DMK promises to abolish NEET, bring back old pricing for petrol & cylinders

A separate budget for agriculture, loan waiver for students, free electricity are other poll promises for Lok Sabha 2019 elections

Lok Sabha Elections 2019: The M K Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has promised to abolish the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), formerly the All India Pre-Medical Test, as part of its poll promise. The party, which has joined hands with the Congress for the upcoming LokSabha election has also promised to bring back the old pricing models for petrol & gas cylinders.

DMK President Stalin released the party’s election manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls scheduled for April 18 in the state. The other promises of the party include metro rail projects for Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore and Salem, and permanent Indian citizenship for Sri Lankan refugees currently living in camps in Tamil Nadu.

The party also promised to release seven prisoners jailed in the Rajiv Gandhi assassin case, loan waivers for students, a separate budget for farmers at the Lok Sabha, free electricity for weavers, museum at Keezhadi, 0.5 per cent GDP for natural disasters, MNREGA up to 150 days….

Gurdaspur, Vengara LS bypolls: Congress proves it can still hold its own

Congress has had to grapple with serious infighting within the Punjab unit over the past few years

 

October 15 turned out to be a good day for the Congress party and its allies. With a thumping win in the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab and a significant victory for its ally, the Indian Union Muslim League, in the Kerala assembly constituency Vengara, the grand old party has reiterated the signs of resurgence it has shown in the past few months.

At the same time, the results are the product of political dynamics in the two states rather than a harbinger of change at the national level.

The Congress may take heart from the fact that it wrested Gurdaspur from the BJP after being defeated in 2014. The seat had fallen vacant after the death in April this year of actor Vinod Khanna, who had won on a BJP ticket in 2014. While ruling parties at the state level usually win by-elections, the margin with which the Congress won this time – 1,93,219 votes more than the nearest opponent, the BJP candidate – suggests a stronger grip across Punjab after Amarinder Singh steered the party to a comfortable victory in the assembly elections earlier this year.

The win also means that Singh has emerged as the undisputed leader of the state. The party has had to grapple with serious infighting within the Punjab unit over the past few years. The two poles of this internal conflict – which was often fought in the open – were represented by Singh and Pratap Singh Bajwa, who has represented Gurdaspur both as an MP and MLA many times before.

However, the central leadership of the party decided to hand over the reins to Singh and he proved his mettle in the 2017 assembly poll. The by-poll in Gurdaspur assumes significance in this context as Sunil Jakhar, an old hand in Punjab politics, current state unit party president and a trusted aid of Singh, was fielded as the Congress candidate.

The choice of Jakhar, who belongs to Fazilka district and has been representing the Abohar assembly seat for years, was met with great hostility from the Bajwa camp. But the party’s unprecedented victory means that Bajwa will have to settle for a secondary role for the moment....READ MORE

Uttar Pradesh is the BJP's to lose. Or is it?

The final phase voting will be held on March 8, while the counting will be held on 11 March

 

As counting day on 11 March approaches, it seems as difficult as ever to gauge which way the political wind in Uttar Pradesh (UP) is blowing. Even before the campaign began, pre-election opinion polls offered little help, showing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress alliance neck and neck, with the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) lagging.

We know from elections in Delhi (2015), Bihar (2015) and West Bengal (2016) that a dead heat in pre-election polls is almost never a good predictor of the eventual outcome.

So what are the BJP’s chances of pulling off a win? If the starting point is the BJP’s historic 2014 victory, its lead seems unassailable. The BJP won 328 of 403 assembly segments, including 253 with more than 40% of the vote, and as Praveen Chakravarty states, for it to win fewer than 200 seats even if “two of the opposition parties get together, the BJP would still have to lose more than 10% of its voters”.

But if the baseline is the 2012 state election, the SP-Congress alliance begins to look formidable. As Karthik Sashidhar writes: “it will take a 7 percentage point swing from the 2012 elections to pull the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance below the halfway mark”. While this sounds big, it is well within the realm of possibility: in 2014, the SP dropped seven percentage points from its 2012 tally, giving the BJP a sweep in that four-cornered contest.

So which is it? The opinion poll numbers suggest that 2014 is, in fact, the appropriate baseline: 33% represents a near doubling of the BJP vote in the past three state elections and a decisive break from UP’s two-party dominant system. Yet it is undeniable that the SP-Congress alliance has raised the threshold of votes any party needs to attain a majority, transforming the contest from a seeming BJP walkover to a tough fight.

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Punjab: Repolling ordered at 48 polling stations on Feb 9 over VVPAT snag

EC had used VVPAT for the first time in Punjab at 6,668 polling stations in 33 assembly segments

 

The Punjab Election 2017  on Tuesday ordered repolling in 48 polling stations falling in Majitha, Muktsar and Sangrur assembly segments in Punjab following malfunctioning in the Voter-Verified Audit Paper Trail (VVPAT) EVMs on February4.

The repolling will take place on February 9.

Besides, the repolling will also take place at polling stations in Moga and Sardulgarh segments where EVMs displayed the votes polled during mock polls.

"The repolling will take place at 48 polling stations because of the malfunctioning in VVPAT on polling day. The repolling will take place on February 9," Punjab Chief Electoral Officer V K Singh said in Chandigarh on Tuesday.

He said polling stations where the repolling shall take place are in Majitha, Muktsar and Sangrur assembly segments where VVPAT developed snag.

Singh further said that repolling would also be held at polling stations in Moga and Sardulgarh assembly segments.

The repolling has been ordered at 32 polling stations of Majitha (12), Muktsar (9), Sangrur (6), Moga (1) and Sardulgarh (4) and 16 polling stations of Amritsar Lok Sabha bye-election, an official said.

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

Breaking news| the action has begun in Uttar Pradesh. Election strategists, central and state ministers, Chief Ministers from other states and the Prime Minister himself are criss-crossing the sprawling state as they hard-sell their parties to voters.

More than a dozen hired choppers are clattering from one rally to the next, carrying leaders of all hues, and making stopovers in small towns and dusty hamlets, while thousands of two- and four-wheelers are on the move, ferrying candidates and supporters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed two major rallies in Meerut and Aligarh in one week, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has addressed more than 10, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh has been mingling with the Jat community and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati is explaining why she needs to return to power.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav have jointly held road shows in Lucknow, Agra and Kanpur. Their next stop is Varanasi, which sent Modi to the Lok Sabha. Many state ministers are spending nights in far-flung villages, many without electricity.

Union ministers Kalraj Mishra, Rajnath Singh, Piyush Goel, Smriti Irani, V.K. Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Mukhtaar Abbas Naqvi have been hopping from one city to another. Modi's digs at his opponents have sparked terse responses.

Modi's action-packed speeches are being responded to by regional satraps in their own ways. Egged on by social media workers, Akhilesh Yadav is at the forefront of taking on Modi with crisp one liners.

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