The Indian election results have been pouring in, with the Congress/UPA government set to return to power for another five years. Here is the New York Times’ story; apparently, this is the first time since Nehru that an Indian political party has served out the full five years, and then been reelected to power.
I wanted to give readers a chance to share information and suggest sites that are gathering results in various parts of the country. I am especially curious to see what happens with Shashi Tharoor in Trivandrum (I blogged about him a few weeks ago), and of course the political landscape as a whole. As of 1:00 am EDT, the UPA is up over the NDA/BJP around 220-150 [update: the final number for the UPA will be something more like 259]. The UPA is going to stay in, and even consolidate its power — which means, greater independence from the Left. Manmohan Singh is likely to remain Prime Minister for awhile, and perhaps it’s going to be curtains for L.K. Advani’s Prime Ministerial aspirations.
I was watching IBN live here.
The NDTV VoteMap is pretty nice, though it would be better if there were a way to see who held a given state or a given district earlier.
On Twitter, the tag seems to be #indiavotes09. The stream is moving very quickly. There is something called Tweetgrid, which lets you see feeds for six Twitter keywords at once.
Shashi Tharoor has his own Twitter feed: ShashiTharoor. As of now, he is up by 30,000 votes, with more than half of the votes counted.
The BBC’s live results are pretty good. As of this writing, Varun Gandhi (the communal one, from Sanjay’s wing of the family) is leading, and Mayawati’s BSP is losing. In Kerala, the left is likely to decline dramatically from 2004. The Communists are in decline in West Bengal too, presumably in payback for their handling of Nandigram. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had earlier decided to pull support from Congress, is now admitting it was a mistake, as his RJD party ended up losing seats.
Via Ultrabrown, Bloomberg has a story, with Congress leaders using “Jai Ho” as a victory chant. Also via Ultrabrown, Mayawati is going to lock up victorious BSP candidates, to prevent them from being picked off by other parties. It’s a typical Mayawati thing to do, and presumably illegal — though that’s never stopped her before.
Please suggest any sites with data and analysis that you would recommend.
It is also clear that Modi does not have much support outside Gujarat and the rabid NRI [caste baiting deleted by SM INTERN]. So it looks like a family feud is in the cards for the next election: Varun Gandhi vs Rahul Gandhi.
But I wont be surprised at all if Manmohan Singh, who is such an old, weak, uncharismatic character, stands aside and let’s young Rahul Gandhi take the helm now. Which means that while the second largest democracy has a half african President, the largest democracy may now have a half italian (and quarter persian) Prime Minister.
Amardeep, you wanted a link for Indian election analysis? Wonkette delivers, as always!
We prefer to be called “fascists,” thanks. Fascists at least know something about the economy, unlike, say, the Taliban or the Gandhi family.
Which would clearly be a step fwd Dhoni. Europeans and Persians/Parsees have been long suffering minorities in India. People with that phenotype are not even allowed on TV or in Bollywood movies dontcha know.
Yes, NCP retained all their seats in Maharashtra. UPA improved in Maharashtra. This is when Maharashtra found worldwide fame for its farmers committing suicide. How bad do you have to fuck up that cannot be fixed by promise of free money (in India politics). People thinking this short term cant seriously hope to get out of poverty.
One thing that helped the Congress is the fact that Manmohan Singh is not seen as a politician by the people and people have in general extremely low opinion of politicians. As a result the party led by the non-politician might have been favored by people.
I am glad that atleast the Congress got a good enough mandate to not worry about keeping the government from whims of idiots. – First things first, reduce interest rates. The move to not reduce interest rate enough in wake of the worldwide recession was political (to bring inflation to almost zero before election) How can Manmohan being an economist honestly have interest rates high and expect economic recovery ?? – Complete golden quadrilateral highway project. – Invest more in Power generation, including new Nuclear power.
My bad, forgot to count the congress seats.
