The year 2022 appears to have acquired mythical status among some Modi supporters. It’s when “New India” arrives in the form of a majority in the Rajya Sabha. Unfortunately that’s as likely to happen as the bullet train. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) currently has 90 seats in the Rajya Sabha, …
Continue reading BJP won’t win a Rajya Sabha majority until at least 2024
In a 31 Mar 2018 Indian Express op-ed, PM advisor Surjit Bhalla accused critics of the government of purveying “fake news” in an effort to create a “political atmosphere helpful to the (weak) challenger”. He contended that “liberal elites” are trying to “change people’s perceptions”, and quoted Joseph Goebbels: “if you incessantly repeat a lie, …
Continue reading When the facts fail you, start tossing Nazi references
Now that the dust has settled on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s historic victory in Uttar Pradesh, let’s get down to the big question: how close does it get the ruling National Democratic Alliance to a Rajya Sabha majority, and when? The government’s minority status in the RS has slowed and even halted important elements of …
There has been much talk of the politics behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's 5 Jul Cabinet reshuffle. It hasn't escaped anyone's attention that several new appointees came from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, both states in which the BJP has big stakes and that have elections due in 2017. But how important is regional representation in the appointment of ministers? …
Roads and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari likes to present himself as the singlehanded builder of Indian highways. He has repeatedly claimed -- most recently at the 2016 India Today Conclave -- that the pace of highway construction has increased by close to ten times under his watch: https://twitter.com/SandeepUnnithan/status/710360486462644224 This would be brag-worthy if it were true, …
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed full credit for transferring LPG subsidies directly to consumers. He also took a potshot at the Congress Party, saying that "the so-called pro-poor have been just repeating that there is leakage in subsidy", implying that his government had done all the heavy lifting here. The Modi government's achievements with …
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 …
Continue reading The Rajya Sabha will remain a headache for the NDA
Every time the price of onions rises, pundits remind us (here and here) of what happened in Delhi in 1998, when a spike in the price of onions is believed to have contributed to the state election defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Inflation does appear to matter greatly to Indian voters: "price rise" was …
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) continues to advance in the opinion polls. The NDTV-Hansa survey projects a majority for the alliance if elections were held in March: https://twitter.com/ndtv/status/455743412189155329 The CNN-IBN-CSDS-The Week election tracker is more cautious in its forecast, but has also projected a 20-seat improvement in the NDA's seats tally over the …
Voter turnout in the first three rounds of India's general election has shown a distinct increase by historical standards, particularly in some of the more populous states. https://twitter.com/MilanV/status/454435873321263104 This has given rise to speculation that this is bad news for the incumbent United Progressive Alliance (UPA). https://twitter.com/cvoter/status/454517133767372800 The UPA is clearly trailing in opinion polls, …
Continue reading No obvious correlation between turnout and anti-incumbency
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