The astute reader of international politics would have noted that in the UK the Labour Party (socialist)has been having a torrid time of late. In particular, accusation after accusation has surfaced, both from within the Party membership as well as from those on the outside. So, what say you all are these accusations related to? And the answer in a nutshell, it’s with regard to overt and covert racism against the Jewish community, and the turning of a blind eye to the anti-Semitism that appears to be rife in some corners of the Labour Party.

There has been a long-standing myth that the Labour Party in the UK is on the side of the ethnic minorities. I use the word, ‘myth’, because in my view and experience it has become apparent over the past several decades that maybe this perception that the Labour Party has enjoyed thus far might not be a true representation of its real under belly. So let’s start with the new leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. He became the unexpected leader of the Labour Party on 12th September 2015. I say unexpected since even his own MP’s did not want him, yet by a quirk of the voting methods used by the Labour Party, the vote bank politics of the Unions and the far-left dominated membership he was brought to power. The victory of Corbyn was almost like a signal to the far-left of the Party to do whatever they wanted to do. To the horror of the centrist Labour MP’s, Corbyn supporters saw this as a green signal and went on a political rampage. Within a short period of time a far-left group calling itself ‘Momentum’ started to take over the Labour Party narrative. It was almost as if the old Labour Party had been hijacked by the farleft, and the Unions who now seemed to have been given unchecked access to do whatever they wanted to do. In effect the Labour farleft seemed to be empowered toattack anyone who stood in their way, or in the way of their leader. The pent-upvenom over decades of frustration of the farleft was unleashed, and it seemed that their initial targets appeared to be their own MP’s and the centre of the Party membership.

The alarm bells were not just ringing, they were exploding with the news that the old guard of the Labour Party was finished and the new comrades of Corbyn were now in power. Labour MP’s in their last-ditch stand passed a vote of no confidence in Corbyn by 172 votes to 40 following the resignation of around two-thirds of Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet. Now under any other democracy and for any other leader who had any honour and integrity, that would certainly mean walking away. However, Corbyn defied all logic in the knowledge that he had a majority of the membership votes, and the vote bank of the Unions that would keep him in place anyway. Labour MP’s were no longer in any position of influence. Labour had reached a bizarre position where the Parliamentary MP’s overwhelmingly rejected Jeremy Corbyn, yet the Party membership voted him in. The Labour Party as we knew it was finished.

So by now you must be asking the question, where and how does this antiSemitism issue arise? Well, in 2016 the Labour Party instigated what was called the Chakrabarti Inquiry. It was to investigate allegations of antisemitism and other forms of racism in the Labour Party. At that time comments made by two high-profile Labour figures, Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone had been deemed to have been anti-Semitic in nature were therefore to be investigated. On 30 June 2016 the findings were presented stating that although antisemitism and other types of racism were not endemic within Labour, there was an “occasionally toxic atmosphere”. The report was seen by most independent readers as a white wash. This became even more toxic when the British public discovered months later that the Chair of the same inquiry, Shami Chakrabartiwas suddenly made the Labour appointment to the House of Lords. Marie van der Syl, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, called it a whitewash for peerages scandal. The tone was set, increasingly it became clear to most people that something was not quite right. The Jewish community was outraged to the core. If this was not bad enough for the Labour Party, a cross-party Select Committee on antisemitism described the Chakrabarti Inquiry as “compromised”. It criticised the Labour party’s handling of anti-Semitism, concluding “the failure of the Labour Party consistently to deal with anti-Semitic incidents in recent years risks lending force to allegations that elements of the Labour movement are institutionally antiSemitic”.

Now to most sane people you would have thought that the writing was on the wall,and it was very clear. However, either the Leader of the Labour Party was deluded, compromised, part of the problem or just plain stupid to grasp the seriousness of the issues emerging. Whatever might the truth be, what was abundantly clear to most independent by-standers was that Labour was in trouble on the anti-Semitism issue and that it was not going to go away.

In early 2018 devastating news broke. It turns out that Jeremy Corbyn (and some other senior members of the Labour Party) were part of several Facebook groups. It also emerged that in some of the discussions taking place in these groups, there seemed to be antiSemitic views expressed openly. In what became a farce, Corbyn’s defence was that he did not know of these views being expressed in these groups, even though he was a member. In the end the leaders of British Jewry wrote an open letter to the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn stating, ‘enough is enough’. Never in the history of modern day politics has the Jewish community been so outraged, and so abused, that they felt compelled to write in the bluntest fashion that they had, had enough of the rhetoric and platitudes from the Labour leader.

I have of course touched on just the tip of this messy racist iceberg. The Labour Party has hitherto ridden a wave of support from various ethnic minority groups who have seen it as a champion for equality and human rights. However, and increasingly, people are beginning to question whether this is in fact a true representation of the Labour Party now, or whether it has managed to escape close scrutiny by offloadingsuch accusations onto the Conservative Party.

I have done a bit of digging myself and it seems that it is not just the Jewish community that is angry with the Labour Party.

I have come across many community leaders from the Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities who have also expressed serious concern and reservations about the Labour Party. When you delve a bit further you come across time and again, community leader after community leader telling you that they now perceive the Labour Party to be anti-India. In fact, they went on and stated that the impression they were getting was that Corbyn wasfundamentally anti-Modi with some suggesting that he was also anti-Hindu.

I am reminded of the first visit by PM Modi to the UK. It was under the stewardship of the then PM,David Cameron who welcomed the Indian PM with incredible hospitality. I remember the huge event that took place at Wembley Stadium when PM Cameron and PM Modi were on stage together as good friends. During that visit it was remarkable how the senior figures from the Labour Party were absent at most of events taking place. It was almost as if they had gone into hiding, trying their best to avoid coming into contact with PM Modi. The people noticed this open undermining of the Indian PM by the Labour Party. It was only towards the end of the visit that a hastily arranged meeting between the Labour leader and PM Modi took place – which I am told was a face-saving exercise for Corbyn. I am told, PM Modi gave him a few minutes only. A clear sign to the labour leadership that they cannot disrespect the biggest democracy on the planet and hope to get away with it so easily.

I asked many community leaders as to why the leader of the Labour Party had behaved in such a disgraceful fashion. Their answer was enlightening. As far as they were concerned the Labour Party was now a Party that was intertwined with the Pakistani community. Labour needed the Sunni and Kashmiri vote and could not do anything to alienate that community. In effect it seems the Labour Party had decided that harvesting the Sunni vote was more productive to them than trying to keep the votes of the other minorities. Again, one was left a bit perplexed. Surely such a strategy would be disastrous. And once again the very same leaders came back to me and said, not quite. It seems that the Labour Party had rightly concluded that the Hindu, Sikh and Jain vote was in the bag anyway, and given that these communities are not as well united and organised like the Pakistani community, they would not be able to damage their overall votes. There is a lot of truth in that view. History showed us there is still a sizeable Hindu, Sikh and Jain vote that always goes to the labour Party. This blind allegiance means that the Labour Party can get away with disrespecting their faith, their culture and their country of origin, knowing that they groups are too brainwashed to vote for anyone else. The Jewish vote for Labour on the other hand has gone down dramatically – they know how to show their displeasure.

When you investigate the matter further it transpires that most of the EDM (Early Day Motions in Parliament) that are negative to Israel and India tend to be led by Labour MP’s. No surprise there I suppose. In factthe Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn supported an EDM seeking a Visa ban for Shri Narendra Modi. Yes, you read that correctly.Even more startling, he wanted to ban PM Modi from the entering the UK. So readers in India, think about this seriously. You now have the leader of the Labour Party in the UK, who could potentially become the next PM of UK, who has openly sought to ban PM Modi from the UK. Add to that the fact that you still have some Indians in the UK who will blindly vote for Corbyn and Labour. I am informed that some of these very same Indians are also key advisors to PM Modi. Now how mad is that? It’s almost as if the Indian PM is being advised by, and is listening to, the very people who want to undermine him and India. Folks you cannot make this up if you tried. This is ground reality and I would hope that someone in PM Modi’s camp might see enlightenment and act accordingly, and quickly. If they want to know more, then I am always available to share my thoughts.

