Posts tagged ‘Bharatiya Janata Party’

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09/04/2014

India’s Election Choice: Growth Economy or Welfare State – Businessweek

Indian elections aren’t known for their clarity. Messy, cacophonous affairs, they stretch across months and almost invariably result in fragmented verdicts. Political groupings are opportunistic, driven by personality rather than issues; competing party platforms are often indistinguishable.

A shopkeeper displays water sprinklers with portraits of Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi in Chennai, India<br />

This year’s parliamentary elections—the nation’s 16th since independence, running from April 7 to May 12—are proving an exception. The distinctions between India’s leading parties are unusually sharp; the race is shaping up as a genuine battle of ideas, a real debate over the direction of the nation.

India’s two main parties are led by men who in many ways couldn’t be more different. Rahul Gandhi, the standard-bearer for the ruling Indian National Congress party, is the scion of a distinguished family that includes three former prime ministers. At 43, he’s also the candidate of youth. Narendra Modi, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is ahead in most polls, is 63, a self-made man, and an experienced administrator who has served for more than 12 years as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. Gandhi espouses a brand of secular, inclusive politics; Modi is viewed with suspicion by many for a series of bloody communal riots that took place under his watch in Gujarat. (The Indian courts exonerated him of personal involvement.)

via India’s Election Choice: Growth Economy or Welfare State – Businessweek.

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07/04/2014

Two Visions for India’s Economy, Sort Of – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s national election, which kicked off Monday, is a contest of old-fashioned socialism versus market liberalism, of handouts to the poor versus pro-growth reforms that will benefit all. Right?

Sort of. At least judging by the two main contenders’ official platforms.

The Bharatiya Janata Party — out of power for a decade — looks set to win big this year, helped by its popular prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who promises to reboot India’s economy with a combination of smart policy and able administration.

But now that the BJP has at last released its election manifesto after multiple delays, it’s easier to see where exactly its economic policy ideas differ from the incumbent Congress party’s – and, perhaps more interestingly, where they don’t.

Both parties promise to revitalize India’s manufacturing sector, long a laggard amid the country’s economic rise. Both say they will implement a national goods and services tax, known elsewhere as a value-added tax. Both want to create a “single-window system” to expedite land, environmental, power and other approvals for investors. Both back the current system of food subsidies, though the BJP highlights that the program should be efficient and corruption-free.

And both parties want to build high-speed rail, stem inflation, modernize infrastructure, make housing affordable, create jobs, expand cities and make taxation more predictable. (Though the BJP wins style points for referring to retroactive taxes as “tax terrorism.”) The BJP even matches the splashiest item in Congress’s manifesto — a commitment to providing “universal and quality health care for all Indians” — with its own call for universal health care.

All of that said, the manifestos alone do give the BJP an edge in terms of structural reforms that many economists, businesses and investors have long craved from India’s government.

The party’s manifesto speaks of addressing “over-regulation” in business and “bottlenecks” in the delivery of public services. Its section on developing agriculture focuses more on investing in productivity-enhancing technology than on increasing government subsidies, which the Congress manifesto notes as a major achievement of its decade in office.

The BJP says it will “rationalize and simplify the tax regime,” which the party calls “currently repulsive for honest taxpayers.” The Congress manifesto merely reiterates its support for the Direct Tax Code, an earlier legislative effort to eliminate tax distortions and improve compliance that has stalled in Parliament’s lower house.

The BJP also says it will review India’s creaking labor laws, which it decries as “outdated, complicated and even contradictory.” The Congress manifesto, meanwhile, “recognizes the need for creating flexibilities in the labor market” while redoubling its commitment to “protecting the interests of labor through more progressive labor laws.” The World Bank said in a report last year that India’s “cumbersome and complex” labor policies “have unambiguously negative effects on economic efficiency.”

via Two Visions for India’s Economy, Sort Of – India Real Time – WSJ.

