Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Modi's Rahul And Kejriwal Costs



I have a feeling Rahul might cost 100 seats to Modi, and Kejriwal another 20-30.

If the BJP gets 150 or 200 seats, and the Congress gets 100, then you have to deduct those 100 seats from the BJP's tally, because the chances of Rahul throwing his weight behind Modi are pretty much nil, and you know he is not going to stay neutral. Rahul has been an explicit Nitish fan.

It is being said Kejriwal is going to run for the same seat in UP that Modi might run from: Varanasi. The last time Kejriwal ran against a political heavyweight, the then Delhi Chief Minister, he won.

Kejriwal could spoil things for Modi and the BJP, or the AAP could emerge the largest among the non-Congress, non-BJP parties, in which case you just might be looking at Kejriwal becoming Prime Minister.

On the other hand, Kejriwal has that Modi quality of people wanting to run away from him. So he might be better off throwing his weight behind someone like Nitish. Nitish' tally is not going to be just the tally of the JD(U). His tally is first going to be the tally of the Janata Parivar, the biggest segment of the Third Front, which collectively is going to be bigger than Mamata or Jayalalita or Mayawati, and all of them together are going to be bigger than AAP, or the Congress, for that matter.

I have never heard Kejriwal badmouth Nitish. Obviously Kejriwal does not think Nitish is corrupt. Just like Rahul, he might also be a Nitish fan.

India today still is overwhelmingly a country of the rural poor. And there Modi is clueless, but Nitish has done amazing work. What is amazing is Nitish has managed to outdo Gujrat in growth rates. A poor, landlocked, agricultural state has outperformed a rich, coastal, industrial state. So if the issue is development, like Modi says it is, Nitish has a better track record.

I don't think of Modi as a corrupt individual. He has no family. He does not have a fat bank account. But what Kejriwal has been hinting at is the corporate contributions the BJP takes to do political work and then to bring corporate friendly policies. It is like, Manmohan Singh is not individually corrupt, but he seems to have presided over a cabinet that has been corrupt. So is it enough that he himself has not been corrupt?

I see Nitish winning at least 20 of Bihar's 40 seats. His approval rating is past 60%. That has got to translate into votes.


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Monday, March 03, 2014

A Statement For My Next Immigration Court Date

Official photographic portrait of US President...
Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Prosecutorial Discretion For Me
A Statement For My Next Immigration Court Date
Paramendra Bhagat
March 3, 2014

There were racist people at the college in Kentucky where I was at who thought I would go to Harvard Law School. They obviously had no clue. This was after I had been part of an exciting tech startup. In short, the legal process I see as red tape. It is beyond me. So I am glad I have a lawyer. Because the whole thing is beyond me. It tries my patience every step of the way.

After they nabbed Nelson Mandela, his process also went on for five years. You have been playing cat and mouse with me for years now. I hope you don’t send me downhill like they sent Nelson Mandela. Frankly I don’t think too highly of this country. I see the huge limitations of this country as clearly as I see garbage in New York City. But I guess I do need a physical country, and this country is the only option I have for now. When I have more resources I might build up a tech team also on St. Lucia, but let me not get ahead of myself. I already have a tech team in Portugal. We are going to build something bigger than Angry Birds. And you are standing in the way right now. It blows my mind that you would be. This country gives someone a green card for a half million dollar investment. And I have started work on a billion dollar idea. Give me 2,000 green cards. Easy arithmetic.

US immigration is easily the most humiliating experience I have gone through in my life. I have been a free spirit. Because that is where the cutting edge thoughts come from. I have made major career sacrifices at various periods of my life when I could hardly afford to to remain a free spirit. And you put me through what you put me through. I was born in Bihar, politics in India is rough, but nowhere rougher than in Bihar. The machine in this city is not going to play cat and mouse games with me. But that is political, and beyond the jurisdiction of this case and this court.

Before 2008 I had a photographic memory. Your mind tries to forget the painful. My mind in trying to suppress the six months in 2008 has also messed up other parts of my past. My memory has no longer been photographic after 2008. You don’t put a free spirit behind bars.

