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BHOPAL: Besides Congress almost entire Left, Progressive and liberal forces have rallied round Digvijaya Singh backing his fight against Pragya Thakur. Pragya Thakur has been sponsored by the BJP against Digvijaya Singh, Congress candidate for the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat.

After five years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi representing Varanasi, has the constituency changed for the better? Has it become cleaner? Has it been transformed into a Kyoto as Modi had promised? Are the weavers better off? Is the air less polluted? Has the river Ganges become cleaner? Is the infrastructure better? The jury will be out on May 23, when results come. Modi filed his nomination on April 26 to represent Varanasi for the second time. He has stuck to Varanasi and the Modi frenzy was in full swing at the mega road show on April 25.

The ‘Yeti’ did a recce of an Indian Army mountaineering expedition’s base camp at Makalu and then without disturbing the sleep of the olive-uniformed climbers went away silent as a snowfall in the dead of night leaving behind for proof of its night-time incursion and evidence of existence only a footprint of massive size, 32x15”.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The post-election scene in Kerala has heated up with a flaming row erupting over bogus voting allegedly by the CPI(M) and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

As the election moves to the last three phases, the turn out during the fourth phase has not been encouraging for the BJP. Like the third phase, the fourfth phase has been quite crucial for the saffron party. In this phase of the 17th Lok Sabha election, 72 constituencies across nine States and including parts of Anantnag in Jammu and Kashmir went to the polls. The NDA has won 56 seats out of the 71 seats. This time the polling was around 64 per cent, a net drop of nearly 2 percent from the 2014 turn out.

Pre poll survey for 2019 Lok Sabha election predicts a victory for Modi. An impression has been created by the media, especially the TV channels that he will return to power. Prediction does not deserve outright rejection. But the past experience make one skeptical of its credibility.

Even before the February Balakot strikes, the opinion polls conducted always had lucidly stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was well ahead of other opposition leaders like Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, BSP supremo Mayawati et al. Obviously, after the February Pulwama terror attack and the subsequent developments pushed nationalism ahead of other critical issues. Undoubtedly, the ruling BJP is the first and foremost beneficiary of these developments.

One of the BJP’s general secretaries, Ram Madhav, who is on loan from the RSS to the party, has said that Parliament will take the final decision on the future of Article 370 relating to Kashmir.

Indian billionaires are far outpacing the country’s industrial and economic growth numbers. Notably, the number of individuals in the Barclays Hurun India Rich List, 2018, having a minimum wealth of Rs.1,000 crore, grew by a 100 percent since 2016 to a record level of 831. India’s private wealth creation rate is, ironically, now all-time high despite rupee depreciation, rising crude oil prices and fall in industrial investment. The number of unicorns — any tech startup company that reaches a $1-billion dollar market value as determined by private or public investment — have crossed 20 for the first time. Interestingly, the pharmaceutical sector accounted for the most of wealthy entrepreneurs in the country’s fast growing list of rich individuals, followed by the software and services sectors. The average wealth of these super rich Indians in the Barclays list is around Rs. 5,900 crore.

The fourth phase and it stands alone. Three gone and, after this one, three more left. And the fourth has its importance, especially to the Bharatiya Janata which had in 2014 won 70% of the seats where elections took place in this fourth phase of 2019. The attention, however, was on Begusarai in Bihar where JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was in the fray on a CPI ticket against Union minister Giriraj Singh; Asansol in west Bengal where Union minister Babul Supriyo’s car was vandalized and he entered polling booths to confront presiding officers who he alleged were in cahoots with Mamata’s Trinamool.