So let us move back to how the under belly of the Labour started to get exposed. The Jewish lobby is very powerful in the UK (as it is anywhere else in the world). I salute the Jewish community since they have learnt the lessons of history and have concluded, never again will they allow the racist from the far left,or the far right, to dictate the agenda and leave them in a precarious position. As soon as they raised their voice and took proactive action, we saw the fear in the Labour Party spreading. Jeremy Corbyn was forced to accept that his ideological positioning was not compatible with British society. Every media channel, including the proLabour media, ran the story to the end with remarkable editorials that more or less showed that Jeremy Corbyn was unfit to be a leader. We had endless apologies from him as well his senior MP’s in the Shadow Cabinet. Do I think the public believed a word of it? Simple answer, it seems most of the British public don’t believe a word he utters on this subject. It has become toxic to such an extent that even his own Jewish MP’s like Luciana Berger stated in Parliament that anti-Semitism within the party has become “commonplace, conspicuous and corrosive”.In May of this year, in many parts of the UK we had our Local Elections to elect Councillors and Councils. The Labour Party had been stating for months that this would be a total wipe out for the Conservative Party. The reality has now hit them hard. As the results were announced, the vast majority of Labour supporters were left devastated. Their prediction of winning everything in sight was way off the mark. In the end, the Conservative Party after 8 years in Government held on to most of the Councils and the wipe out that was predicted, never materialised. The reason, the anti-Semitism row took its toll. The Jewish community showed that not only can they affect and impact elections where they are in large numbers, but their reach goes much wider and affected results across the country.

India is the emerging giant. India under PM Modi has garnered huge respect around the world. However, it has yet to take people to task when India or Indians are undermined or disrespected. PM Modi needs all the support he can get from the nation. However with that support he, and his Government, must also deliver on some of the core issues emerging. India stands at the gateway of a glorious future. The dreams of Bharat varsh can be achieved where each and every Indian will be respected, valued and will find a place in the nation to fulfil their aspirations. This is not a time to blink, it’s time to stare your destiny in the eye and secure it.

In the words of Swami Vivekananda ji:“Arise awake and stop not until the goal is achieved.”

Twitter: @kk_OEG The writer is a seasoned businessman and a leading thought provoking writer from the UK. His command of detail and his ability to see issues and events years before they come to fruition is worthy of note. He has advised very senior politicians on a variety of issues. Being independent of thought, he does not compromise, nor does he bow to pressures to become politically correct.He understands the East, and he lives in the West. A unique grasp of perspectives that is often food for thoughts for all of us.

One of the most peaceful and pleasant cities of India, Shillong, has been caught up in sectarian violence. After three days of unrest, Shillong had a few peaceful hours on Sunday — only to be disturbed by violence that erupted again in defiance of the curfew in the evening.

India with her diverse cultures has always been a melting pot of multiple languages, traditions, foods and much else. This is what makes India by far and away the most unique nation-state on the planet; her natural diversity and the fact that for the most part tensions between communities have been kept to a minimum. But, unfortunately they often do tend to flare up. And in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, over the past few days the simmering tension between locals and Sikh immigrants from Punjab has boiled over into uncontrolled rioting catching a young and inexperienced Chief Minister unawares and on the back foot.

Shillong has for many years been one of India’s most serene State capitals although in recent years it also has faced the challenges of modern life, namely traffic and pollution. Yet, the recent violence is not something out of the ordinary. In the past, anti-immigrant violence has been directed at Bengalis and the current violence which might have begun over a parking dispute was one that had been simmering for a while as the local Khasi community blamed outsiders for ‘stealing their jobs’ and felt they were a cultural risk. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, educated in New Delhi and very much a modern politician, has rapidly deployed State and Central forces to keep the riots in check after they spiralled in the initial hours. However, more needs to be done to keep matters in control.

But this is not a problem that will be restricted to Shillong in the future — as jobs become difficult to come by, the battle between locals who feel deprived of opportunities and immigrants from other States will become a huge issue across India. Immigrants, even when they are domestic migrants, tend to work harder and in a situation where jobs are difficult to come by will happily move to where the opportunities are. Locals will feel that immigrants will not only steal their jobs but also impose their cultural values. The Shiv Sena in the 1960s introduced this nativist ‘cultural’ protection’ philosophy as agitprop and local politicians across States as diverse as Goa, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir have exacerbated the issue over the past decade, often adding a communal tinge to it as well. These challenges will only intensify going forward and a single Chief Minister cannot deal with it. This issue needs a national solution, where we should all be reminded that we are Indians first and foremost. That said, the tendency of communities to ghettoise must be countered because these tend to make matters even worse. There is, however, no quick-fix. An integrationist philosophy coupled with an emphasis on a quantum leap in economic opportunities is the only solution.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

After observing the below par performance of the candidates from Bengal in the National Eligibility and Medical Entrance Test, Mamata Banerjee has decided to come out of the NEET scheme if gross errors are not rectified with immediate effect. But before that the ruling Trinamool congress is also planning to raise the issue in parliament along with other like-minded parties, sources said.

The Chief Minister said on Tuesday that “we are offended, the way the NEET exams were conducted. There are many flaws in it.” She added in the current scheme of things the regional aspirations would be deprived and advantages would go to ‘outsiders’ and not the bhoomi putras (people of the soil).

“The language is a big barrier. If things are conducted the way they were this time then local students and will not get chance and medical profession in States will be filled by people who do not belong to the regions concerned. Since language is a big issue in treating patients it is necessary that it is taken care of,” Banerjee said.

The Chief Minister who had earlier written to Union Minister Prakash Javadekar drawing his attention over inadequate availability of Bengali

question papers and also inappropriate translation of English papers in to Bengali, on Tuesday iterated “we found translations of various types. In many cases question papers had not come in adequate numbers so as to compel the students write their papers with English or Hindi versions which is as good as disallowing them the advantage of mother language.” Sources in the Government also said the ruling party was pondering over whether the State could come out of the NEET scheme of things. The party was also planning to raise the issue in a big way in Parliament and was in touch with other parties like DMK so that a coordinated effort can be made. “Regional aspirations cannot be disregarded and ignored in a manner they have done this time. We will want them to rectify the gross errors immediately,” sources in the Education Department said.

Meanwhile, in a new development the Chief Minister has said that her Government was mulling ways to tax outsiders to fund free medical treatment to the people of the State.

She said there were lakhs of people from other States and even abroad who come to Bengal seeking medical services from the Government hospitals. “On humanitarian grounds we cannot deny treatment to them but we have every right to charge them so that we can provide relief to our own citizens,” Banerjee said.

Writer: Saugar Sengupta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

It was a landslide for BJP in 2014, but 2019 won’t be the same

In approximately less than twelve months, Indian voters from Kanyakumari to Kashmir will go to the polls to select their next parliament. The country’s 2019 general election—like previous contests—will be the largest democratic exercise in world history. More than 870 million voters will be eligible to help determine which political party or alliance will form the government and, in turn, who will serve as prime minister.

Electoral outcomes are notoriously difficult to predict in India’s fragmented, hypercompetitive democracy. But one need not go out on a limb to declare that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be the front runner if the election were held today. Following the BJP’s decisive 2014 mandate, many analysts confidently proclaimed that Modi would remain in power for at least two, if not three, terms. Opinion polls reveal that Modi remains highly popular after four years in office, and the BJP has managed to methodically expand its national footprint in numerous state elections since 2014. The opposition, comprised of the once-dominant Indian National Congress and a plethora of regional parties, has struggled to counter the BJP onslaught.

Yet the election’s clear front-runner is far from invulnerable, despite anticipation of a BJP cakewalk in 2019. Although the intricacies of the upcoming race—such as the selection of candidates and the rhetoric of campaigns—remain unknown one year out, underlying structural conditions suggest far rockier terrain may lie ahead. In particular, four crucial objectives keep BJP strategists up at night: expanding beyond regional strongholds, recruiting new—and retaining old—coalition partners, withstanding a disappointing economic performance, and contending with fluctuations in voter mobilization. The party’s performance in the 2019 election will hinge largely on its ability to address these potential vulnerabilities and the opposition’s ability to exploit them.

2014 AND BEYOND

To understand the BJP’s position today, one must recall how unusual India’s 2014 election results were. Between 2004 and 2014, the Congress Party and its allies (known collectively as the United Progressive Alliance, or UPA) ran the central government in New Delhi. Although the UPA oversaw record economic growth during its first term, its second term was markedly less positive, as a slowing economy, doubts about its leadership, and an endless parade of corruption scandals badly dented the Congress-led alliance’s credibility.