There is the pragmatic and then there is the indignant. So my record shows two blips on the screen. The NYC agents give me a clean record, do they? As if nothing happened in 2008. No, something really big happened in 2008. It might not be on my records, but all details are at my blogs. Some day somebody is going to make a movie called Slumdog Billionaire. The kids in the movie Slumdog Millionaire are all from my birth state of Bihar. That kid was also thrown behind bars by the powers that be. When they took me to Rikers Island in 2008 in the same dorm they threw this Punjabi guy, a Senior. He still had bruises from having been beaten up. His mugshot was all bruises. But the guy who had beat him up was American, and this small, thin, old Indian guy was out of status. So they nabbed him instead of the young, big American guy who beat him up. If you are not American, you don’t have human rights. It is like, they never read me my Miranda rights in 2008. I was not a US citizen. They said I had violated the court order. No, I had not made contact with the said person. I had emailed two people who I had met hundreds of times over the prior years, one of them is now an enemy. But the machine did not care. When you make disappear Barack Obama’s first full time volunteer in New York City on the precise day Hillary loses her primary fight, I have to admit, it is poetic. But all that is political and beyond the jurisdiction of this case and this court.

When you had me inside, I saw almost all your prisoners were black and Hispanic, and almost all your guards were white. That is as concrete as racism gets. Putting one black man in the White House does not change that. That is a special man, but he is only one man in an office with huge limitations to power. Tectonic societal change takes more than putting one man in one office. I guess.

My immigration lawyer is Tamil. I grew up Indian in Nepal. He grew up Indian in Sri Lanka. I identify with the blacks in America because I grew up Indian in Nepal. I have some idea of what it means to be Tamil in Sri Lanka. How can the most literate country in South Asia be so wrong? Is there a non violent way? Could international law give genuine federalism to the Tamils in Sri Lanka?

I guess racism in America is not all that bad, comparatively speaking. Tamils in Sri Lanka have it much worse. But the number one country on the planet does not have the luxury of that logic. What is wrong is wrong. What is bad is bad. What is broken is broken.

Let’s not get into the narrative business. Let’s not suggest they put me through what they put me through in 2008 because two blips showed up on their screens. That is not accurate.

If two blips are showing up on your screen, let me explain.

Blip number 1. This white girl who I handpicked to the number three position in the student government I was leading after having had myself elected student body president at the number one liberal arts college in the Bible Belt South as a freshman breaking all records in college history, she had had a lousy childhood, I did not know. She had run away from home. That bad. People like that are more likely to engage in things like racist demonization. But then college administrators who participated in the same had not had lousy childhoods, or none that they admitted to. This girl came to the forefront of a racist demonization cottage industry one of whose highlights was an article in the college newspaper where I was a rapist in an incident where the girl in question was more offended than I was. If I was a rapist, Bill Clinton had murdered Vince Foster. I get the politics part of it. But the racism part of the experience you might not get. A phone conversation with the lousy childhood white girl where she went berserk and called me all those names all over again. My follow up emails where I was saying things like how can there be rape without sex, or if there was rape, how come the girl in question was more offended than I was, well those emails became raw material for a harassing communication charge in the local court, where the elected judge told me he owes his taxpayers to not give me a lawyer, and “your silence tells me you are guilty.” The pragmatic thing to do is to get a lawyer and get it off my records, and I will do that. It has to be noted though that the only wrong I was accused of by the racist establishment was emails.

Blip number 2. A month after 9/11 I got into a 18 wheeler and I did not get off the road until I had been all over the 48 states. The period lasted on and off for about two years. I call it my Peace Corps experience. You can only drive for 10 hours. Then you have to take an eight hour break. It is a good law. It keeps tired truckers off the road. A 80,000 pound truck moving at 70 miles an hour is a missile. I was nearing 9 hours 45 minutes. I had already figured out the Rest Area where I’d get off and park for the night. This was in northern Texas. This was in the middle of nowhere. You quite literally did not see a single light anywhere on the horizon. So I get off. By now my truck is moving at five miles per hour. Well, it ends up there was not a single empty parking slot. So I had no option but to go back on the interstate highway and get off at the first exist and park on the side road’s shoulder for the night, something I had done many, many times before. You go for Rest Areas and trucks stops, when you can’t, you park on the shoulder of a side road. After I parked I saw ambulance lights in my mirror. The ambulance was not moving. I am like, oh no, looks like I have parked in a way that an ambulance behind me can’t get past me. As soon as I released the brakes, before I moved the truck, I heard loud thumps on my trailer. It was as if there were people beating on my trailer saying, stop, stop, stop. So I did not move. And I opened my door and proceeded to get out of my vehicle.

