Posts tagged ‘congress party’

« Older Entries  |  
03/02/2015

Aam Aadmi Party Scores Delhi Elections Polling Hat Trick – India Real Time – WSJ

If three’s a trend then the Aam Aadmi Party might want to throw their topis in the air in celebration at the latest opinion polls.

Three voter surveys published Tuesday in the run up to elections in Delhi gave the lead to AAP slightly ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and leagues in front of the Congress party that held the capital for 15 years until 2013.

The city goes to the polls on Feb. 7 in an election that is widely viewed as a referendum on Mr. Modi’s performance since he took office in May. The results will be announced on Feb. 10.

To be sure, opinion polling in India is far from an exact science and usually needs to be taken with a handful of salt.

Nevertheless, the wind seems to be changing in favor of AAP, or the common man’s party in a revival of fortunes after a drubbing in national elections last year.

Analysts say this is because the upstart party has focused on local issues-based politics while the BJP and Congress have been turned their arsenal on Mr. Kejriwal at the expense of issues voters care about.

AAP, led by tax-inspector-turned-activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal, could walk away with 36 to 40 seats in the 70-member legislative assembly, according to the latest findings from polling firm TNS for the Economic Times newspaper.

To form the government in Delhi, a party needs a simple majority of 36 seats.

via Aam Aadmi Party Scores Delhi Elections Polling Hat Trick – India Real Time – WSJ.

Related articles

Posted in India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
22/10/2014

India’s Modi Ends Fuel Subsidies, Showing He Is a Reformer – Businessweek

Narendra Modi has proven once again how important it is to be lucky in politics. In the spring, he was India’s opposition leader, running for prime minister by focusing on the government’s mismanagement of the economy. He had plenty of ammunition: The coalition led by the Congress Party had presided over years of corruption scandals and stalled reforms—and also had to contend with a growing budget deficit fueled by soaring prices for oil and other imported commodities.

In India, Falling Oil Prices Make Modi's Job Much Easier

During the campaign, Modi said he wanted to cut back on the costly subsidies the government offered millions of Indians to cushion the blow of those soaring prices. Petroleum subsidies account for one-quarter of India’s 2.6 trillion rupee ($42.4 billion) subsidies bill. But after he won in a landslide, Modi’s first budget (which his finance minister announced in July), was a modest plan that left the subsidies untouched.

That left observers unsure as to whether Modi was backing away from the politically difficult task of making the cuts. “We can either trust that the government will deliver price hikes as the year progresses,” Mirza Baig, head of foreign exchange and interest rate strategy at BNP Paribas in Singapore, wrote in a report after the budget announcement in July. “Or we can be more cynical and suggest that the Modi administration intends to continue the practice of rolling forward subsidy expenditure to next year.”

via India’s Modi Ends Fuel Subsidies, Showing He Is a Reformer – Businessweek.

Posted in Economics, India alert, oil & gas | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
20/08/2014

Wounded Congress desperately seeking alliances for upcoming assembly elections

The Congress party is losing legislators but is keen to show it remains a political force as polls approach in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana and Kashmir.

Still reeling from its decimation in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress now has to contend with legislators in several states quitting the party to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. There are rumours that even veteran Delhi Congress leader Dr AK Walia is in talks to join the BJP.

What makes the situation worse is that members of legislative assemblies from regional parties are also joining the BJP, making it hard for the Congress to compete.

The party is now desperately looking to form alliances with regional parties and even independent MLAs to save face in the upcoming state elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir.

Jharkhand

With the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha deciding to merge with the BJP, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Congress to establish any sort of stronghold in the state. The party’s general secretary in the state, BK Hariprasad, says it is looking to put together an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, with which it has already reached an agreement in Bihar. The party is also working on a tie-up with Janata Dal (United), which split with the BJP before the general elections.

The party already has an alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. However, the district presidents in the region are not keen to continue with it, following the JMM’s demand that it be allocated 25-30 of the 81 seats in state polls due at the end of the year.

“The party has a stronghold in the state and it will perform much better if we contest on our own instead of seat sharing,” a district president of the Congress said. “The leadership should not concede to the demands of the regional alliances and deprive our own people of a chance to contest the polls.”

via Scroll.in – News. Politics. Culture..

Related articles

Posted in India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
07/08/2014

Rahul Gandhi Wakes Up to New Role as Rebel Leader – India Real Time – WSJ

There’s nothing particularly newsworthy about boisterous Indian lawmakers blocking debate on the floor of Parliament when they don’t get their way, unless one of the lawmakers is the usually-reticent Rahul Gandhi.

