View Articles

If this was the ‘semi-final’, what will the ‘final’ throw up? BJP and Amit Shah and Narendra Modi have a thing on their shoulders, and it’s a monster – the nightmare of a 2019 defeat! A count of loss of votes in the Lok Sabha seats of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will give an indication. There is also talk of which of the two, Narendra Modi or Yogi Adityanath, managed to halt the skid in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in the last week of campaigning. In Chhattisgarh, both failed to make any impact, Raman Singh’s glowing cheeks notwithstanding.

The underlying story around the sudden resignation of the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not about what has happened, but what hasn’t.

The police of Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh has succeeded to eliminate a good number of Maoist cadres, but they could not quite break the backbone of Maoists in Chhattisgarh, despite severe repression using the state machinery and putting a number of innocent people in jail for being sympathisers of the Maoists.

What does the crystal ball say about the year 2019? The Lok Sabha polls and the electoral fortunes of many political parties including the ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress will dominate the year. The fortunes of some regional satraps like Naveen Patnaik, N. Chandra Babu Naidu and Pavan Kumar Chamling will also be decided as some states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh will also go to polls at the same time. Naveen Patnaik of Odisha will be bidding for power for the fifth time, Naidu of Andhra Pradesh for the second time since bifurcation and Chamling of Sikkim for the sixth time.

The Congress’s revival after having hit the lowest point in its history in 2014 is the big takeaway from the assembly election results. By the same token, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) hope of ushering in a Congress-mukt (free) India has been dashed, along with its dream of reigning from panchayats to parliament for the next 50 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lost his mojo after the devastating reverses faced by the BJP in the three of its ruling states- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The Modi magic is gone and ominous signals have been given to the BJP by the people of the Hindi speaking states five months before the scheduled elections for the Lok Sabha. Prime Minister and the BJP President Amit Shah tried every trick to win the elections in its so called strongholds and mobilized massive resources and RSS muscle power. Even in the last part of the campaign, Prime Minister stooped too low by openly telling in the meetings that Sonia Gandhi and her family would be named by the extradited Augusta Westland deal middleman Mitchell as the recipient of the bribes. The hearing was just on and there was no such possibility but the PM tried to influence the voters. He failed.

‘Can Mandir and Vikas go together?’ is the question gaining traction after the VHP rally the other day in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, which was less a ‘Dharam Sansad’ and more a ‘Dharam (in) Sankat’ congregation. If the BJP loses Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh besides Rajasthan, ‘Mandir Wahin Banaenga’ will be all that is left to even think of a second term for Modi. December 11 will decide not only Ram’s fate, it will also determine Modi’s future.

It’s my deal or no deal is the unwelcome message that Theresa May’s little helpers have been carrying to the far corners of Torydom over this weekend. Gin and tonic-fuelled discussions in the bars of Conservative clubs up and down the shires is perhaps not the most accurate measure of Britain’s mood. But these ministerial missions to this least representative loci of public opinion are more about framing a consensus — any kind of consensus — among the warring tribes of Tory MPs than any more ambitious political project.

BHOPAL: Both the major parties, Congress and BJP, are suspecting that attempts may be made to disrupt the counting tomorrow. Surprisingly, no less a person than Chief Minister Shiv Raj Singh Chouhan has asked party men to remain alert. Expressing confidence that BJP will be able to form the government in Madhya Pradesh for the fourth time, the chief minister urged BJP workers to be vigilant, saying Congress may create hurdles during counting.

The BJP has a running grudge that the exit polls have been consistently under-projecting its tally in all elections since 2014. It is worth recalling the exit polls had forecast a BJP government in the 2015 assembly elections, but when the actual counting began the Mahagathbandhan won. The psephologists had written off the RJD, Cong and Nitish’s JD(U) at that time.