What had happened was at the Rest Area my truck had gently sideswiped another truck and in the process had slightly damaged one of its headlights. That truck was parked, my truck was moving at five miles per hour. There were no human injuries involved. Even the damage was very minor. Trucks have company insurance, no big deal. That trucker had called 911 and had proceeded to follow me. That was not an ambulance I saw but a whole bunch of police cars. Those were not thumps but a ton of police officers emptying their guns into my truck that was not moving. They took out all the tires.

I had legal insurance at the time through Pre-Paid Legal. My lawyer said, they will try to get you to accept blame, do not do anything like that. Let us handle it. I took the advice. They wrote me  a speeding ticket. I was not speeding. Trucks are designed in a way that you can’t speed even if you want to. I could not get my truck past 68 miles per hour. That is how it had been engineered. When they had me inside for the night in my cell was a Mexican guy, local, who said they nabbed him every month on false drug charges and released him the following day. He did not do drugs, he did not sell drugs. But it made the cops look like they were doing something. It was racial harassment. Those brain dead, stupid motherfuckers. You can do that in Texas. Heck, you can do that in New York City if you want to.

I was out on bail. My bail company had me call in once a week, which I routinely did for years. I had a lawyer. But there was no court date anywhere in sight. After a few years I guess I stopped calling. I felt it had been long enough. Perhaps. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe I moved to New York. Maybe that is what happened. Now you tell me there is a blip on your screen where I was found guilty of hit and run. The phrase makes it sound like I ran over a human body or something. I did not even ever get to see the damaged headlight. But even if their story is true my truck moving at five miles per hour at a Rest Area gently sideswiped another truck that was parked. I did not speed. I could not have. But then this is a country where racism is not illegal, systemic racism sure isn’t. It is the system. It is what keeps the system intact, looks like. It is the air, the blood.

Again, the pragmatic thing to do is to get it off my records. And I will. I am a tech entrepreneur. I need to get to work. Please get out of my way.

You know, for a political person like me, I don’t see me ever running for public office. The digital tools might be enough work for the rest of my working life. And my impact designs are global not local in scope. Otherwise for someone like me becoming Mayor of New York City would be a a cakewalk. It would not be hard to do. Early education is all good, but where I disagree with the current Mayor is, if you want to bring down inequality you offer citywide free WiFi. The 100 biggest cities of the world should build a Consortium of Cities to go past the nation state concept. That is the solution to immigration and population and the environment.

But then such thoughts are beyond the scope of this case or this court.

Know I am a good guy, talented, hard working, with big plans, with the greater good in mind, and get me off this immigration treadmill. It has gone on for too long. If an honorary citizenship is too much to ask for, give me a green card. I already had one. Renew it. I think you can if you wanted to.

I am legal. I can legally work and live in this country right now. But my Employment Authorization Card last year was sent to an address that my lawyer says he never submitted to the immigration people. I did live there for a few temporary months between places. That house was sold to someone else last year, and it has been dismantled. And that is how I was not able to track down whoever might have received my card on my behalf. Talk about drama and government conspiracies.

It is like one day a few years back I was walking around Williamsburg taking pictures. I love this city and I like taking pictures. I have probably uploaded 15,000 pictures of NYC on my Facebook pages. And I had a Jason Bourne moment. I got to say hello to a police sniff dog. There were personnel in a vehicle. An officer with a handgun at the ready quickly turned away across a side street as I crossed a street!

Who or what do you think I am? I am tech entrepreneur without a country right now. That is who.

I guess I could say I am Indian. Culturally I am. I look the part. But it is very hard for someone of my political built to identify intimately with a country whose Supreme Court recently took a major homophobic step.

