What proportion of industrial projects are being held up by land acquisition challenges? A somewhat abstruse debate entered the mainstream after Rahul Gandhi cited Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data (provided by the Finance Ministry) in a 12 May Lok Sabha speech: https://twitter.com/OfficeOfRG/status/598070175515021312 Although I have argued elsewhere that the 8% figure may be an …
Tag: Lok Sabha
Is the Modi Effect waning? (What Jammu and Jharkhand tell us)
The recent state elections in Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand went well for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but the results have also sparked speculation as to whether the Narendra Modi effect is beginning to wane. Congress Party MP Rajeev Satav seems to think so (and was retweeted by Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal): …
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The Rajya Sabha will remain a headache for the NDA
With the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, securely in the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, the locus of political opposition is set to move to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, where the BJP remains in a minority. Most bills need to be passed by both houses to …
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Is AAP India’s most criminal party?
With candidates declared for six of the nine rounds of voting in this never-ending general election, a partial analysis can now be done of how many stand accused of criminal activity and in what proportion parties are awarding tickets to such folks (data from National Election Watch, also see preliminary analysis here). The chart below …
Why Modi may have a fight on his hands in Varanasi
It seems clear that Uttar Pradesh (UP) with its 80 Lok Sabha seats is the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) biggest bet in this election and that Narendra Modi is standing from Varanasi in order to boost the BJP's prospects across eastern UP. The BJP's man in UP Amit Shah certainly seems gung-ho: https://twitter.com/AmitShahOffice/status/445149004595097600 With a couple of …
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How opinion polls fared in the last two general elections
As more and more opinion polls hit the headlines, it's worth recalling how they fared in the two most recent general elections: 2004 https://twitter.com/PankajPachauri/status/408269945563136000 2009 https://twitter.com/PankajPachauri/status/444016247303176192 Note: The figures in parentheses under the NDA and UPA columns are the respective seat tallies of the BJP and Congress Party.
Should opinion polls be banned?
Despite my critique of their use of communal violence data, the India Today Group graciously invited me to participate in a panel discussion on opinion polling at the India Today Conclave 2014 on Saturday, Mar 8. I made the following points: Parliamentary seat projections should be treated with skepticism because there is no simple relationship between …
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