Your point may be valid but there is a caveat. In India bond-currency-derivative markets are weak. Unlike the Fed changing rates having a quick effect, in India interest rates are not that effective to control fiscal policy (thanks to weak financial infrastructure). Thus both the negative and positive effects of monetary policy take longer and are weaker in India. Your basic point still holds, however if you were in MMSs shoes, would you rather take a economic hit short term and win an election or let the BJP run loose 5 years?
to add to #56 my suggestions to the new government, – Do the things that I list(that you know India needs much better than I do) – Or dont do anything for 4.5 years and then promise free rice to people in south India 🙂 and promise government job to everyone in UP (the usual stuff 🙂 )
No dude, that’s so 1999. We demand, and get, free TVs from our elected representatives. Our uneducated masses are more sophisticated than your uneducated masses
Dhoni wrote:
Dhoni, are you a supporter of the DMK by any chance?
tx for the wonkette link. really funny 😉 especially the mayawiti:blageoivich analogy.
Heh heh, heh, heh…and that’s my first 4heh award. What took it over the top is that it was hilarious and provocative (by shifting the word “fascim” from it usual prejorativeness) even if you end it at “taliban” But the “or the Gandhi family” part took it to stratospheric levels, especially considering the enlightened Fabians are supposed to be the Taliban’s precise opposite.
i’d wet my pants if i were wearing any
OutlookIndia is out with a full blown analysis, with cheerleading for the Congress of course.
Thanks, Manju!
Folks, you don’t need reply to people who are clearly engaging in “caste-baiting” behavior. That is troll territory.
Sorry, SM Intern. I won’t do it again, I promise…
… especially considering that the bjp is getting in line to be led by a descendant of a real vile branch of that family and fully takes after his father, and india’s economic growth is due to financial policies instituted by the man who now leads the party that is the gandhi family stronghold!
only 4 hehs for this much rich irony, manju? he was, er, robbed!
just back from india – here is my biased sample of comments –
Manmohanji imandar aur pedha-likha admi hain, kangress ko hi humne vote diya
i am voting for mamtadi, we need some kind of change in bengal
we just want stability and commonsense, the govt should provide basic services and get out the way. I just hope its the congress – the bjp would be ok – but the communists would be a disaster.
The congress has managed to reassure the aspirational, business and technocrat class while at the same time putting in some money into the underclass. Manmohan speaks to the former while Sonia and the other politicians are focussed on the latter. The combination lead to the victory.
As opposed to the ultra-secular congress? Please… and I thought you were ‘fair and balanced’. Anti-Modism has become rabid and tiresome, PAFD, please see things for what they are – doesn’t matter who is involved in sh*t (like Gujarat), these things have a habit of repeating themselves in India; the political class would see to it. People may be fooled by facades, as with Dr. Singh, but when you get down to local levels, they are all truly the same. The Congress and media made a song and dance about a shoe-gate copycat and dropped Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, while doing nothing about the real issue. The journalist involved may have been compensated for his efforts by the Sheila Dixit camp for all I know 🙂
Will nobody, but nobody, have sympathy for the mass murderers?
Oh, such a witty comment that! But then no one thinks of Rajiv Gandhi as a mass murderer, do they? There is blood on a lot of hands, regardless of who takes your fancy.
I feel your pain. Murderers from the past can only be punished by electing present day murderes, that is the only path to cosmic justice.
Yes, the hindu fascists set fire to themselves at godhra. are tecumseh and geronimo fascists for opposing conquistador ideology? Declaring One True and ONLY God to further colonial political objectives of wiping out cultures is true fascism. Let’s just say we have pseudoseculars and then we have have pseudofascist hindus, fair enough??
I am glad Varun Gandhi won. Wonder if he will cut any hands in the Parliament.
Lalu has won too. He’ll run a road roller over Varun’s chest before he tries to cut any hands.
Oh you folks have plenty of sympathy. You’re just selective about which mass-murderers you choose to apply it to.
Now the sympathy I want is for the generations of Indians who have had their talents wasted away in drudgery due to incompetent governance and idiot babus in office that pillage the public treasury for their own benefit. While everyone is busy trumping up charges to bait each other they, as always, are the ones who lose.
For the last five years, the Congress:
In fact, the Congress-from-04-to-09 = BJP-from-99-to-04.
Ergo, the BJP just won the elections. The party’s just called the Congress.
