehru’s political foray is significant in another way as it marked the end of a bitter family feud triggered three decades ago when Arun Nehru, a cousin of Rajiv Gandhi, rebelled and left the Congress.

But all that is history now. The hatchet was buried this week at an election meeting in Rae Bareli when Congress general secretary for UP East Priyanka Gandhi introduced Avantika Nehru to her mother’s constituency.

“Avantika Nehru is my sister and the daughter of former MP, the late Arun Nehru,” Priyanka Gandhi said at the election meeting in Sareni.

In the general election of 1980, Indira Gandhi won from two constituencies, Medak in Andhra Pradesh and Rae Bareli in UP. At the time, she took the decision of vacating Medak for her nephew Arun Nehru, who was a successful corporate executive, and decided to contest from the UP seat.

After Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Arun Nehru went on to become the internal security minister under the Rajiv Gandhi-led government. However, the bonhomie between Rajiv Gandhi and Nehru ended after the Bofors scandal, which tarnished the image of the Congress government.

After the fallout, Nehru joined hands with VP Singh and the Congress lost power in 1989. In 1999 Lok Sabha polls, Nehru was fielded by the BJP against Gandhi family loyalist Satish Sharma.

It was a speech delivered by Priyanka Gandhi, who canvassed for votes for the party during the election, which is said to have turned the tables in Sharma’s favour. In a scathing attack on Nehru, she said: “I have a complaint against you. A man who committed treachery while he was in my father’s ministry, who stabbed a brother in the back — answer me — how did you let such a man in here? How did he dare come here?”

Arun Nehru lost the elections to Sharma, who later vacated the seat for Sonia Gandhi. Years later, the two families did reconcile. When Arun Nehru was admitted to a Gurgaon hospital in 2013, the Gandhis visited him. When he passed away, his pyre was lit by Priyanka Gandhi’s son Rehan.

Coming full circle, it was a déjà vu of sorts when Priyanka Gandhi introduced Arun Nehru’s daughter in the election meeting of Rae Bareli.

BJP has fielded former Congress MLA Dinesh Singh against Sonia Gandhi. Not long back, Singh was a close associate of Priyanka Gandhi, but defected to the saffron fold last year.

In Rae Bareli, Priyanka Gandhi said, “People who touched my feet and said Didi we will always stand by your side, are contesting against my mother today.” One can’t help but reminisce her famous speech of 1999 that turned the fortunes of Arun Nehru.

One fallout of conducting the Lok Sabha polls in seven phases is that political parties, through their own commissioned exit polls, start getting an idea of how they are performing.

Accordingly, they recalibrate their campaign messaging in different phases, as BJP has been doing – from Pulwama to Pragya Thakur.

The media also conducts its own exit polls and adjusts its political commentary. All this seeps into the larger political grapevine – after the first few phases, a prominent news TV anchor suggested that the real election might begin after May 23.

No wonder there is a growing murmur after the first four phases of polling – possibly based on exit poll trends – that the BJP is not doing as well as expected even though it is expected to remain the single largest party. The opposition, the mahagathbandhan, is doing reasonably well in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP’s losses could be significant. This was further reinforced by Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh sharing a stage and sending a clear message of vote transfer among their voters.

The BJP is worried about this.

If BJP loses about 40  of the 80 seats in UP, as against the 71 seats it bagged in 2014 amidst a Modi wave, there is a real possibility that its overall tally gets confined to 180-190 and the NDA fails to cross the 220-225 mark.

This could happen realistically if the Congress manages to win an additional 40 to 50 seats in Hindi-speaking states as well as Gujarat, where it has largely been a one-on-one fight with the BJP.

So what happens if the NDA is confined to around 220 seats? In that event, Modi will try to woo the southern states where K. Chandrashekhar Rao of TRS, YRS Congress’ Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy or Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal could be new potential allies for the BJP. Modi may even try to win over the DMK, which is presently a part of the UPA.

Ahead of his visit to Rajasthan to address poll rallies today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared a brief clip of his last meeting in Jaipur on Twitter and said, “it is clear the state wants BJP”.

In the clip, people are seen waving at the prime minister with flashlight of their mobile phones on. 

“Looking forward to visiting Rajasthan today. Will be campaigning in Hindaun, Sikar and Bikaner. In order to gauge the mood of the state, here’s a short clip from my last rally in Jaipur. It is clear people of the sate want BJP,” Mr Modi tweeted.

At the end of the fourth phase of polling, Congress is confident of crossing the three-digit mark in the 17th Lok Sabha polls.

According to an internal assessment, Congress will significantly improve its tally compared to the 2014 election when it bagged just 44 of the 543 seats. That was its lowest tally in any Lok Sabha election, beating the previous low of 114 seats in 1999.

In 2014, Congress failed to open its account in 13 states, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Odisha, and could not cross the double-digit mark in any state. It did not get Leader of Opposition status as it failed to win 10% of total seats of House.

On the other hand, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became the first political party to secure an absolute majority on its own in 30 years by winning 282 seats.

The Congress’s evaluation for 2019 indicates gains in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab. But it is not expecting a good showing in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Delhi and the North-East.

The internal assessment is based on feedback from the ground in several Lok Sabha constituencies across the country, a Congress functionary familiar with matters said. The party is expected to revise its assessment after the final phase of polling on May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23. On record, Congress said people were voting for change and the fall of the BJP government at Centre was imminent, as evident from statements of PM Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

“Our first and foremost assessment comes from Modi’s desperation and nervousness… Sometimes, he indulges in abusive language against Congress president Rahul Gandhi, second day he says he is going to bring down an elected government in West Bengal through defection, and on the third day… he and his home ministry indulges in absolute rubbish of questioning Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship,” party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said. “It seems he is trying to hold on to every straw to somehow stop his boat from sinking.” Surjewala said the party’s second assessment comes from the observations of workers on the ground. “That is extremely encouraging and shows massive gains for Congress and allies and consequent losses for BJP,” he said.

Hours after BSP chief Mayawati accused the Congress of colluding with the BJP, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said she would rather die than benefit the BJP in this election. “I’ve not said I am putting weak candidates. I’ve said very clearly Congress is fighting this election on its own strength. I’d rather die than benefit BJP. We have chosen candidates that are either fighting very strongly or cutting BJP votes,” she said. 

One soldier was killed and another injured in a gunfight today at a central force base in Bagnan in West Bengal’s Howrah district. Central forces have been deployed in the region ahead of Lok Sabha polls for the Howrah constituency, which votes on May 6 in the sixth phase of elections.