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07/04/2014

Facts and figures for India’s 2014 general election | India Insight

Voting in the 2014 election begins on April 7. More than 814 million people — a number larger than the population of Europe — will be eligible to vote in the world’s biggest democratic exercise.

Voting will be held in nine stages, which will be staggered until May 12, and results are due to be announced on May 16. Elections to state assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim will be held simultaneously.

Around 930,000 polling stations will be set up for the month-long election using electronic voting machines, first introduced in 2004.

Uttar Pradesh has the most eligible voters (134 million); Sikkim the lowest (about 362,000). Male voters constitute 52.4 percent of the electorate but women voters outnumber men in eight regions — Puducherry, Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram, Daman & Diu, Meghalaya, Goa and Arunachal Pradesh.

About 23 million eligible voters have been enrolled in the 18 to 19 age group, nearly 3 percent of India’s voters.

Of India’s 814.5 million eligible voters, 28,314 identify themselves as transgender and their gender is listed as “other”. There are 11,844 non-resident Indians registered to vote in the election this year.

Since introducing photo voter ID cards and electoral rolls in 2009, 98 percent of India’s eligible voters have the former, 96 percent have the latter.

Electronic voting machine security includes: transported under armed escort and stored in strong rooms, with a double lock system and guarded 24×7 by armed police, and CCTV coverage. Also, parties/candidates allowed to keep a watch on them.

Nearly 10 million officials (including police for security) will be deployed.

Uttar Pradesh has the most Lok Sabha seats (80) while the states of Nagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram and the union territories have one seat each.

A candidate can spend up to 7 million rupees ($116,350) for his election campaign in Delhi and all states except Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Sikkim. For these states and other union territories, the limit is 5.4 million rupees ($90,000).

A candidate for the Lok Sabha makes a deposit of 25,000 rupees ($415) at the time of filing the nomination. If the candidate fails to get a sixth of the total valid votes polled, this amount is forfeited. Nearly 85 percent of the candidates lost their security deposit in the 2009 election.

In the 15th Lok Sabha, around 78 percent of the members have a graduate, post-graduate degree or a doctorate.

Malkajgiri in Andhra Pradesh is the biggest Indian constituency in terms of voters with around 2.95 million electors; Lakshadweep is the smallest with 47,972 voters. In Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh, Hukani polling station has 22 registered voters. Officials travel 22 km on foot to get there.

In the 2009 election, 363 political parties took part. The Bahujan Samaj Party contested the maximum number of seats (500 out of 543), followed by the Congress (440) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (433).

The last general election had a voter turnout of over 58 percent. Nagaland (89.99 percent) had the highest turnout while Jammu & Kashmir (39.68 percent) saw the lowest.

Namo Narain of the Congress party beat his BJP rival by 317 votes in Rajasthan’s Tonk Sawai Madhopur constituency — the smallest margin of victory in the 2009 election.

“Basic Minimum Facilities” for polling stations include drinking water, shed, toilet, ramp for disabled voters.

Voters will have a “None of the Above” option on voting machines.

The indelible election ink that is applied while electors cast their votes is manufactured by Mysore Paints & Varnish Limited, a Karnataka government undertaking.

Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the favourite in opinion polls, which reflect waning support for Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party that wrested power from the BJP in 2004.

Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, will also be challenged by a clutch of regional parties that are vying for power as part of a “third front” opposed to both the Congress and the BJP.

Also in the race is Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, which made a stunning debut in Delhi elections last year and is now eyeing a national presence on the anti-corruption plank.

via Facts and figures for India’s 2014 general election | India Insight.

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26/03/2014

Congress Bets on Welfare Programs – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s Congress party is doubling down on welfare.

Facing what is shaping up to be a steep uphill battle to win a third term in office, Congress on Wednesday outlined a policy agenda that would expand healthcare, housing and other benefits for the poor and disadvantaged.

Rahul Gandhi, who is leading Congress’s campaign in the voting that begins in April, also said a new Congress government would invest $1 trillion in infrastructure projects and remove hurdles to business.