Of course, as history has shown, the Congress has a tendency to grow cocky when given absolute power, and if that happens, they may trip on any or all of the six above. And then they’ll receive a drubbing next time.
M. Nam
MoorNam…really…from you of all people? That’s the oddest rationalization I’ve seen, unless like the media, you were also bought out by the Congress Party (kidding, i usually agree with you so this is unusual)…
Additional Points 1. China is all set to launch a fleet of aircraft carriers by 2015 and is encircling India with naval bases. It is already set to have the largest submarine fleet in the world and may soon even have a larger navy than the United States. Instead of planning for this and allocating the appropriate resources, the UPA has emasculated the indian military by reducing the rank of Generals to DGP’s with respect to pensions and continues to underfund the armed services. Accordingly, China actively funds the maoist insurgency which, under the UPA, has now grown to impact 1/4 of all districts in India. And for those of you who think that “oh, it’s just jharkhand,chattisgarh and the villages” the maoists now have a strategy for cities. In spite of this, the UPA still has yet to produce a national counter terror strategy document. 2. MMS, the Prime Minister, still reports to Sonia Gandhi. Anyone who pays any attention to the Indian politics knows this. This is not only worrisome because she is unqualified (she only has a high school education and barely speaks english let alone any indian language), but because she is unaccountable. She has ultimate political power (MMS was not elected and owes his position to her) but zero accountability (she has no constitutional position). I don’t think Ambedkar would think that was a great idea… 3. the $15 billion loan waiver did nothing to resolve the farmer suicide crisis. They continue unabated in Vidarbha and Andhra. The waiver like many other public schemes was just one big gravy train for public officials.
So no MoorNam, the BJP did not win the election, it lost, and so did India.
For the rest of you in India celebrating the UPA victory, in all seriousness and sincerity, please take a moment to forget the hindutva bogeyman and consider all those facts. Seriously, I’m not here to debate anyone–least of all trolls–but for one second, forget about what you hear on NDTV from Barkha Dutt and Prannoy Roy (or his niece Arundhati for that matter), and think about all those facts. If you don’t want the bjp in power–fine–but at least hold your party accountable for this or think about your votes more seriously next time…
Satyajit,
It is a time for deep introspection for the BJP and all the nationalist political elements. The BJP has to realise that: 1. It cannot hope to rule India if it has no influence in big states of the country like UP and AP (- the south in general except Karnataka). Serious grassroots level work needs to be done.
It needs to work on it’s image projection with urgency. The educated urban middle class seems to be moving away from it. Talking to young people in Delhi, they have been influenced by the sustained media onslaught that has successfully projected the ‘communal hate mongers’ image of the party, so that many of them feel embarrassed to even publicly accept their sympathies for the party.It does not help when you are associated wrongly by the media for every attack by fundamentalist thugs on pubs and discos. They need to cultivate and befriend the media to efficiently propagate their vision.
Leadership- One appreciates Mr.Vajpayee more and more as the absence of his leadership becomes so glaringly obvious. He could win friends and allies, and was well respected across the board.Very useful if they have to counter a propaganda war that the BJP now faces. Mukhauta or not, image is everything. Sadly, leaders of his stature come along once in a lifetime.
4.Youth- and rein in Varun before he does any further damage. About NaMo- he should be a part of the solution.
NDA/BJP needs to redefine the way it sees itself, and the way it wants to be seen by it’s voters. It does not mean compromising on it’s basic ideology, but to define it clearly, and highlight it in a way that is in sync with the changing political landscape. It needs to create an environment where being associated with Hindutva/Nationalism/Dharmic traditions is not automatically seen as being an enemy of xyz (as has sadly become the norm). BJP/NDA still has a strong base to work from, and with 165 odd seats, is still a significant opposition group.This can be a time for regeneration. On the brighter side, the country seems to be moving towards a bipolar polity, and opportunistic casteist parasites like Lalu and Mulayam are diminishing in stature. We should be grateful for having got a stable government that (hopefully) would be accountable for it’s decisions. And the commies got bitch slapped- High Five!
the western effort to cap and rollback India’s strategic nuclear weapons program will continue with active connivance of the congress. read brahma chellaney. but no need to worry, congress is sure to dress up the strategic fiasco with a once-in-a-lifetime dog and pony show.
