How Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati's mistakes helped Modi win UP polls

Attack on the government for demonetisaiton proved to be a boon for Modi

There is more to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mind-boggling sweep in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections than can be explained by factors like his persona, Modi’s aggressive, high profile campaign in the state, the caste configuration of the state or for that matter, the communal turn of his campaign.

Perhaps, the win is also a consequence of the sustained attacks that the Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi duo and BSP supremo Mayawati launched against some of Modi’s policies.

Gandhi’s outburst against the army’s surgical strikes on terror camps along the Line of Control – which he termed as “khoon ki dalaali” – went against the nationalist sentiments of even those who do not subscribe to the saffron ideology. In one stroke, Gandhi lost much of the steam he’d generated through his aggressive efforts to rejuvenate the Congress in UP.

However, it was Gandhi, Yadav and Mayawati’s tirade against demonetisation that served as an even bigger boon for Modi.

Without making any effort to see the ground reality, these leaders went on a Modi bashing spree – that evidently proved counter-productive and paid Modi dividends that surprised him as much as those who voted for him.

What Modi’s opposers failed to notice was the divide that demonetisation forged between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. The ‘have-nots’ chanted Modi’s name, while the affluent cursed him for making them stand in long queues at banks and ATMs. The poor hailed him in the belief – right or wrong – that he’d taken the black money bull by its horns. Read more

UP elections 2017: Poll promises have not changed in 15 years; here's why

Pihani, a cluster of villages near Lucknow, illustrates why the state has not developed

Pihani, UP Elections 2017 : For 16 years, Kailash Rai (not his real name), 49, has been commuting six hours every working day between his home in the state capital Lucknow and the government degree college where he teaches in Pihani, 135 km to the northwest.

A political-science lecturer, Rai cannot move with his family to Pihani, a cluster of over 100 villages (called a kasba) in Hardoi district, with less than 40,000 families as per Census 2011. When he started working there in 2000, it lacked the basic public facilities–regular power supply, good roads, public transport and good medical services.

Pihani remains an economic backwater. In the ongoing assembly elections, UP’s incumbent and contesting politicians are still promising the basic facilities they did 16 years ago: Electricity, buses and jobs, along with laptops and free data for poor youth.

a government degree college, a state-run industrial training institute (ITI) and two private degree colleges–more than the Indian average of 27 colleges per 100,000 youth in the 18-23 age group, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2014-15. But it has been unable to produce talent to run local educational institutions, banks and medical centres.

UP has the highest number of colleges in any Indian state (6,026), according to AISHE 2014-15, but it has been unable to produce qualified workforce to drive development, as IndiaSpend reported on February 11, 2017.

UP is India’s most populous and youngest state–its median age is 23–and the flaws in its development model typified by Pihani explain why its towns and village clusters (blocks with a population of less than 250,000 in 2011) cannot cope with the aspirations of its people, especially with regard to education and employment.

Pihani’s dropout rate of 36% at elementary school level exceeds UP’s overall rate of 21%. Like other village clusters in the state, connections to bigger cities are limited because there are few railway links, hardly any feeder roads to highways or efficient public transport services. Less than half the houses in the villages have electricity. (more)

The Sasikala gameplan for guilty verdict: Quickly nominate a new CM for TN Edit

AIADMK's strategy is to dissuade the governor from inviting Panneerselvam to take a floor test

Tamil Nadu Elections : The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a trial court order finding All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary VK Sasikala guilty in an illegal wealth case that dates back two decades. The verdict, which will mean Sasikala going back to jail and being debarred from public office for nearly a decade, upends political calculations at a time when she is caught in a tussle with interim chief minister O Panneerselvam for control of the party and the government.

A bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amatava Roy upheld the trial court judgment in which Sasikala and the late Jayalalithaa were found guilty of amassing over Rs 63 crores in assets disproportionate to their known sources of income during the latter’s tenure as chief minister between 1991 and 1996. The proceedings against Jayalalithaa would be abated because of her death on December 5.

In 2014, a trial court in Bengaluru – where the proceedings were moved on the Supreme Court’s orders – had found Jayalalithaa and Sasikala guilty along with the latter’s relatives Ilavarasi and Sudhakaran, and sentenced them to four years imprisonment. The conviction had forced Jayalalithaa to step down as chief minister under rules disqualifying convicted politicians from holding office or contesting elections. But the following year, the Karnataka High Court had acquitted all of them. The Karnataka government, which is the prosecutor in the case, had appealed in the Supreme Court, which will decide Sasikala’s fate at 10.30 am on Tuesday.

Officials of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam told Scroll.in that strategies “for all possible scenarios” had been put in place before the verdict. Sasikala spent the night at the Golden Bay Resorts in Kancheepuram, where 128 MLAs owing allegiance to her have been staying for the past five days. Read more

Uttarakhand elections: Rahul Gandhi, Harish Rawat perform Ganga aarti

Rahul Gandhi also held a 75-km long road show and a Nukkad Sabha in the city

Uttarakhand Elections 2017 : With just two days left for the Uttarakhand assembly polls and the state Congress striving hard to woo voters in the last leg of the election campaign, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister Harish Rawat took part in Ganga Aarti at Haridwar's Har Ki Pauri late night on Sunday.

Rahul also held a 75-km long road show and a Nukkad Sabha in the city.

A day before, tearing into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'real' motives behind demonetisation, Rahul Gandhi branded the move as a tool to waive off loans worth crores taken by some 50 rich families, instead of an initiative against black money as the Prime Minister has projected.

"He claimed that black money is in Swiss bank accounts, and that he would bring the money back from Swiss banks. The Swiss government has given him the names of Swiss account holders. I want to ask Prime Minister Modi, why have you not revealed those names in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha? Why have you kept those thieves away from us?" Gandhi said while addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur.