For India’s poor to thrive, he said, “we need to unleash business.”

Still, Congress’s tone is sharply different than the one adopted by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and its standard bearer, Narendra Modi, who emphasizes pro-business policies and infrastructure building – while saying government also needs to help the poor.

During the Congress-led government’s most recent decade in office, subsidy spending has soared, from 459 billion rupees in the year ended March 31, 2005, to an estimated 2.55 trillion in the 12 months ending March 31 of this year.

By sticking with and expanding such programs, Congress is hoping it will appeal to its base in India’s impoverished countryside.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi said if re-elected, Indians would get improved healthcare, an expansion of housing benefits for the landless and a boost in social security hand-outs for the elderly and disabled people.

These promises echo themes that have run through the party’s history and have dominated the political careers of Mrs. Gandhi and her son, Rahul, who is leading Congress’s election campaign.

The central Congress belief: A government must engineer economic equality and inclusive growth, even as it celebrates free markets.

“The future of India is the poor people of India, those are the people the Congress party works for,” Mr. Gandhi said. “The biggest problem I have with the BJP is that the India of the BJP’s dreams is an India where a few people run this country.”

Mr. Gandhi, the party’s vice president who took charge this year, has tried to frame the electoral campaign as a choice between these two approaches.

He has gone after the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for what he calls an exclusive focus on building roads and airports without addressing the question of who gets access to them.

Mr. Modi’s message, however, is striking a chord with many Indians, who are fed up with government inefficiency, corruption allegations and a slowing economy. Many young voters – even those in rural India who through technology and migration are influenced by urban sentiment – are frustrated with a lack of jobs and strong leadership and are drawn to the BJP’s promise of development.

Opinion polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the current situation in India and Mr. Modi is widely considered the frontrunner for the premiership.

via Congress Bets on Welfare Programs – India Real Time – WSJ.

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25/03/2014

CPM draws Nazi parallel, calls Gujarat model ‘big lie’ – The Times of India

CPM on Monday alleged that the so-called Gujarat model of development and the claim of being riot-fee were based on the “big lies” mantra of Nazi propaganda.

Releasing two booklets – ‘Defeat BJP, Defend Secularism’ and ‘No To The Gujarat Model’ – based on NSSO data and census records, politburo member Brinda Karat and CPM’s Gujarat secretary Arun Mehta said the Gujarat model was based on exploitation. “The so-called Gujarat model is based on cheap labour and its exploitation, very low expenditure on consumption, very high malnutrition, very high school dropout rates and very low expenditure on education and healthcare,” Karat said. She added there was no Modi wave in the country and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate was just getting desperate.

“Their desperation shows in their actions. They are not only annoying and disappointing their own senior leaders but also giving tickets to those who have been charge-sheeted in the Muzaffarnagar riots cases and attracting people like Amit Shah, who is accused in an encounter killing case, and the likes of Pramod Muthalik (whose outfit was accused of molesting women in Mangalore),” she said.

On development, Karat said that according to NSSO records, 90% of people in rural areas of Gujarat spent only Rs 75 per day on food and essentials. She said the dropout rate was as high as 58% while employment rate grew at 0.4%, much less than the national average. “Narendra Modi and P Chidambaram are equal in terms of jobless growth. The so-called Gujarat model is only for the corporates and not the people,” she said.

Mehta said a myth was being spread that there was 24-hour power supply in Gujarat. “In rural Gujarat, power supply is not for more than six hours. Also, 1.21 lakh applications for power connection are pending for five years,” he said.

via CPM draws Nazi parallel, calls Gujarat model ‘big lie’ – The Times of India.