Lupus, I agree about the need for a bjp image overhaul among the middle classes (that was the rationale for UPA politicization of terror and covertly supporting MNS and Sri Rama Sene). But like I pointed out in the post, the media is bought out in India through padma shris or corporate capture. Arun Jaitley did advocate a policy of befriending the ELM–as this election showed though, as far as karan and co are concerned, it ain’t gonna happen…
Anyhow, I did feel it was important to explain what is really at stake, and now I’ve said my peace…adieu
You guys talk about BJP and media management. Why is it not possible for them or their corporate supporters to buy or fund an English and Hindi language TV like the DMK (SunTV) and AIADMK (JayaTV) and the CPI(M) (Kairali TV in Kerala) or the Republicans in the US with FOX TV have been able to do?
like advani insulting karkare, and then modi trying to buy off his wife after karkare was killed in the line of duty. oh, i thought you meant bjp 🙂
yep, i remember how the bjp aligned with the left on the nuclear deal with advani boldly saying “the role of the opposition is to oppose” 🙂 the 123 deal was mms standing up against the left when everything else failed, and succeeding.
fully agree. thank goodness vajpayee advanced enough into senility so that his seemingly benign face could not be slapped on the malevolent agenda of the party – at least, i give points to varun gandhi for honesty.
i love how violence by an ex bajrang dal guy in a bjp run state – by a thug who was let off multiple times and even after evidence was captured on video by the ruling bjp govt and vs acharya – is a upa conspiracy 🙂
i am glad people didn’t buy the bjp propaganda on terrorism – given they had no clue on kargil leading to the martyring of hundreds of indian soldiers, and released hijackers and very dangerous terrorists in shameful capitulation, not to mention their shameless exploitation of the terrorism of 26/11 with their chief – modi.
Abhishek
But that’s ok, please get back to justifying your high school educated Italian Babysitter’s rule. “Yay! Mrs. Madam Sonia Gandhi Memsahib ji ki Jai! Vote Congress! India Jeetna hai! Woo!”
What I find interesting is that the media is being blamed here for portraying the BJP as communal… “the sustained media onslaught that has successfully projected the ‘communal hate mongers’ image of the party”. Really!
I do not want to argue whether the other side is too secular, or pseudo-secular, or not. They may or may not be a great alternative to the BJP. The BJP may have good policies.
BUT, the fact remains that the BJP has defined itself, for the last two and a half decades at least, as the Hindu party. The media did not put words in Advani’s mouth, or in Modi’s mouth. They said the things they said. They did the things they did. And they made a conscious decision to distinguish themselves from the others based on that. Advani’s actions directly led to people losing lives. Modi’s even more directly so. The BJP, and Advani got to where they are today by defining themselves as a Hindu organization. From 2 seats in 1984 to being one of the two main national parties less than a decade later. From the elections being a congress vs. non-congress contest, they made it into a secular vs. communal forces contest. This transformation was achieved solely by portraying themselves as a Hindu party. It’s not an image created by the media. It’s how the party defined itself. This is the party where a inexperienced kid can become a national hero by saying that Muslims have scary names.
To say now that they may have “moderated” now seems just plain wrong to me. From our comfortable seats in front of computers, the speeches by the BJP leaders is just oration and Varun is just an immature kid who will learn. But the fact remains: BJP leaders like Modi and Advani spread communalism and people lost lives as a result. Call me unforgiving, but I don’t see how anyone can overlook this integral part of their history.
The BJP may have some moderate elements in it. But its two main leaders for these elections were Advani and Modi. The BJP cannot have it both ways: they are trying to be a Hindu party with a moderate face. But the faces of the party: Advani and Modi, are far from moderate. A journalist pointing this out is doing his job, not launching an onslaught.