In an era of fractured political mandates in New Delhi, the Modi-led BJP achieved what many analysts believed was unthinkable: it won a clear, singleparty majority in the lower house of the Indian parliament (the Lok Sabha) by capturing 282 of 543 seats (see figure 1). Its political allies—members of the
BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—netted another fifty-three seats. Although the BJP campaigned under the banner of “Mission 272” (a number that represents the threshold for a parliamentary majority), few Indians (even within the BJP itself) believed that the party was likely to meet, let alone surpass, this mark on its own.

The 2014 electoral outcome was historic. No party had obtained a clear majority of Lok Sabha seats on its own since 1984 when the Congress did so after the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi. 2014 was the first time a non-Congress party had achieved an outright majority by itself without the need for a large, unwieldy coalition. Meanwhile, the Congress sank to its lowest total in history—a paltry forty-four seats. Prior to 2014, the fewest seats the Congress had won in a general election was 114 in 1999. In addition, the 2014 election saw record voter turnout: 66.4 percent of eligible voters (or roughly 554 million voters) cast ballots, a sharp uptick from the 58 percent recorded in the two previous elections.

With each passing year, the national reach of the BJP has grown while the reach of the Congress has shrunk. The BJP and its allies now run twenty-one of India’s twenty-nine states—home to over 70 percent of the Indian population (see figure 2). Prior to Modi’s election, the NDA controlled just eight states. The BJP’s gains have largely come at the expense of the Congress; whereas the latter ran thirteen states prior to the last general election, today it governs in just four. Furthermore, only two of these (Karnataka and Punjab) have substantial populations (with roughly 90 million residents between them).
The lion’s share of the credit for the BJP’s resurgence belongs to Modi, who remains the most popular politician in India. In May 2014, 36 percent of Indians surveyed named him as their preferred candidate for prime minister, compared to just 14 percent for Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Although Modi’s rating might sound low from a comparative perspective, it is remarkably high for India’s fragmented political system in which 464 parties contested the 2014 general election. While Gandhi’s rating had risen to 20 percent by January 2018, Modi’s popularity has remained extremely stable throughout his four years in office (hovering around 37 percent). Historically, Gandhi’s rating has proven erratic, in part due to his twin struggles with consistency and effectiveness.

REIMAGINING THE MAP

Pulling off an encore performance of the BJP’s sweeping 2014 victory will be a tall order; to compensate for potential losses in its core areas, the party must venture into new territory. In 2014, the BJP virtually swept areas where it traditionally enjoys strong support in northern and western India (see figure 3). Just eight states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh—accounted for over 75 percent of the BJP’s tally in parliament. Collectively, these states account for 273 seats, of which the BJP won 216 (nearly 80 percent).

Running the table in two consecutive elections will be an uphill battle. Indian voters are legendary for their tendency to harbor anti-incumbency sentiments; research suggests that individual members of parliament (MPs) are just as likely to get thrown out of office at the end of their term as to get voted back in. There are also statelevel anti-incumbency effects that have negative spillovers on national politics. Parliamentary candidates representing a given state’s ruling party enjoy an electoral advantage in national elections, but only when national elections are held early in the state government’s term. Once this honeymoon period is over, holding power in India’s states becomes a liability in general elections. This poses a problem for the BJP, which serves as the ruling party in all eight of these core states; in five of them, its governments are nearing the ends of their terms.

Because Modi and BJP President Amit Shah—a longtime Modi aide and a savvy campaign strategist—know engineering another sweep of these eight core states will be difficult, they have placed great importance on expanding the BJP’s footprint into parts of the country where it traditionally has been weak. Hence, the BJP’s painstaking devotion to breaking into India’s northeast—long considered to be a bastion of the Congress and smaller regional parties. The northeast is often seen as inconsequential to the overall electoral picture given that it accounts for just 3.7 percent of India’s population. Yet the region boasts twenty-five parliamentary seats, a tempting prize for a party that covets new territory to compensate for losses likely to be sustained elsewhere. Thanks to a series of recent state-level victories, the BJP now sits in government in seven of these eight states and is building up organizational and alliance networks across the region; as a relatively new player in northeastern India, the BJP is less likely to fall prey to Indian voters’ antipathy for incumbents there than in the party’s traditional strongholds. Whereas the Congress retains the capacity to put up a good fight in the Hindi heartland, its stature in the northeast has rapidly diminished.

Having established a foothold in northeastern India, the BJP now aims to increase its strength along India’s eastern seaboard in major states such as Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal. In a fifth state, Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has worked primarily through a key alliance partner—the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). The four aforementioned states serve as a sort of firewall the BJP has struggled to penetrate in national elections. All told, these five states collectively account for 144 seats in the parliament. Each is home to one (or more) powerful parties with strong ties to linguistic, regional, and cultural identities the BJP currently lacks.

However, this firewall may be fracturing. In West Bengal, the BJP trails the ruling Trinamool Congress Party in terms of statewide appeal. But it views the demise of the two principal opposition forces—the Left (a coalition of left-leaning parties) and the Congress— as providing a crucial opening for it to emerge as the second-largest party. The ruling Biju Janata Dal of Odisha won twenty of twenty-one parliamentary seats in 2014, ceding just one to the BJP. But the latter won one-quarter of the vote and has subsequently performed well in municipal elections. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP is a bit player on its own but sees the potential to make inroads through alliances. Fissures within the state’s ruling party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, have given the BJP hope that the party system might be ripe for realignment.

COALITION DYNAMICS

Sustaining previous hard-won gains and breaking new ground in pockets of the country outside BJP strongholds, however, will require partners. On this score, the BJP’s prognosis is mixed.

On the one hand, thanks to the widespread sense that the BJP has the wind at its back, the party has become the central pole around which politics in India revolves. This distinguished position once belonged to the Congress, but its recent electoral stumbles and the BJP’s abundant successes have decisively changed the equation. In three recent state elections—in Goa, Manipur, and Meghalaya—the BJP failed to emerge as the single largest party. Nonetheless, thanks to its allure as an alliance partner, the BJP formed governments in all three states by winning over several smaller parties who decided to join a party gaining momentum rather than one appearing to lose it. Across states, the BJP, not the Congress, seems to be the default governing party.

Yet recent events suggest that the BJP’s electoral coalition is showing signs of strain. Existing BJP allies are voicing concerns about the party’s methods, raising the possibility that its electoral coalition could fracture. Two of the BJP’s biggest allies, the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, have recently put the BJP on notice that they are unhappy with its “arrogant” leadership style. The Shiv Sena announced in January 2018 that it would contest the 2019 elections alone, rather than with the BJP. In March, the TDP pulled its ministers
from the central cabinet in New Delhi to express disappointment with the Modi government’s failure to help Andhra Pradesh tap additional central government funds. When the BJP refused to budge, the TDP announced its decision to formally exit the alliance. These ruptures, while not fatal or irreversible, potentially complicate the BJP’s electoral arithmetic in 2019. If the BJP is successfully tarred as anti-Andhra, it would be difficult for the party to notch a pre-poll alliance with any of the major regional parties there, increasing the
likelihood that a sizeable chunk of the state’s twenty-five seats would be out of the BJP’s reach. In Maharashtra, provided the opposition coalition remains intact, the split with the Shiv Sena could create a three-way race.

Luckily for the BJP, the opposition remains in disarray. The Congress has been slow to rectify the organizational and leadership deficiencies laid bare in 2014. As one senior party leader has mused, the Congress has faced electoral crises before, but what it faces today is an existential crisis. While it will likely gain seats in 2019, one Congress leader privately admitted that a triple-digit figure would be a stretch at present. Left parties have seen a precipitous decline nearly everywhere save for the state of Kerala, its last remaining stronghold. The upstart Aam Aadmi Party, which came to power in the Delhi state assembly by way of an assertive, agitational brand of politics, has struggled to extend its reach beyond the national capital. Moreover, parties opposed to the BJP have failed to coordinate and pool their votes so as to keep the BJP out of power.

There have been two notable exceptions where opposition parties have set aside their differences and forged a degree of bonhomie. The first was the 2015 state election in Bihar, where a socalled grand alliance of opposition parties joined hands to keep the BJP from winning power. The opposition alliance won a resounding victory, but this short-lived marriage of convenience ultimately ended when one party defected. More recently, in March 2018, two rival regional parties in Uttar Pradesh buried their long-standing differences to jointly defeat the BJP in a special by-election. Regional players could give the BJP a run for its money in their respective states, but doing so will require them to work cooperatively—something that does not come naturally to rivals who bitterly jostle for political space. The effects of the BJP’s own alliance drama will be mitigated if the opposition proves unable or unwilling to do business together in 2019.