I am a man without a country. I am a Netizen. Allow me to go online. Get out of my way. 
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Saturday, March 01, 2014

Congress Overture To Nitish Is Meaningful

English: Nitish Kumar
English: Nitish Kumar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This shows a few things.

(1) The Congress is okay being a junior partner to Nitish, and that starts in Bihar. This is like Modi just lost 100 MPs.

(2) Laloo is no longer with the Congress. He does not have the Modi option. Which means he is now angling to join the Third Front. He has abandoned the Congress just like Paswan did. The Third Front just gained 5-10 MPs.

(3) Bihar getting Special Category Status will be monumental. It will give a major positive jolt to Nitish in Bihar.

Right now I see Nitish winning at least 20 seats in Bihar. 20 out of 40.

Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi on course to win India's Prime Ministerial elections
Only the courageous make predictions about Indian elections. They have proved notoriously hard to call, partly because of unreliable data. In 2004, most expected Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to smoothly secure reelection. As it was, Sonia Gandhi led the Congress Party to a surprise victory...... Mr Modi’s victory is far from guaranteed. India’s parliament has 543 seats and for Mr Modi and his coalition allies to slip past the 272 mark will need him to perform in places where the BJP has traditionally not done well, especially in the south and east.... It is in these areas, particularly, that India’s increasingly powerful regional parties are pervasive. .... If Mr Kejriwal could win 30 or 40 seats, could that be enough to steal Mr Modi’s thunder. Could it even open the way for a so-called Third Front government? ...... If Mr Kejriwal could win 30 or 40 seats, could that be enough to steal Mr Modi’s thunder. Could it even open the way for a so-called Third Front government?
Wary of Lalu, Cong sounds out Nitish
the Bihar chief minister would need a dramatic offer, such as the grant of special status to the state, to revisit his plans after joining the third front with the Left and other regional parties..... There is no word from the Congress on the question of special status but the cabinet is holding an unscheduled meeting tomorrow evening. .... The strongest Congress candidates, like Shakeel Ahmed and Akhilesh Singh, have been denied their home constituencies of Madhubani and East Champaran (Motihari). ..... While Lalu Prasad felt Paswan had lost his magic, he was also angry when he came to know Paswan had suggested to Sonia Gandhi that the JD(U) was a better option than the RJD. .... Ironically, the JD(U) was Rahul Gandhi’s first choice but senior leaders pressured him to accommodate Lalu Prasad. The veterans thought the vice-president was being naïve in ignoring Lalu Prasad but now the party has egg on its face for hobnobbing with a convicted politician.
Congress-RJD talks sour, JD(U) steps in
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar apparently responded to the overtures, saying the UPA government and the Congress should make their stand clear on his plea for a special status to Bihar within 24 hours
Revealed: Why Lalu's MLAs walked out on him
the low-caste poorer Muslims -- called Pasmanda Musalman -- also found they were getting nothing from Lalu and decamped to Kumar. It is this caste-class base that prompted Nitish Kumar to break a two-decade-long friendship with the Bharatiya Janata Party -- because he knew that if he stayed in the company of the BJP and Narendra Modi, Lalu Prasad would wrest his Muslim following back from him..... latest evidence suggests that Kumar was right in breaking ties with the BJP: in the defection drama played out in Bihar last week, Members of Legislative Assembly who have crossed over from Lalu to Nitish Kumar and have opted to stay on with Kumar are almost all Muslim MLAs or MLAs representing constituencies that have a large Muslim population. .... It is rare to spot such a clear-thinking, resolute politician as Kumar. But even more rare is a set of sitting MLAs who are so desperate about what their electorate will say to them that they are ready to give up their seats in order to be in the right party (at last count, the number of MLAs who had crossed over from Lalu to Nitish had dwindled from 13 out of a total of 22 of Lalu’s men to four). ..... most of them felt that Lalu had lost his ability to rope in Muslims and now feel that by snapping ties with the BJP, Kumar is the only leader in Bihar to have any credibility among the minorities. ..... Akhtar ul Iman, for instance, who contested and won one of the assembly segments in the Kishanganj parliamentary constituency, which has 67.6 per cent Muslim population, has stayed on with JD-U. ..... while Yadavs continue to rally behind Lalu Prasad and are angry that their leader had to suffer the ignominy of incarceration, the Muslims are unmoved by this. Add to this the significant lifestyle change that electrification of rural Bihar has brought about and the talking point in Bihar is Nitish Kumar. ...... The upper castes still don’t like him. And Modi does represent aspirations of a section of Bihar society. But for many in the rural part of the state, Kumar’s promise that by 2015, villages with a population of just 100 people will also have access to electricity is aspirational. ..... By 2015, power supply in the state will reach 5,500 Mw. Right now, it is 3,000 Mw. Kumar’s ambition is to make Bihar power surplus by 2018-19. This is a far cry from the situation in 2005-06 when Bihar had 800 Mw available at its disposal out of which only 550 Mw reached domestic consumers owing to commitments to Nepal and the Indian railways. .... Kumar has spotted a secular trend and hopes that if the state provides the basics, young people, no matter what their caste or religion, will be able to leverage it to achieve great heights. It is this that Bihar will vote for in 2014 and 2015.
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Friday, February 28, 2014