Rahul and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav also jointly announced the Samajwadi Party (SP) - Congress' Common Minimum Programme.

The programme, including ten points of commitment to the people of Uttar Pradesh, enlists the promises such as free smart phones to youth, employment to 20 lakh youth, loan waiver to farmers, reduction of power tariff, pension schemes for poor, better infrastructure, cycle to girls who fall under merit list, 33 percent reservation to women in government jobs, free residence to Dalits and backward class poor.

Watch : Rahul Gandhi performs aarti at Harki Pauri

Win at all costs? PM Modi's reforms meet realpolitik in Uttar Pradesh polls

Maurya, BJP UP President, said his party is moving towards cleaner and transparent politics

Elections 2017 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to clean up politics. The man running the ruling party's campaign in a crucial state election, who is facing 11 criminal cases, says it will take a while.

"At a time of elections, one has to forget every other aspect and just focus on victory," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, as his three-vehicle convoy carrying police with automatic rifles sped through the countryside.

Polls open on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 220 million, and on the ground Modi's loftier aims for a new India seem far away.

Maurya, the state's president for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the charges against him are false and politically motivated; unless he is convicted, they do not prevent him from holding office.

His bosses are not concerned.

An official at the prime minister's office referred questions about Maurya and his criminal cases to the BJP, where an aide to party president and Modi confidant Amit Shah said there was no problem.

The charges are related to Maurya protesting on behalf of Hindu causes, said the aide, and anyone who does so "is not a criminal in the party's eyes."

"Slowly," Maurya told Reuters, "the BJP will be moving towards a direction where it will only have politicians who are absolutely clean and have no cases of corruption against them." (more)

Note ban splits BJP's trader vote bank in western UP

In the cities of western Uttar Pradesh demonetisation has been a killer

UP Elections 2017 : Manoj Kucchal, a hardware vendor in Bijnor’s commercial hub, Sadar Bazar, looked harassed as he summoned his chartered accountant for the morning session he has been holding since the taxman knocked on his doors.

The taxman started sending him alerts after vetting Kucchal’s bank accounts to check how much cash was put in it after November 8, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised high-value currency notes.

“The I-T (income tax) department has served 10 messages on my mobile in the past 10 days. If I do not answer these within 10 days, I will have to pay a penalty of Rs 10,000 per notice. The thing that amuses me is the number of times I have used the figure 10,” said Kucchal, who heads the Bijnor district traders’ association.

At Saharanpur, 110 km away, Vivek Minocha, who helms the city’s traders’ forum, is feeling harassed. “The I-T guys are demanding proof for every rupee we put in (to a bank account). The PM himself said once not to probe deposits of up to Rs 2.5 lakh by housewives. The women in my joint family have made deposits. It seems the I-T sleuths will not heed his advice. What do I do?” asked Minocha.

In the cities of western Uttar Pradesh, whose economies are sustained mostly by wholesale and retail trading, demonetisation has been a killer. In the absence of large industries at these places, trading in food, agro products, industrial goods and crafts is a major economic contributor and a sizeable employer. (more)

Government has saved Rs 49,500 crore from going to middlemen: PM Modi

He said there was leakage in various government schemes including the MGNREGA and PDS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday said the government had taken several measures to plug leakages in government schemes and made an annual saving of Rs 49,500 crore which, he added, was earlier lining the pockets of middlemen.

Replying to a debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address in the Lok Sabha, Modi said there was leakage in various government schemes including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and Public Distribution System (PDS).

He said measures taken to plug the gaps were causing problems to "vested interests" and such people operated in almost every street of the country and siphoned off funds meant for the poor.

"The measures of the government have caused problems to big people. They will be after me, but I am prepared," Modi said.

He said 3.95 crore fake ration cards had been detected and leakages plugged to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore.

Modi said the government's moves towards promotion of LED bulbs, which consume less power compared to other bulbs, had brought down power bills and enabled savings of Rs 11,000 crore.

The Prime Minister said that payments under the MGNREGS through direct benefit transfer in the accounts had plugged leakage of Rs 7,633 crore.

"In a year, we have been able to save Rs 49,500 crore going to middlemen," Modi said, adding that the money belonged to the poor.

UP Elections 2017 : UP polls 2017 : Dialogue, drama, desperation as action begins

UP polls 2017: Survey shows BJP leads, but 40% voters still undecided

Overall, 28% of those surveyed said they would vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party

UP Elections 2017 : Election for the Uttar Pradesh state assembly, India’s largest state with more voters–138 million–than the population of the north American country of Mexico, start on February 11, 2017, but 40% of its voters said they still don’t know which political party they will vote for, according to a new survey conducted by by Fourth Lion Technologies, a data analytics and public opinion polling firm, for IndiaSpend.

The firm conducted 2,513 telephone interviews in Hindi of registered voters in Uttar Pradesh, and said their sample is representative of UP’s urban and rural voters as well as socioeconomic, age, gender and caste make-up. The survey was conducted between January 24 and January 31, 2017.

The first article on the survey analysed issues that voters said were important to them.

Overall, 28% of those surveyed said they would vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party that heads the central government, if the polls were held immediately, while 18% of those surveyed would vote for the Samajwadi Party (SP) that currently leads the state, 4% would vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh between 2007 and 2012, while 1% would vote for the Indian National Congress (INC).

The FourthLion-IndiaSpend survey asked voters about the the four parties that won the most seats in the last state and parliamentary elections. The survey did not measure how many seats a party would win, and only suggests popular support for different political parties. It cannot be interpreted as indicative of election results. Read more