ECONOMIC ANXIETY

But it is not only allies the BJP must worry about retaining; many voters who were swayed by Modi’s promise to usher in acche din (good times) by reenergizing the Indian economy have also grown restive. In 2014, India was plagued by slumping growth, ballooning deficits, stalled investments, and soaring inflation—offering the BJP untold opportunities to critique the Congress Party’s mismanagement of bread-andbutter issues. Although invocations of Hindu majoritarianism also populated the BJP’s entreaties, it was the BJP’s insistence that it would rectify the declining economy that resonated across the country. Yet as economic progress under Modi has fallen short of expectations, anxieties about the lack of job creation have led to massive popular protests in state after state. While the intensity and scope of voter disaffection with India’s economy is not certain, there are signs that disquiet is rising among rural voters who decisively backed the BJP four years ago. Given that farmers account for roughly half of India’s labor force, rural economic woes raise alarm bells for every incumbent politician.

BJP strategists once believed that economic revival would be the hallmark of the 2019 campaign. Unfortunately for them, the economy has not experienced a uniform revival. Growth, while high by international standards, remains well below the country’s potential. A failure to deal quickly with a systemic banking crisis has bogged down the domestic investment cycle. Inflation, which has fallen from the double-digit levels of the tenure of the Congress, remains a risk in an election year when the pressure to spend will be elevated. Furthermore, the Modi government’s decisions to abruptly remove high-value currency notes from circulation and enact the sweeping Goods and Services Tax reform have hurt short-term growth, irrespective of their longer-term merits. More importantly, for the average Indian, job growth has been anemic. According to the Reserve Bank of India, total employment actually shrank between 2014 and 2016. While it appears that nonfarm jobs grew over this period, farming jobs declined—perhaps as a result of successive droughts. The BJP is betting that its flagship welfare schemes might inoculate it against its patchy economic record. Criticized for having cozy links to corporate capital, Modi’s administration has doggedly tried to burnish its propoor credentials by doubling down on major welfare schemes—such as granting every household a bank account, initiating free cooking gas connections to families below the poverty line, and ensuring universal affordable housing.

These efforts notwithstanding, economic travails are especially apparent in rural India. Although once the bailiwick of the Congress, many rural voters in 2014 switched their allegiance to the BJP—a party that has historically performed better with city-dwellers. The rural shift toward the BJP could easily swing back to the Congress; for instance, available data suggests that support for the BJP alliance among farmers has declined over the past year. Indeed, recent distress in the farming sector is likely sending chills down the spines of BJP leaders. Despite Modi’s promises to double agrarian incomes by 2022, agriculture remains in a state of disrepair. While the causes of this distress are largely structural, proximate factors such as the decline in the prices of several agricultural commodities and shortfalls in farm production have stimulated outrage among many rural Indians.

A clear warning shot was fired in December 2017 during elections in Gujarat, a longtime BJP bastion. Although it retained its majority in the state assembly, the BJP encountered serious rural opposition—especially in the key region of Saurashtra—where the Congress prevailed by capitalizing on caste politics and the waning fortunes of farmers. In March 2018, as many as 50,000 farmers in Maharashtra descended on the state capital of Mumbai to demand the BJP state government move swiftly to aid them. How widespread this disaffection has spread is unclear. All eyes will be on upcoming state elections in Karnataka (in May 2018) and Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan (in December 2018) to discern whether this alleged drop-off in rural locales is sustained.

VOTER MOBILIZATION

A final concern for the BJP in 2019 is voter mobilization. In 2014, the party successfully channeled popular disaffection with the incumbent Congress Party into record voter turnout (66.4 percent). Voter turnout had previously peaked at 64 percent in 1984 and fell to between 56 and 62 percent in subsequent election cycles. As Neelanjan Sircar has pointed out, there was a strong association between the growth in voter turnout and the improved fortunes of the BJP in the 2014 election. A key source of strength came from young voters. Research has demonstrated that states with the largest increases in the share of young, first-time voters in
2014 also experienced the biggest gains in BJP vote share. With the novelty of Modi and BJP rule in New Delhi wearing thin, there is a risk that voter turnout will return to ordinary levels, reducing the BJP’s enthusiasm advantage.

One key demographic the BJP believes it can energize in 2019 is women. Although they do not vote as a bloc per se, the party believes several of its welfare schemes have special resonance with women and can influence their votes. This is significant because Indian females are voting in greater numbers than ever before. In 2014, women voted at higher rates than men in sixteen of India’s thirty-five states and union territories. At the state level, female turnout now regularly surpasses male turnout.

Looking ahead, the BJP’s predicament is how to mobilize voters as an incumbent party. One possibility is that the party will choose to invoke the Hindu nationalist card more expressly and more intensively to rile up its base. Such a move toward polarization would become even more likely if the opposition successfully bands together to forge a common anti-BJP front. Yet such a risky strategy could turn off as many (or more) voters as it galvanizes.

CONCLUSION

One year in advance, many details of the 2019 race remain unknown, but its structural drivers are quickly coming into view. Modi and Shah are wasting no time in recalibrating their approach to mitigate the BJP’s unexpected challenges. For instance, the government’s most recent budget was packed with pro-poor rhetoric and numerous sops meant to allay rural anger. As existing allies are growing wary with the BJP’s modus operandi, the party’s high command has stepped up its outreach to smooth frayed relations. And, concerned about waning voter enthusiasm, Modi has directed the party’s elected representatives to redouble efforts to connect with constituents. In one instance, Modi is reported to have warned sitting BJP MPs that they must amass at least 300,000 followers on social media or risk losing their party tickets. The opposition is making adjustments as well. Gandhi and the once-dithering Congress appears more focused and consistent. The opposition, at least rhetorically, is embracing the need to forge a common anti-BJP front in 2019. Twelve months is an eternity in politics, but one thing has become evident: once thought to be a cakewalk for the BJP, the 2019 election is turning into a contest.

Courtesy Carnegie Foundation: The author is grateful to Matthew Lillehaugen for excellent research and editorial assistance and Ryan DeVries for thoughtful edits.

Winning the trust vote naturally involved dodgy moves. Yet, as Indira Gandhi often demonstrated, the electorate always nurtures a grudging respect for those who can beat the odds, ethics being no bar in war. If the battle, for the BJP, was all about defeating the Congress — and, by implication, the Old Establishment that is putting up a spirited resistance to Modi’s dominance of Indian politics — the challenge was always worth accepting.

Last Saturday, in a terrible anti-climax, the BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa opted out of the floor test and in effect handed over the mantle of chief ministership to the leader of the third party in the Karnataka Assembly. Yeddyurappa may well live to fight another day but, for the moment, H D Kumaraswamy is the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, courtesy the Congress. In normal circumstances, this post-election battle of numbers would have been viewed as yet another disagreeable muddle, the likes of which India has experienced on innumerable occasions. It would have been interesting but hardly worth the carpet bombing coverage the country has witnessed on the news channels.

The difference was on two counts. First, the Karnataka battle was transformed into a facet of national politics. There was a positioning game under way for the 2019 general election. The BJP was intent on demonstrating that its march through the whole of India is unstoppable. Having established a firm foothold in Assam and the rest of North-east India, an area where the saffron flag was a novelty in the past, the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah army was now intent on establishing its hold in southern India, Karnataka being the gateway. The Opposition, on the other hand, was anxious on two counts. First, the post-election combination of the third party and the second party is a possible template for what they hope will happen after 2019 — a grand combination of all anti-BJP forces, united by a common concern for secularism. Secondly, for the beleaguered Congress, the loss of Karnataka was too major a blow to countenance. Rather than risk being reduced to what Modi mocked as Punjab-Puducherry-Parivar and being resource-starved for 2019, the Congress would rather get a toehold at any cost, even if it involved participating in — what may turn out to be — an ATM government.

Now that the BJP failed to muster the numbers, there are bound to be questions raised. Should the party have staked a claim to form the government, knowing fully well that the other side had more MLAs? Should it not have taken the high moral ground and opted to sit in opposition, knowing fully well that the inverted pyramid model of government formation tends to be woefully short-lived? On the other hand, why concede the battle to the enemy without at least a fight?