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15/03/2014

Why caste still matters in India | The Economist

INDIA’S general election will take place before May. The front-runner to be the next prime minister is Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently chief minister of Gujarat. A former tea-seller, he has previously attacked leaders of the ruling Congress party as elitist, corrupt and out of touch. Now he is emphasising his humble caste origins. In a speech in January he said “high caste” Congress leaders were scared of taking on a rival from “a backward caste”. If Mr Modi does win, he would be the first prime minister drawn from the “other backward classes”, or OBC, group. He is not the only politician to see electoral advantage in bringing up the subject: caste still matters enormously to most Indians.

The country’s great, liberal constitution was supposed to end the millennia-old obsession with the idea that your place in life, including your occupation, is set at birth. It abolished “untouchability”—the practice whereby others in society exclude so-called untouchables, or Dalits, as polluting—which has now mostly disappeared from Indian society. Various laws forbid discrimination by caste. At the same time (it is somewhat contradictory) official schemes push “positive” discrimination by caste, reserving quotas of places in higher education, plus jobs in government, to help groups deemed backward or deprived. In turn, some politicians have excelled at appealing to voters by caste, promising them ever more goodies. For example Mayawati, formerly chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state (population: over 200m) and just possibly a future prime minister, leads a Dalit party. In another northern state, Bihar, parties jostle to build coalitions of caste groups. Everywhere voters can be swayed by the caste of candidates.

But don’t blame politicians alone. Strong social actors—such as leaders of “khap panchayats” (all-male, unelected village councils) or doughty family elders—do much more to keep caste-identity going. Consider marriages. In rural areas it can be fatal to disregard social rules and marry someone of a different, especially if lower caste. Haryana, a socially conservative state in north India, is notorious for frequent murders of young men and women who transgress. Even in town, caste is an important criterion when marriages are arranged. Look at matrimonial ads in any newspaper, or try registering for a dating site, and intricate details on caste and sub-caste are explicitly listed and sought (“Brahmin seeks Brahmin”, “Mahar looking for Mahar”) along with those on religion, education, qualifications, earning power and looks. Studies of such sites suggest that only a quarter of participants state that “caste is no bar”. Such attitudes also reflect the anxieties of parents, who are keen for children to marry within the same group, because marriages bring extended families intimately together.

As long as marriages are mostly within the same caste, therefore, don’t expect any law or public effort to wipe away the persistent obsession with it. That seems set to continue for a long time: a survey in 2005 found that only 11% of women in India had married outside their caste, for example. What is changing for the better, if too slowly, is the importance of caste in determining what jobs, wealth, education and other opportunities are available to an average person. No caste exists for a call-centre worker, computer programmer or English teacher, for example. The more of those jobs that are created, and the more people escape India’s repressive villages, the quicker progress can come.

via The Economist explains: Why caste still matters in India | The Economist.

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06/03/2014

Stock Market Cheers Potential End of Congress Reign – India Real Time – WSJ

Here’s a recipe to make Indian stocks investors happy: tie the hands of the ruling Congress-led government and hint that the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party will be forming the next government.

India’s benchmark 30-share S&P BSE Sensex hit a record high Thursday of 21513.87 points, marking the third straight session of gains.

As India heads towards national elections, investors have been following the twists and turns of the political world more closely in recent months. The next election will likely have a big impact on whether, when and by how much Asia’s third largest economy will rebound.

The country announced this week that the national polls will begin April 7 and be done by May 16 which has some optimists hoping that uncertainty about who will be leading the world’s largest democracy will be over in a little more than two months.

Some investors have become frustrated by the ruling Congress party because they believe it has stalled reforms and delayed important investments in the close to ten years it has been in power. Instead, critics say, the Congress-party led coalition has focused on populist measures, including a bill to provide almost free food to around two thirds of the population.

One good thing about election season, investors say, is that Congress will not be able to announce any new perks for the poor. The Election Commission of India prohibits parties from launching welfare programs during the election process.

“The uncertainty is now over,” said Sharmila Joshi, an independent research analyst in Mumbai. “The market is (optimistic) that there won’t be any more populist measures.”

via Stock Market Cheers Potential End of Congress Reign – India Real Time – WSJ.