The typically uninvolved Parliamentary back-bencher and Congress party vice president made the front pages of Indian newspapers Thursday after he and others mobbed the desk of the lower house of Parliament’s speaker, demanding to be heard.

“Rip Van Winkle Rahul Finally Rises Out of Slumber,” read an Economic Times headline paired with a recent photograph of Mr. Gandhi nodding off during a parliamentary session.

Mr. Gandhi, who is part of a diminished Congress camp of 44 representatives in the 545-member Lok Sabha, also made a rare statement to reporters outside Parliament complaining that opposition parties were not being allowed to speak. He accused speaker Sumitra Mahajan of bias after she shot down a proposal to discuss recent communal violence.

“There is a mood in Parliament that only one man’s voice counts,” Mr. Gandhi said in an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On the campaign trail a few months ago, Mr. Gandhi had said a Modi-led government would polarize Indians and trigger religious unrest.

Mr. Gandhi’s outburst was described as “surprisingly belligerent” in the Times of India that also carried a front-page story about what they called his “new-found combativeness.”

The fourth-generation scion’s occasional public outbursts are closely covered by the national media. In October when he called an executive order by his own party’s government “complete nonsense,” his tantrum was reported, discussed and debated for days.

On Wednesday, television news channels questioned what may have prompted a reaction from a leader who in his decade-long career in Parliament has rarely engaged in debate or taken the lead on policy issues.

The governing Bharatiya Janata Party offered one theory.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Mr. Gandhi’s show of aggression was a result of internal rumblings – a “palace coup” – in the beleaguered Congress that is struggling to bounce back after its worst ever electoral defeat in national elections.

The party’s dynastic leadership by president Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, must be struggling and Mr. Gandhi’s actions Wednesday were an attempt “to show they are also capable of aggression,” Mr. Jaitley said.

Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said there “wasn’t an iota of doubt or question” within his party on the Gandhis’ leadership. Some “disgruntled elements hankering for immediate power” had abandoned the Congress after the electoral defeat, Mr. Surjewala said, but added that his party had weathered numerous challenges in the past and, like before, would emerge stronger.

He said the Modi-led government couldn’t run away from a discussion on religious violence by making personal attacks against Congress or its leaders.

via Rahul Gandhi Wakes Up to New Role as Rebel Leader – India Real Time – WSJ.

Posted in India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
08/07/2014

Congress to Parliament: Please Don’t Oppose Our Opposition – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s new session of Parliament has begun, and the Congress Party has a request: Make us the official “leader of the opposition.”

It turns out, that may be asking too much.

The Congress Party — which has governed India for most of the country’s modern history — lost so badly this time, it might not qualify for the right to name the official opposition leader, according to the parliamentary rulebook.

This isn’t a surprise: It’s well known that Congress’s drubbing in the election this year left it with less than 10% of the seats in the lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha. So, even though it’s the second-largest party in Parliament, behind the triumphant Bharatiya Janata Party, its share of seats is too small to qualify as official opposition leader.

Nevertheless, Congress has started pressing the issue. “We are the single largest party and we have a pre-poll alliance,” Congress party president Sonia Gandhi said during a televised press conference Monday, as Parliament’s budget session commenced. “We are entitled to get the post.”

Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said the post of the leader of opposition is a “constitutional right” of the Congress party. “The Lok Sabha cannot function without the opposition leader.”

Under Indian parliamentary procedural rules, the post of the leader of opposition has the rank of a cabinet minister. It goes to the second-largest party in the Lok Sabha, unless that party fails to win 10% of the seats, or 55, in the 545-member Lok Sabha. Congress has 44 members.

The job comes with some significant responsibilities. The leader of the opposition is part of a panel that selects members of the Central Vigilance Commission; members of the anti-graft national ombudsman, known as the Lokpal; and head of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the country’s federal investigative agency.

Subhash C. Kashyap, historian and former secretary-general of the Lok Sabha, said the Congress party should “stop hankering” for the post. “All its claims are unnecessary, unfounded and without any legal basis.”

via Congress to Parliament: Please Don’t Oppose Our Opposition – India Real Time – WSJ.

Related articles

Posted in India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
19/05/2014

Modi’s Next Move – India Real Time – WSJ

The simplest way to understand the enormity of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory Friday in India’s election is to place it in historical context.

For the first time since 1984, India’s voters have given a single party rather than a ragtag coalition a majority in Parliament. The BJP won 282 seats, 10 more than the 272 needed to reach the halfway mark in the 543-seat lower house of Parliament. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coalition snagged 336 seats.