These questions are not unique. In 1996, Atal Bihari vajpayee, as leader of the single largest party, was invited by the President to form a government. He accepted, despite knowing that he lacked the numbers. For a few days the BJP tried — rather amateurishly, I may add — to persuade other non-Congress parties to support Vajpayee. When it was clear it was a hopeless project, the party extracted full mileage through a dramatic resignation speech of Vajpayee, a speech that elevated his stature and was a factor in the BJP coming to power in 1998.

It is doubtful that Yeddyurappa’s speech had the same effect as vajpayee’s oratory. He will no doubt be seen as a martyr by his core Lingayat controversy. But overall, the projection will be that Modi and Shah were thwarted by a determined ‘secular’ opposition. The BJP’s defeat will become an occasion for ‘secular’ triumphalism, just as his victory would have generated the same elation among the Modi supporters. How last Saturday’s outcome of the confidence vote will influence political thinking in Karnataka in the next year will depend on two factors. First, how the new government will be able to cope with a fragile majority will set the tone. Secondly, much will depend on whether the BJP’s argument that it sought to abide by the spirit of the Assembly election mandate is more persuasive than the claim that the BJP has to be stopped from winning another state at all cost.

From the BJP’s perspective which option — being in government or opposition —was preferable? There are no clear cut answers. Winning the trust vote naturally involved dodgy moves. Yet, as Indira Gandhi often demonstrated, the electorate always nurtures a grudging respect for those who can beat the odds, ethics being no bar in war. If the battle, for the BJP, was all about defeating the Congress — and, by implication, the Old Establishment that is putting up a spirited resistance to Modi’s dominance of Indian politics — the challenge was always worth accepting. The real issue is how the BJP can put the Congress in the doghouse. That is where political communication becomes all-important. In the event the JD(S)-led government is established clumsily, the BJP will have to go to town with the message that the Congress is brazen, shameless and insatiably power hungry; that it has learnt absolutely nothing from the electoral drubbing it received; and that it is shameless enough to re-appoint former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as Legislature Party leader. Just as much as the BJP needs to show how the spirit of the mandate for change was violated, it will have to direct its artillery fire against the Congress. The importance of the Congress lies not merely in its brand name but the fact that the party is still the rallying point for a very powerful section of the Old Establishment that wants Modi out as soon as possible. Weaken the Congress and the rest is a relative pushover.

There is little opprobrium likely to be attached to Kumaraswamy for settling for the best bargain. The JD(S) set about to win the day despite coming third and it has done so. There is little point targeting him, just as there was little point assaulting Madhu Koda, the one-man brigade who ended up as Chief Minister. The guilty party, as always, was the Congress. The Karnataka experience shows that nothing has changed. Power is the glue that keeps the Congress alive. Take it away and, hopefully, the Ganga and Cauvery will be cleaned.

(Swapan Dasgupta: Writer is a senior journalist and Member of Parliament, being a presidential nominee to the Rajya Sabha)

By-poll results clearly stated that what all the opposition party is doing, but the question is, how the Bharatiya Janata Party will respond to the results

At the apogee of the Narendra Modi wave a couple of years ago, BJP president Amit Shah, having settled the party hierarchy and got the teams of his choice in place, decided to go for broke. He assessed, rightly, that there is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Obviously in consultation with and with the permission of the Prime Minister, the party president focused with single-minded determination and energy — surpassed in the history of political parties in India perhaps only by PC Joshi who built the organization, expanded the ideological footprint and increased the acceptability of the (undivided) Communist Party of India in a near-superhuman effort between 1935 and 1948 — on charting a bold new course for the BJP. No longer was the BJP going to be a party that was stuck at under one-third of the popular vote and just over one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha at its best. AB Vajpayee and LK Advani along with Murli Manohar Joshi, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and other party icons had done the hard work of mainstreaming a party and ideology that had been relegated to the fringes of national discourse post-1947 by the late 1990s before the BJP sort of plateaued in the first decade of the millennium. But with the advent of Modi as the BJP talisman, Shah began scaling up the party machine and extending its apparatus to previously unchartered territory. It helped that the Sangh, fed up with two continuous terms of the UPA and the venal element within it, which was busy trying to ‘fix’ the RSS and was taking the country down what amounted to a differential citizenship model by a cynical use of minoritism, backed this effort with all its might and front organizations. The logical corollary to this growth of the BJP, combined with the politically combative and take-no-prisoners approach of its leadership, is the Opposition uniting to try (and largely succeed) in defeating the BJP in electoral contests as has been witnessed in Karnataka, the by-elections to four Lok Sabha and 11 Assembly seats results of which were announced on Thursday and other Lok Sabha/Assembly by-polls in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan earlier this year.

Though we are not as sanguine as some others about the Opposition being able to maintain nationwide the high index of unity it has displayed in the by-elections when it comes to the 2019 General Election, the question does need to be asked: How does the BJP combat this gang-up against it? One school of thought in the party seems to favor the Indira Gandhi redux, Ek sherni sau langur, Chikmagalur, Chikmagalur template. But for that to succeed a national narrative has to be built on tangible achievements the party has to show on its core OneIndia issues: A Ram temple at Ayodhya, the abrogation of Article 370 and the implementation of a uniform civil code. Realistically, none of them look likely to come to fruition before the next Lok Sabha poll. As for anti-corruption measures, providing a safe and secure environment for citizens and the development push, well, in a country the size of India with the scale of the challenges it faces and no agreement on the objective criteria on which to judge such albeit essential efforts, it will always be a situation of claim and counterclaim. Modi’s honesty of intent may be a part-palliative in this context but may not be enough. The great gamble will come unstuck unless the welcome aggression of a party in growth-mode is not mated with an accommodative approach towards alliances. But having  rolled the dice expecting to win big on its own, the BJP is being regarded with extreme wariness by potential allies today.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Four years of Modi government: In the biggest election of India’s history, Narendra Modi, the three-term chief minister of Gujarat stormed to power with a thumping majority for his vision for a developed India. In his first major address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 2014, Narendra Modi announced his flagship Jan-Dhan Yojana, which to date is one of the jewels in his crown. Others are the successful implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the introduction of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). With India expected to emerge as the fastest-growing major economy again this financial year, especially after slumping to as low as 5.7% due to disruptions from structural changes, this could be a big shot in the arm of Narendra Modi ahead of the 2019 polls. From Ujjwala Yojana to Saubhagya Yojana — Narendra Modi gets full marks for his efforts, even as some targets are expected to be missed.

As Modi completes 4 years, India Inc’s thumbs up to economy; CII says GST cyclone over, reforms on track: As the BJP-led NDA government completes four years in office, industry chamber CII today said India’s economy is robust with GST system having settled down and reforms firmly on the right path. In a statement, CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said over the last four years, the government has systematically addressed major pain points for the economy such as ease of doing business, non-performing assets of banks, foreign direct investment rules, infrastructure construction and exit of failing enterprises.

Achche din may be several years away, but PM must get full marks for trying : Achche din may be several years away, but the NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi must get full marks for trying. Four years into the government’s regime, the economy is not exactly rocking. GDP has clocked in at an average of 7.3% annually between FY15 and FY18, below the 7.5% notched up in the five years prior to that. Manufacturing is muddling along, but exports are in a shambles leaving private sector investment stagnant, and few jobs on offer. The damage from demonetisation and GST is slowly coming undone, but business sentiment remains subdued. However, the GST collections have started picking up and the impact of demonitization is gradually fading away. The effect of the two major policy decisions will improve the prospects of the Indian economy.

Sensex leaps 10,000 points! 4 winning feats that steered stock market to record highs: In the span of last four years, Indian stock markets have fared considerably well as compared to regional Asian peers and Wall Street — the world’s largest equity markets by turnover. The benchmark equity index BSE Sensex has added about 10,000 points in the last four years breaching the key levels of 30,000 for the first time under Narendra Modi-led NDA government. The S&P BSE Sensex has gained as much as 9,970 points to 34,663 from a level of 24,693 as on 23 May 2018, before swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as PM.

Has India created enough jobs? Debate on, but this next challenge will be bigger: While formal jobs have indeed been created, muted household income and savings macro data suggest muted quality of jobs in aggregate. “Job quality is the real issue for Indian macro and markets, manifested in the slowing growth of the middle class,” Gautam Chhaochharia, Analyst and Sanjena Dadawala, Analysts at UBS said in the report. But the growing young population in India needs 2 crore fresh jobs annually. The sheer scale of the job market will challenge every elected government of India.