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05/03/2014

BBC News – India names general election dates

India’s general election will take place in nine phases in April and May, the Election Commission has announced.

A BJP rally in Assam, India

Polling to elect a new Lok Sabha, or lower house, will be held from 7 April to 12 May. Votes will be counted on 16 May.

With some 814 million eligible voters, India’s election will be the largest the world has seen.

The ruling Congress party and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party will be battling a host of smaller parties.

Leaders of 11 regional parties have formed a Third Front against the Congress and the BJP.

A new anti-corruption Aam Aadmi (Common Man’s) Party (AAP), which made a spectacular debut in recent polls in the capital Delhi, will also contest the elections.

Continue reading the main story

POLLING DAYS

7 April – 2 states, 6 constituencies

9 April – 5 states, 7 constituencies

10 April – 14 states, 92 constituencies

12 April – 3 states, 5 constituencies

17 April – 13 states, 142 constituencies

24 April – 12 states, 117 constituencies

30 April – 9 states, 89 constituencies

7 May – 7 states, 64 constituencies

12 May – 3 states, 41 constituencies

Counting of votes – 16 May

Election Commission of India

If no single party wins a clear majority, smaller parties could play a crucial role.

India’s lower house has 543 elected seats and any party or a coalition needs a minimum of 272 MPs to form a government.

via BBC News – India names general election dates.

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28/02/2014

India, the Best Customer for America’s Defense Industry – Businessweek

Once again, Indians are mourning after a tragedy aboard one of the navy’s submarines. After an accident on the INS Sindhuratna filled the vessel with smoke yesterday, two officers with severe burns died and seven other sailors suffering from smoke inhalation had to be flown to safety. Last year, an explosion aboard another Indian sub left 18 sailors dead. Shortly after Wednesday’s incident, Indian Navy Chief of Staff D.K. Joshi resigned, effective immediately.

Indian commandos from the Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police (JKAP) at the Sheeri training center, near Srinagar, on Feb. 24

Wednesday’s accident comes at a bad time for India’s embattled government. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress Party, facing a string of corruption scandals as well as a lackluster economy, will probably lose in the upcoming national elections due by May. The leader of the largest opposition party, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, is a Hindu nationalist who argues that Singh hasn’t been tough enough, especially toward the country’s assertive neighbor to the north—China.

In his first major speech as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s leader last September, he accused the Congress-led government of not doing enough to protect India’s borders. “Unless there is a capable government, patriotic government, there cannot be any guarantee of security,” Modi said. Over the weekend, Modi criticized what he called China’s “expansionary mindset.”

via India, the Best Customer for America’s Defense Industry – Businessweek.

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23/02/2014

India’s Modi Talks Tough on China – India Real Time – WSJ

The frontrunner to become India’s next prime minister traveled to a town near the country’s disputed Himalayan border with China over the weekend and bluntly warned Beijing to abandon its territorial ambitions.

In a sign of rising Indian wariness of its northern neighbor, Hindu nationalist opposition leader Narendra Modi said China “will have to leave behind its mindset of expansion” and said Beijing should work for “development and prosperity.”

For Mr. Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for the premiership in upcoming national elections, it was a rare foray into foreign policy on the campaign trail, where he has focused primarily on a weak domestic economy.

Speaking in Pasighat, a town in India’s northeast Arunachal Pradesh state, and again in Assam near India’s border with Bangladesh, Mr. Modi sought to portray himself as strong on defense and unafraid of other regional powers.

“No power on earth can snatch away Arunachal Pradesh from India,” Mr. Modi said.

India’s next leader will inherit a volatile neighborhood.

In addition to a more assertive and well-armed China, which is looking to play a greater role in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, New Delhi also must deal with the fallout of a diminishing U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.

Security experts warn that reduced Western presence there could fuel Islamic militancy along India’s already troubled border with Pakistan. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been gripped by internal political tensions.

via India’s Modi Talks Tough on China – India Real Time – WSJ.

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