Modi In Delhi, Nitish In Patna?

English: Image of Narendra Modi at the World E...
English: Image of Narendra Modi at the World Economic Forum in India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Rebellion in Nitish Kumar’s party, JD(U) expels four MPs
The expelled Lok Sabha members are Captain Jainarain Nishad (from Muzaffarpur), Purnmasi Ram (Gopalganj), Sushil Kumar Singh (Aurangabad) and Mangani Lal Mandal (Jhanjharpur). Three of them — Nishad, Ram and Mandal — were suspended earlier..... the party had information that while Nishad and Singh are likely to join BJP, Ram and Mandal are in touch with Lalu Prasad's RJD. Ram was earlier also in touch with BJP .... Nishad had last year organized a (Narendra) 'Modi yagna', supporting the BJP's prime ministerial candidate's bid for power. Ram had also met a close aide of Modi then. Both the leaders were making statements against Nitish Kumar.... While Nishad hails from the OBC community of fishermen, Ram is a Dalit leader and BJP has been courting them as it seeks to expand its vote base in Bihar ahead of Lok Sabha elections which it will fight on its own after its split with JD(U). .... Nishad was in Lalu Prasad's RJD and BJP earlier before joining JD(U) while Ram was once a minister in Prasad's cabinet in Bihar. Mandal had also been in RJD in past before joining the JD (U). Singh is a Rajput leader from Aurangbad and had been MP twice.
Several of Laloo's MLA moved to the Nitish camp, as did Paswan's sole MLA. And several of Nitish' MPs in Delhi have switched sides and gone over to Modi. Is that an indication that Modi will claim the throne in Delhi whereas Nitish will move towards perhaps a 60% majority for his JD(U) in Bihar's Assembly? Perhaps.
 
JD (U) expels 5 MPs for anti-party activities
Nishad, Ram and Mandal were suspended in 2012 for their anti-party activities during the 2010 assembly elections. .... Nishad belongs to fishermen community while Ram is a dalit leader and Mandal is from OBC community. Singh is a Rajput and Tiwari a Brahmin with socialist background. .... Mandal is likley to contest as RJD candidate from Jhanjharpur.
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Thursday, February 27, 2014

BJP+ 200, Third Front 180, Congress+ 100, Others 65

There is certainly a Modi wave. If the BJP will move from 100 to 200 MPs, that is a wave. The question is, will the BJP go past 200?

There are allegations that polling agencies have been skewing results. That is very possible. In 2004 the polling agencies projected a victory for the BJP. That is not what happened.

My current guess is the BJP led coalition is around 200, the Third Front is around 180, the Congress led coalition is near 100, and Others including AAP are near 65. Those numbers don't look good for Modi. The Congress extending outside support to the Third Front is a very real possibility. You can hear Kejriwal badmouthing Modi, but never Nitish. AAP has never claimed Nitish is corrupt.

Modi is possibly making moves in Uttar Pradesh. But Laloo's MLAs want to join Nitish. Paswan's sole remaining MLA has already joined Nitish. Obviously they don't feel like there is a Modi wave in Bihar. But then Congress MLAs have joined Modi in Gujrat.