4 small reforms by Modi that went unnoticed: In 2016, the Lok Sabha repealed 1,175 of 1,827 laws that were identified as obsolete, and many other steps were taken to make lives of common people easier. From self-attestation to doing away with birth certificate for passport to Tatkal reforms to easing I-T filing, these reforms went unnoticed in the four years of Modi-led NDA government.

These 5 ministries get stellar score from people, and Finance is not among them : The top five ministries of the Modi government are Defence, External Affairs, New and Renewable Energy, Coal, and Road, Transport and Highways, a survey conducted by LocalCircles showed. Indians have given a stellar score to the Defence Ministry — 4.9 on the scale of 5. The government has been applauded for “taking some bold steps like the surgical strikes against Pakistan,” LocalCircles said.

Even after 4 years, Modi is winning hearts; Survey shows 57% Indians happy with his work :A total of 57% Indians say that the has “either met or exceeded” their expectations in the last four years, a survey said. A majority of Indians are particularly happy with Narendra Modi’s effort in improving India’s image globally, handling of Pakistan, fighting terrorism, infrastructure development and reducing tax harassment, a survey report by LocalCircles said.

Four ambitious targets NDA is poised to miss: After taking over the Prime Minister’s Office in 2014, Narendra Modi shared his vision to make India an investor-friendly destination, which would subsequently lead to job creation and development. However, despite ambitious plans like Make in India, Narendra Modi, four years later, is poised to miss some targets. Amit Shah says PM Modi works for 15-18 hours every day : BJP provided the most hardworking Prime Minister & the most popular leader in the world to the country, a PM who works for 1518 hours a day. We are proud that this Prime Minister is a leader of BJP, says Amit Shah.

Challenges: Pakistan and China are the major source of worry for Modi government. Kashmir policy persuaded by NDA government has yielded no results. In fact, the militancy in the state is on the rise. The hawkish approach has yielded no dividends. China has a pro Pakistan policy and Beijing is looking to mediate in the Kashmir matter. Doklam, POK, Burma, South China Sea, Dalai Lama and trade imbalance are the pending issues with practically no solution. China has practically expanded in India’s next door countries through infrastructure projects and defence cooperation; it is a great challenge for Modi led NDA government in respect to the nation security.

Social Harmony: The Modi government must focus on building confidence with the minority community and the SC/ST community in India. It may be a perception that the NDA government led by Narendra Modi has targeted minorities and socially deprived sections of the communities though in government defence, it is a collective effort of opposition to portray Modi sarkar to be anti minority and anti dalit to reap political benefits. The sooner this problem is addressed, the better it will be for the nation.

Foreign Policy

Modi’s international trips have always generated a buzz. In the past four years, the PM has travelled six continents: 36 foreign trips visiting 54 countries; India’s global presence is said to have become stronger ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into power after 2014 general elections. At one point, he was also criticized for his international trips. However, it has been said that in the four years of Modi as PM, India’s bilateral ties with major economies have improved.

India and the big economies

The country most frequented by PM Modi was the United States, where he made five visits including the UN General Assembly meeting in 2014. IndoUS relations were tensed under the second UPA regime, but has certainly improved since the entry of Modi.

Defence, economic and political ties between India and the US have improved a lot since Modi. The two countries signed Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), the defence agreement pending since 2004. Pakistan remains a major policy discussion between the countries. Trump’s tough talk on Pakistan has aligned the US with India’s old frustration with the country.

On his trips to the United Kingdom, PM Modi met Queen Elizabeth twice, once in 2015 and recently in April this year as well as his British counterpart Theresa May. India is the third largest investor in UK, making their ties crucial. Modi recently signed memorandums for National Clean Ganga Mission, skill development and vocational programmes and an agreement between NITI Aayog and UK’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Modi also visited China, Germany and Russia four times in the past four years. Relations between India and China have been strained since the Doklam issue arose and these meetings have defined the two countries’ relationships with each other. Modi was one of the first to congratulate Xi Jinping when he was re-elected as the president of China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Modi met recently in an informal summit in Sochi, where PM Modi said India-Russia ties have “stood the test of time”. Germany is India’s biggest trade partner in the European Union, and ties have strengthened with each visit Modi paid Chancellor Angela Merkel. PM Modi also made three visits of strategic importance to France in his four years.

India’s neighbors

Narendra Modi has stressed on relations with neighbouring countries ever since he took office. The prime minister paid three visits to Nepal since 2014. Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan are also on the list. Modi had stressed a lot on how South Asian countries must work together for better individual economic standings. Before relations went south, Modi had also visited Pakistan and held talks with then PM Nawaz Sharif. Unfortunately, PM Nawaz Sharif with whom PM Modi had developed personal relationship reigned and the clock went back to square one. The Kashmir issue and OROP remains the burning obstacles in securing better relationship between the two countries, the border tensions and limited hostilities are the regular feature at the LOC that Modi government has failed to reduce and eliminate from the source.

India’s relations with Middle Eastern countries have soared since Modi came to power. Summits with leaders of Israel, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Palestine and Afghanistan were held.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and PM Modi showcased a fast friendship during the former’s visit to India in January 2018. Modi asked Israeli companies to take advantage of the “liberalized FDI regime to make more in India”. Moreover, Netanyahu had described Israel’s relations with India as a “marriage made in heaven”! The Middle Eastern economies have been a priority of the Modi government since India is dependent on them for two-third of the oil imports. Many Indians migrate to the Middle East for jobs too.

Other countries PM Modi visited include Japan, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain and Sweden.

Domestic Politics

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has increased its electoral footprint from just eight states in 2014 to 20 in four years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership to emerge as the strongest political force in the country.

In fact, from just being a “formidable” force in the Hindi-heartland, the NDA is now in power across the North, with the only exception in Punjab, besides being part of ruling coalitions in seven of the eight states in the NorthEast.

The BJP is now looking to increase its electoral and social presence in the East and the South, where the NDA has marginal presence. Party leaders believe that Modi’s unwavering popularity will eventually help the NDA oust regional heavyweights, such as Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik, from their bastions, before it can increase its presence beyond the Vindhyas.

“The four years can be defined for BJP on the basis of expansion of the party both electorally and socially. Now, the BJP is the central force in national politics. The entire opposition, whether national or regional parties, is now coming together to oppose us.

This is the biggest influence of the BJP on national politics,” said a senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity.

The increasing dominance of the BJP in national politics can be established from the fact that it has wrestled away 12 states from the Congress in the last four years, while the NDA has had 14 electoral victories since Modi came to power. The emergence of the BJP as the political powerhouse took shape at the
cost of the Congress, which has not only faced a series of electoral losses, but has seen its support base shrinking even in key states. The trigger was the historic defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, wherein it recorded the lowest-ever tally with just 44 Lok Sabha members.

Apart from the recent success in Karnataka, where it formed a post-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular), the Congress is left with just Punjab, Mizoram and Puducherry. “Ever since the Lok Sabha defeat, electorally it has been a difficult time for us, but the tide is turning in our favour now. All the recent Lok Sabha bypolls show that the BJP is losing its momentum and popular support,” a senior Congress parliamentarian said, requesting anonymity.
With less than a year left for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is now looking to bring together all opposition parties to form an anti-BJP coalition. The presence of top leaders of more than 15 opposition parties during the swearing-in of H.D. Kumaraswamy as the Karnataka chief minister was seen as a show of strength.

In the last lap of its five-year term, the NDA is also facing a key electoral challenge with three states— Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh— currently ruled by the BJP going to polls later this year. It will also be a test for the Congress, which is attempting to rediscover itself ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

(Prakhar Misra: Writer is Political Editor of Opinion Express Group)

37 percent Indian companies who were researched to spend more on travel and entertainment this year; 40 percent feel Indian businesses are expected to invest more than last year in improving administrative process efficiency.

Travel and entertainment are the two segments which have been given a thumbs up by Indian finance executives as they are likely to increase spending. This is followed by investing in improving administrative process efficiencies and investing on mobile technology and hardware and infrastructure in 2018 to help meet their business priorities. According to the 11th Edition of the Global Business & Spending Outlook Survey, commissioned by American Express and conducted by Institutional Investor Thought Leadership Studio, 37 per cent of the CFOs surveyed that they are likely to spend more on T&E than last year, whereas 50 per cent maintained that they are likely to keep the spending same as last year.