For the first time ever, India’s traditionally left-leaning politics has moved decisively to the right. Even when it won more seats than the left-of-center Congress Party in three elections in the late 1990s, the BJP always lagged its rival in share of the popular vote. This time the BJP snagged nearly one third of the national vote, while Congress claimed less than a fifth. The BJP also made inroads into southern and eastern India, outside its traditional strongholds in the north and west.

The rightward swing is all the more notable because incoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to the conservative wing of India’s conservative party. Unlike the last BJP prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004), Mr. Modi cut his teeth in politics battling Congress when it briefly suspended democracy in the mid-1970s, not admiring Jawaharlal Nehru’s parliamentary eloquence in defense of socialist policies in the 1950s.

Congress itself has been reduced to a rump. The 44 seats it won is less than half of its previous low of 114 seats in 1999. Congress has proved naysayers wrong before by bouncing back. Still, for the first time talk of the possible extinction of a party that has ruled India for all but 13 years since independence in 1947 seems plausible. And the two main communist parties, which have traditionally wielded influence both inside and outside Parliament and helped set the tone for much anti-capitalist and anti-Western discourse, have been reduced to a footnote. Together they hold a meager 10 seats.

via Modi’s Next Move – India Real Time – WSJ.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted in Economics, Elections, India alert, Politics | 1 Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
09/05/2014

India’s Women’s Vote Becomes More Independent – Businessweek

To avoid upsetting her husband, Urmila Devi told him she’ll heed his request to vote for India’s ruling Congress party when their village of 50 families participates in national elections. Once inside the polling booth, she plans to ignore his suggestion. “I’ll vote for a different party,” Devi, 26, says outside her one-room house in Galanodhan Purwa village in Uttar Pradesh state, where she cares for her two children. “I’m concerned about women’s safety. It should be the government’s top priority.”

India's Women's Vote Becomes More Independent

A growing number of women are defying traditional gender roles in India and asserting their voice in elections that began on April 7 and end on May 16. Prompting the change: Higher literacy rates, greater financial independence, and a desire to stem violence against women, which became a highly visible issue after the gang rape and murder of a student in New Delhi in December 2012.

“Over the years, we’ve asked women if they voted on their own or if they voted for whoever their husbands or fathers asked them to,” says Sanjay Kumar, New Delhi-based director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, which conducts opinion polls. “Women were reluctant to tell us earlier, but increasingly they’re saying they’re voting on their own, no matter what the men say.”

via India’s Women’s Vote Becomes More Independent – Businessweek.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted in Elections, Good news, India alert, Politics | 2 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
11/04/2014

Young professionals in Bangalore favour Modi’s promise, shrug off riots | India Insight

As far as Vinod Hegde is concerned, Indian prime minister candidate Narendra Modi bears no responsibility for the 2002 Gujarat riots. More to the point, Hegde doesn’t care.

Hegde, a 26-year-old stockbroker in Bangalore, said that for people like him, the Gujarat chief minister is the only choice to lead India after countrywide parliamentary elections that began this week.

Allegations that Modi failed to stop or even allowed deadly riots in 2002 don’t sway his vote, Hegde said. And if the ruling Congress party’s candidate is Rahul Gandhi, the choice becomes even clearer.

“Even assuming Modi has been responsible for XYZ, we don’t see an alternative,” Hegde said. Referencing a Twitter post by music director Vishal Dadlani, he said, “If I had to choose between a moron and a murderer, I’d probably choose the murderer.”

Not everyone states their case for supporting Modi in such blunt terms, but interviews with young professionals in Bangalore, the information technology hub known as India’s Silicon Valley reveals a calculation in favour of Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that omits the riots from the equation.

For many people in Bangalore’s highly educated workforce, Modi is a welcome alternative to what is seen as an ineffective and corruption-tainted Congress party. They are part of what some media organizations have called a “Modi wave” that opinion polls, however unreliable, say could bring the BJP to power and push out the Gandhi-Nehru family’s Congress party.

Many BJP supporters see Rahul Gandhi, the party’s leader and the Gandhi family’s heir apparent, as ill suited for the job of running a country that is trying to revive its slowing economic growth and to provide opportunities for prosperity to its burgeoning middle class. (A note for people unfamiliar with this round of Lok Sabha elections: Indians will vote for members of Parliament in their local constituencies, and the winning party’s leadership names its ministers when it forms a new government.)

via Young professionals in Bangalore favour Modi’s promise, shrug off riots | India Insight.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted in Economics, India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted in Economics, India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
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.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted in India alert, Military, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries  |  
CCChang

Law of Unintended Consequences

continuously updated blog about China & India

ChiaHou's Book Reviews

continuously updated blog about China & India

What's wrong with the world; and its economy

continuously updated blog about China & India