That should tell you. This is a contest between Modi and Nitish, not Modi and Rahul. Right now Modi is on his way to ending up with the single largest party but it is Nitish who is looking at the larger coalition. For now it is neck and neck. It is a close contest.

Nitish Kumar behind RJD split, says JD(U) leader Shivanand Tiwari
JD(U) takes dig at Paswan for proposing to join BJP-led NDA
JD(U) expels five rebel Bihar MPs including Shivanand Tiwari
Nitish Kumar asks Lalu Prasad to be ready to face more 'short-circuits'
Janata Dal United expels Nitish Kumar's critic Shivanand Tiwari
Nitish Kumar refuses to take support of BJP for March 2 bandh
AAP wants authority to monitor opinion polls
accused the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi of influencing opinion polls .... a sting operation conducted by it had shown that some of the agencies, including leading poll-conducting agency C-Voter, were willing to tweak their findings for money. ...... sting operation had "exposed" eleven agencies which conducted opinion polls ..... "There is a political conspiracy taking place in the country. It happened before the Delhi elections and it is happening now, before the Lok Sabha polls. Opinion polls first started predicting 20 seats for the BJP, followed by 27, then 30 and just before the election it predicted that BJP would get absolute majority and bag over 40 seats. Kejriwal demanded that the channels, which had tied up with the agencies that allegedly agreed to tweak the results of opinion polls, should come clean on the issue. .... "Opinion polls are being manufactured and this is a conspiracy against the Indian Republic," he said..... Kejriwal also demanded that all media organisations must disclose the list of their share holders, investors and lenders, their annual financial statements and make full disclosure of their political connections and business interest outside media.
Why Nitish Kumar wants to be part of Third Front
a call to ask for neetis (policies) and not netas (leaders). .... three broad areas where the parties can work together. One of the themes that links these parties is, of course, their anti-communalism plank..... an alternative economic model that will focus on providing relief to consumers from price rise. The alternative model will talk about a growth-model driven by large-scale investments in infrastructure sector to create more jobs..... huge public investments in the agriculture sector and fast tracking of legislations to ensure land reforms. The third major area of focus would be to bring in the concept of accountability in governance. This is an obvious attempt to counter the anti-corruption plank of the Aam Aadmi Party, which has emerged as an attractive platform for people disillusioned with the two main political players.
Nitish's new strategy
"This is a life and death election," Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar roared at a rally in Patna last week. A mistake, he claimed, could lead to the train being derailed. "If we are not strong in Delhi, there will be conspiracies to undermine the Bihar government. If you give us power, then Delhi will be forced to give us special status." ..... "Nitish Kumar is a good CM, but he won't become PM. So why waste a vote on him?" .... To wean away such voters who prefer his government in Bihar but see no reason to vote for the JD(U) at the centre, and establish the linkage between local and national, Kumar has decided to push this new campaign message. "If we do badly in the Lok Sabha, the state government will collapse. People don't want that, and we want to play into that fear. There is a lot of goodwill for Nitish's work," said a top JD(U) leader. ..... Battling a strong anti-incumbency sentiment, with voters comparing his current term unfavourably to his first term, Kumar is in a spot.
Nitish for 'Thali' beating before Bihar shutdown
Obama Looks to Boost Young Minorities

India’s Opposition BJP Will Storm the Next Election, a New Poll Finds
no one party has won an outright majority in India’s lower house for the past 25 years
Poll Suggests Crushing Loss Awaits India’s Governing Party
78 percent of those polled had a favorable view of Mr. Modi, with just 16 percent holding an unfavorable view..... No single party has won a parliamentary majority since 1989, and none is likely to do so this year .... “Whether Modi becomes the next prime minister will come down to 10 to 20 seats in Parliament” ..... “India is too big and complex a country for pollsters to predict anything by talking to 2,500 people”
Poll: India’s opposition BJP leads Congress party
The general election must be held by May. .... 63 percent of Indians prefer the BJP to lead the next government, 19 percent prefer Congress and 12 percent support other parties. BJP backing is consistent across age groups
BJP expected to better face India's challenges: US survey
Indians by a margin of more than three-to-one, would prefer the BJP to lead the next Indian government rather than the Congress ...... The Pew survey results are based on face-to-face interviews with 2,464 randomly selected adults across India between Dec 7 and Jan 12. ..... support for a BJP-led government strongest in the north of India. .... backing for the BJP is roughly equal in both rural and urban areas ..... More than six-in-ten Indians (63 percent) prefer the BJP to lead the next Indian national government. Just two-in-ten (19 percent) pick the Congress, according to the poll. Other parties have the support of 12 percent of the public. ..... BJP backing is consistent across age groups. And support is almost equal between rural (64 percent) and urban (60 percent) Indians ...... Social activist Anna Hazare is seen favourably by 69 percent of the public, making him the second most popular of the national figures tested in the survey.
India’s ‘third front’ seeks to shake up politics