The annual cross-industry survey conducted among 870 senior executives across 21 countries with worldwide revenue of more than US$500 million, states that 33 per cent of the Indian CFOs surveyed are likely to spend more on transportation/logistics and 53 per cent on hardware and infrastructure while half of the senior financial executives (50 per cent) aim to increase spending on mobile technology. About 40 per cent of the CFOs surveyed said that they are likely to invest more than last year in improving administrative process efficiency (e.g., streamlining financial, account payables, or procurement process) to help meet business objectives.

It is noteworthy that 90 per cent of the senior finance executives felt that improving cash and working-capital management (including payables, receivables, and inventories) is more important for their businesses this year as compared to last year. Over 60 per cent of the executives said that use of credit (e.g. revolving credit lines, corporate card, “float”) and ability to negotiate better payments terms on payables and receivables as well as volume discounts on purchases with suppliers and customers would yield substantial financial benefit to the company.

Sharing her views, Saru Kaushal, vice President and general manager, Global Commercial Services, American Express Banking Corp., India, said, “India is leading the way in terms of both business confidence and investments. Efficiency has become the keyword as companies take a back-to-basics approach and focusing on the fundamentals — better serving customers and meeting their needs, developing new products, entering new markets and prioritising business transformation and innovation. Businesses are reiterating the need for increasing spend on T&E, optimising cash flow and using it judiciously to grow and protect the business.”

Sharing economy is the name of the game

About 87 per cent of the respondents believes that commercial innovations of the so-called “sharing economy” (eg. those used by ride-sharing services like Uber or lodging services such as AirBnB will have a substantial impact on their industry in the next five years with 60 per cent executives agreeing that their company’s travel policy allows employees to use sharing economy services for lodging or transportation when traveling on business.

Meeting Customer Needs is Top Priority; Spending Plans Centre on Technology

Meeting customer needs better is a top priority for survey respondents in India (63 per cent). Companies are also most likely to focus on cyber-security and the protection of customer, supplier and employee data in the next two years.

Changing role of CFOs

Interestingly, the survey also reveals that 53 per cent senior finance executives see their function as that of a strategic advisor — not as a leader of strategy, nor as a mere supporter of it which in turn speaks of the significant evolution of the role of the finance executive.

Workforce increase anticipated, focus more on retaining top talent

Senior financial executives in India plan to increase their companies’ workforce in the year ahead. In the coming year 97 percent of survey respondents anticipate an uptick in their companies’ headcount. Last year, 20 per cent expected headcount to grow by 10 per cent or more. However, employee growth of 6 per cent or more rose to 77 per cent this year, up from 50 per cent last year. In an effort to attract and retain top talent, companies are also likely to improve the day-to-day working environment of their employees, offer more flexible work schedules and locations and expand career development programmes.

Writer: Team Viva

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The Church look as if they have led the media in helping build a Congress-Communist narrative that pulled the RSS into the Tuticorin protests.

The coverage by the national media of the protests in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, against Vedanta’s copper smelting plant has been injudicious, based on hearsay and without application of mind. A narrative has been parroted without critical examination.

It is true that protesters were killed in Tuticorin. But unfortunate and tragic as that is, did anyone bother to ask why police had to open fire? These protesters outnumbered the police force by a huge number at the collectorate; they assaulted police personnel physically, pelted them with stones, tore the clothes of female law enforcers and molested them, indulged in wanton acts of arson including setting fire to public property and indulged in an orgy of violence that threatened the safety of innocent people. Should it not be asked what forces were behind this extremely violent protest which is against every democratic norm? Was the protest sponsored or did it occur spontaneously? Who allowed the assault on police personnel and the burning of vehicles, buildings, ambulances and even setting the collectorate ablaze? Who made Tuticorin a battleground? Is death the only indicator of violence? Have we stopped condemning violence unless it results in deaths? Since when have we started celebrating protests indulge in acts of violence and destruction?

It is the absence of these questions being asked that the Opposition, led by the Congress and Communists, were quick to blame without any basis whatsoever the Narendra Modi-led Central Government rather than lay the responsibility for both the protests and the deaths of protesters in police firing at the door of the Tamil Nadu State Government which is in charge of law and order. But facts are of no consequence for those Opposition leaders who took to make wild, defamatory charges against Modi calling him a “murderer”. But then that is par for the course for the conspirators who pushed the Tuticorin protests into violence as it helped them in their goal of slinging mud at the Modi regime. Another motive could well have been to ensure the closure of the Sterlite Copper Smelting plant. But has anyone rationally thought about the negative effects of closing the plant? Is anyone worried about how this will affect our country’s economy and the thousands of employees who will be laid off?

The most provocative statement on the situation came from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Apropos of nothing in particular, he blamed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for the Tuticorin row, keeping in tune with his politics which begins and ends with RSS-baiting. When journalist Gauri Lankesh was murdered, Gandhi accused the Sangh of being behind the killing within half-an-hour of the shooting. When BS Yeddyurappa resigned as the Chief Minister of Karnataka because he couldn’t prove his majority on the floor of the House, Gandhi proclaimed he was supporting the rump JDS to “save the people from the RSS”. Rahul’s anti-Hindu bias is understandable but accusing the Sangh of being a terrorist organization is beyond the pale. In fact, the Congress-Communist cabal by baseless charges against the RSS instead of engaging in an ideological debate has ensured that the Sangh has come to represent Hindu sentiment nationwide. As a corollary, opposition to the RSS is considered ‘opposition to communalism’ and support of Islamic and Christian communalism and is termed ‘secularism’ by this cabal.

In the Tuticorin case, however, there seems to be more to it than just the reflexive blame-the-Sangh approach; a concerted attempt by the Church in those parts, supported by Gandhi and the so-called secular media, to drag the Sangh into the row is evident. The districts of Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu have the highest number of Christians and the Church has great influence on the public. It is not a coincidence that in the last two decades these districts have faced the greatest opposition to national development projects.

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tirunelveli, which was developed in collaboration with Russia, also saw a lot of protests. America’s disdain for this project was quite evident. The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh publicly blamed US-funded institutions for the protests against Kudankulam. The then Union Minister V Narayanasamy alleged that Bishop Yvon Ambroise of Tuticorin received Rs 54 crore and was the key figure behind the protests. Many Christian institutions such as People’s Education for Action and Liberation, and Good Vision were on the Union Home Ministry’s radar as instigators. The Home Secretary had announced that bank accounts of four such NGOs were sealed, as money was transferred from overseas to fund national protests and incite disruption.

The Christian population in Tuticorin is close to 30 per cent and the Church has a deep impact on residents’ everyday life. The plan to expand the Sterlite copper plant was brought forward as a new addition to the scope of already ongoing disputes. Before the Sterlite plant was closed, it was producing four lakh tons of copper annually. Under the proposed expansion, which would have happened if not for the violent protests and subsequent deaths in police firing, Sterlite would have produced eight lakh tons of copper annually. If this project had gone through, almost all of India’s copper needs would have been met domestically.

According to official police reports, the Tuticorin protest has a clear foreign influence. Samarendra Das of the ‘Foil Vedanta Group’ flew in from London and secretly met Sterlite protesters and assured them that he would fully support the continuation of the protests, according to police. Is it a coincidence that after the Tuticorin violence John McDonnell, a prominent leader of the Opposition Labour Party in the UK, declared that Vedanta is a rogue company and demanded it be removed from the London Stock Exchange? The discussions regarding Sterlite were used to instigate the locals of Tuticorin. Brother Mohan C. Lazarus on a YouTube video said, without any scientific backing, that Sterlite is a toxic factory. He said that the Church is praying to shut down the factory. He further stated that a protest will be held on 24 March, 2018, at Rajaji Park in Tuticorin, where all Catholics, Pentecostals, Church of South India (CSI) would unite to participate against Sterlite. Scientists of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had visited Sterlite and certified that emissions were within prescribed limits. Then what have these Churches achieved by provoking people against Sterlite, claiming that pollution levels are extremely hazardous? The Kudankulam protests saw the participation of Bishop Yvon Ambroise and SP Udayakumar, while the Sterlite protest had Brother Mohan C. Lazarus and other churches in the surrounding area as prime movers. Is the anti-development attitude of the Church not to be questioned? If the Manmohan Singh Government could take action against such disruptive elements then why can’t the Modi Government?

Police were portrayed as villains in Tuticorin. The media narrative was overwhelmingly of trigger-happy cops going berserk; did anyone try to figure out why the police was compelled to take last-resort action? Local journalist N. Rajesh’s report says the Deputy Inspector General of Police Kapil Kumar Saratkar made elaborate arrangements at the protest venue so that activists would not reach the collectorate. Even when senior police officers were talking to protest leaders and asking them to ensure a peaceful demonstration, radical activists broke the barricades and used iron pieces from them to assault police personnel. Police responded with a ‘lathi’ charge. Rajesh’s report says he and some other journalists climbed to the rooftop of a hotel opposite the collectorate to get a better sense of what was going down. At 11:30 am some protesters, who had forced their way into the collectorate, began burning vehicles. When the protestors saw that their photographs were being clicked and videos being recorded, they pelted journalists with stones. When journalists came down from the roof of the hotel some were assaulted and many had their cameras snatched.

The testimony of the collectorate employees supports Rajesh’s reportage. A female employee said that at 11.10 a.m., she was having tea in the canteen with her colleagues; about 20 minutes later they witnessed bruised and battered police personnel being chased by stone-pelting protesters. The employees were scared and didn’t know what to do, so they went back to their office for safety. Then there was a second wave of protests when an estimated 15,000-20,000 activists entered the collectorate office. They had weapons fashioned from iron rods, glass bottles, petrol bombs and lathis. They set about destroying the office and setting fire to government vehicles. There were about 100 policemen deployed for security who tried to control the protesters and prevent them from entering the collectorate. But the protesters outnumbered the policemen by thousands. They ruthlessly attacked the policemen who ran away in fear of their lives. They then set fire to all collectorate vehicles. The entire office was filled with smoke, suffocating the employees. The protesters didn’t even spare female police personnel. They tore their clothes and molested them. There are hundreds of eye-witnesses to what transpired and they all say the same thing.

Opportunistic politicians and parties who blame police for opening fire need to be more circumspect. Any loss of life is tragic and unfortunate, but what would they have done if faced with a life-threatening situation had they had been stationed at the Sterlite plant and tasked with ensuring its safety? Should violent mobs have been allowed to create havoc and decimate Tuticorin and the copper plant? Should physical assaults on cops and government officials have been allowed? Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad compared those who died in the police firing to the martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh. Azad should be asked if the martyrs of Jallianwala were armed with stones, iron rods, lathis, petrol bombs and glass bottles and whether they chased, assaulted and attempted to kill police officers and commit arson.

The public may have a short memory but they cannot be fooled. Prior to Rahul Gandhi blaming the Sangh, and Ghulam Nabi’s comparison to Jallianwala Bagh, back in 2007 the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh had allowed the extension of the Sterlite plant. The Congress party’s blue-eyed boy and former Home and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram was a Director in Sterlite’s parent company Vedanta before becoming a minister in the UPA government. Blinded by his intense hatred for the Sangh, Rahul Gandhi has also forgotten that law and order is a state subject. There is no BJP government in Tamil Nadu, so why indirectly or directly accuse the RSS?

It is about time that the BJP, the Central Government, and especially the Union Home Ministry learn from this incident. Asking for a report on the incident is not enough. The Home Ministry has failed to investigate the conspiracy, for which it needs to work in collaboration with State Government officials, to bring out the truth. During Manmohan Singh’s regime, there were some attempts to stop radical elements in the Church harming the national interest. What is stopping the Modi Government from following suit?

(The writer is Director, Nijhawan Group of Companies)

Writer: Lalita Nijhawan

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Even after 50 years of continuous rule by Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, people belonging to SC/ST are suffering and remain oppressed, depressed. This has proved the total failure of the Dravidian Parties.

Governance by Dravidian parties which commenced in 1967 has improved a lot of intermediate castes but the Dalits in the State remain oppressed, depressed and subjugated, according to chroniclers of Tamil Nadu politics.

Incidents which took place in various districts of Tamil Nadu during the last three days underscore the statement made by Ramdas Athawale, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment. Speaking to reporters during his recent visit to Chennai, the Minister pointed out that Tamil Nadu was one of the 10 States in the country which has high cases of atrocities against Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities.

This Monday saw two Dalits, getting murdered allegedly by a section of people belonging to the intermediate caste at Manamadurai in the district of Sivaganga.

A Shanmughanathan (31) who held a MBA degree and K Thirupuvanam alias Arumugham (65) were murdered by the intermediate caste people for not showing respect to the latter when they went to the village temple.

A caste Hindu youth by name Suman got furious when the group of Dalit youths did not get up when they saw him and the murders were in retaliation of the disrespect, according to the villagers.

They also said though there were 15 persons in the group which attacked them, only five have been arrested so far.

The victims who bore the brunt of the caste persons included a retired soldier of the Indian Army as well as a serving policeman.

“The number of atrocities committed against SC/ST communities in Tamil Nadu is big when compared to other States. This has to be brought down,” minister Athawale had told the officials of the Tamil Nadu government.

“Each district in the State should have a special court exclusively to attend to the atrocities against the SC/ST community members. But in Tamil Nadu there are only six such courts,” the Minister had pointed out.

In yet another development, a social activist by name S Sivasubramaniam has come out with a disclosure of how conservancy workers belonging to the Scheduled Caste community are being taken for a ride by the private labour contractors Nilgiri district of the State.

Sivasubramaniam, who heads the Centre for Consumer, Human Resources and Environment Protection in Gudalur has told the National Commission for Scheduled Caste that 50 conservancy workers who have been hired by the contractor at a monthly salary of Rs 13,000/ — were paid only Rs 8,000/ per month for their works and the rest was pocketed by the contractor himself.

“When the workers who felt cheated questioned the contractor, he laid them off  and they are without any work,” said Sivasubramanian.

He said there was no provision in the local body rules to appoint conservancy workers on a permanent basis though they too were part of essential services wing.

According to S Manoharan, an activist working among the conservancy workers in Ootty, the incidence at Gudalur was not an isolated one as exploitation of this kind was happening in all local bodies in the State, irrespective of who is in power. “Dravidian rule has benefited certain castes but not the Dalits.

Their woes have only increased,” said Rameshan, veteran scribe who headed a news agency in the State for more than three decades.

Writer: Kumar Chellappan

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Distressed with the interruption of superstar turned politician Rajnikanth in the Cauvery water row, the KFCC (Karnataka Film Chambers of Commerce) has decided not to allow screening of his upcoming movie ‘Kaala’, which is due for release on June 7 as a mark of protest

According to Sa Ra Govindu President of KFCC the film industry is upset with Rajinikanth’s reported statement that whichever Government comes to power Karnataka should implement the Supreme Court order on Cauvery water sharing.

He said “A decision has been taken that Rajinikanth’s movie will neither be distributed nor screened anywhere in Karnataka.”

The KFCC president also said the ban on distribution and screening of Rajinikanth movies will continue. “The ban will remain because neither will he apologise for his statement nor are we going to pardon him,” Govindu said.

The superstar who hails from Karnataka has a great fan following in the State and the distributors for his film depend on Karnataka as a major revenue earning. Neta Rajinikanth has faced the wrath of pro Kannada outfits in the State and Chief Minister Kumaraswamy who is also a film producer has to deal with one more problem of resolving this crisis. The Government expects with the onset of early monsoon, the water from Cauvery can be released from the second week of June. Rajinikanth plays the role of a slumlord-turned-gangster in Kaala.

Theatre owners in Karnataka, too, have said that they will not screen the film in any theatre. Release of the Pa Ranjith directed Kaala was earlier deferred and was supposed to release on June 7 across Karnataka. However, as it is headed for a worldwide release, ‘Kaala’ may not see the light of the day in Karnataka.

Saurav Sharma, head of Goldie films that has acquired the distribution rights for ‘Kaala’ in Karnataka says considering the sentiments of the people of the State decided not to release the film.

Sa Ra Govindu said that the films of both Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth will not be released in the State.

“They have made statements related to Cauvery that are unacceptable to the people of Karnataka. We don’t need their films. Kannadigas are upset with the actor’s statements and so in the interest of the State we are not releasing Kaala,” he said.

The Karnataka film chamber called for a meeting on Tuesday after several Kannada groups called for boycott of the film.

Writer: Kestur Vasuki

Courtesy: The Pioneer