Narendra Modi signals shift in favour of big retail
Modi said on Thursday the country's millions of family-owned traders must learn to work with large modern stores and online retailers ..... Our children have taken IT to the world. We'll have to embrace it." .... Modi also said he favoured introducing a nation-wide goods and services tax (GST), a long-planned reform to usher in a uniform market, cut business costs and boost government revenue...... India needed to cut red tape by reducing the number of laws, and called on the foreign ministry to focus on "economic diplomacy" to improve India's commercial standing in the world..... the core work of external affairs ministry today is trade and commerce
Modi offers a glimpse of his economic agenda at traders' meet
AAP accuses Modi of bribing opinion poll agencies, seeks EC intervention
Why RJD split will benefit Lalu Prasad Yadav the most
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United which topped the 2009 LS poll chart with 20 seats is a bank up for heist. Almost all the poll surveys have indicated that the JD-U would not win even 10 of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state..... The JD-U is likely to lose many seats because of tactical voting by Yadavs and upper castes. In areas where the BJP has a stronger chance to win, even Yadavs seem to be voting for the saffron party. In regions where the RJD has better poll prospects, the upper castes are likely to vote for its candidates........ The Bharatiya Janata Party is on a surge here also. Riding on a strong Narendra Modi wave, the party is also getting its caste alignments right. It has roped in Kushwaha leader Upendra Kushwaha, a former JD-U MP and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) chief, who is expected to bring in OBC votes...... BJP's tie-up with Kushwaha, who parted ways with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is aimed at wooing non-Yadav, non-Kurmi sections of OBCs and MBCs in Bihar....... According to reports, the party might field non-upper castes in at least 20 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar....... If it succeeds in getting Ram Vilas Paswan on its side, it will help the party corner a share of the state's Koeri (5 per cent), Kurmi (2.5 per cent) and Dalit (15 per cent) votes. ..... If the tempo the split has built in Lalu's favour is maintained until April, in all likelihood, he, and not Nitish Kumar, will emerge as the principal opposition in the state.
Nitish Kumar dangles lollies for rebel RJD MLAs as Lalu cries conspiracy
While Prasad flew to Patna, Nitish Kumar left for Delhi just a few minutes after the arrival of RJD leader but they did not see each other at the airport. .... Gafoor claimed that the signature of MLAs were taken for different purposes like raising a matter for call attention motion during the Assembly session.


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Monday, February 24, 2014

There Is A Modi Wave

English: nehal,narendra modi
English: nehal,narendra modi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My reading is right now this election is Modi's to lose. Not only is noone else running for Prime Minister, Modi has innovated and has been running something akin to a presidential campaign in America. He is the only one running a national campaign. It is impressive to watch. He might build even further momentum over the next two months.

BJP's NDA 236
Third Front 186
Congress' UPA 96
Others 27

Modi could co-opt Jayalalita by offering him the DPM slot. He could co-opt Kejriwal by putting together something akin to a Lokpal Bill. He could co-opt Nitish by granting Special Category Status to Bihar.

The Third Front is not a cohesive force. There is the Mayawati-Mulayam animosity. There is the Left-Mamata animosity.

Modi coming to power in Delhi puts Nitish in a tight spot. One saving grace would be the Third Front, the Congress, and the AAP all coming together. But then that is an even taller order than the Third Front coming together.

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