Great posts, Satyajit, how can India consider itself a great power–well, even more, a non-laughable country, when it has a person like Sonia in charge? Forget that she’s Italian–she’s totally uneducated–this is more like South Africa now, which is headed downhill fast with the dumb Zuma guy at the helm–at least “W” had legitimate degrees from Harvard and Yale (and yeah, BJP, please use Varun just to taunt the Congress, don’t put an idiot like him in the leadership role!).
The problem with your analysis is having the wrong baseline in place. This causes you to assign “causation” erroneously. Why did Hindus who reacted to their fellows being burned up on a train “cause” the Gujarat riots? Assigning causation in these instances is a tricky and difficult business, yes, but your cavalier assignment is not helping.
Extremely powerfully articulated, kay. This entire talk of rebranding is similar to the Republican party talk of slapping some new paint to gussy up a house with a crumbling foundation, and hoping that somebody will buy.
As for Wry and rob, I guess it is standard BJP issue talking point not to debate the credentials and the economic achievements of Manmohan Singh, and I will only say I sympathize with your compulsions here.
Ardy (#72), it’s quite irrelevant if I personally like mass murderers or not – I’m just not convinced that most Modi-haters hold opinions based on facts, which in any case are very hard to come by in a situation like Gujarat. If someone has facts that nail the man, you will also do me a favour (not the Babu Bajrangi sting operation kind). I do not find a disclaimer necessary, but here it is anyway – I don’t have any affection for the BJP or any Parivar organisation, so claiming some kind of moral highground is worthless.
Kay,
So when the Congress party doesn’t hang a convicted terrorist because they don’t want to hurt their religious votebank they are not being communal?
When the CPI boots out Taslima Nasrin because their minority votebank raises a stink, are they not being communal?
Rajiv Gandhi justified the massacre of sikhs (4,000 innocent people). When people lost their lives then, was the congress not being communal? How can you overlook that integral part of history?
When the Congress Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and noted evangelical, YS Rajasekhara Reddy attempts to forcibly take over hindu temples lands, aggressively convert, and finance Bethlehem pilgrimmages is he not being communal? When the the 2 Rs and 10 Rs coins are stamped with the Jerusalem Cross, is the Congress party not being communal?
One can conceivably argue the same. The congress is trying to have it both ways the moderate “Vice chancellor of the University of Secularism” and the not-so-moderate provider of special privileges and rights for minorities. After all, “they must have the first claim on India’s resources”. The point I’m trying to make is that India doesn’t have real secularism, and that’s what BJP supporters want. Everyone equal under the law. There is no Uniform Civil Code, but special law codes for the congress’s fave minority group, and overturning of Supreme court decisions when it might hurt minority vote banks (Shah Bano case). Where’s the feminist outrage there? As asinine as those pub goons in mangalore were, for the record feminism isn’t just restricted to the right to drink and dance. Equal rights should also extend to marriage, but apparently being a Pink Chaddiwalli is more fashionable than standing up to the goons who forced the passage of a communal decision. What about the goons rioting over the publication a european article in Kolkata? Why was the editor arrested instead of the people doing the rioting? Nah, being a Pink Chaddiwalli gets better press? What about Pranabda telling poor Taslima Nasrin–who courageously spoke about abused women in Bangladesh– to hightail it out of India so the Congress wouldn’t have to jeopordize its votebank?
The funny thing is, these so-called journalists you refer to are not doing their jobs…but indeed launching a one-sided onslaught…
What are Manmohan Singh’s economic achievements? Narasimha Rao made the decision to implement reforms. MMS was a nehruvian socialist apparatchik from his fabian education in the UK. He did what he was told to do as finance minister. What were MMS’s economic achievements as pm? Highest fiscal deficit in the G20? Junk bond status for Indian treasuries? Cutting Indian economic growth in half? Wasting billions of dollars on a Loan Waiver that did not help the plight of farmers but was only a gravy train for netas? Runaway inflation? Cuts in education spending? Allowing for the biggest telecom corruption scandal in Indian history (100,000 crores)?
Nah, much easier to just say something enough times until people believe it…
Yeah, the whole India politics thing is crazy. My Dads is so pissed off he’s said he’s not investing there anymore (haha, of course, in two weeks, he will calm down and put his money where it will get the best return, which might be India). I have noticed on recent trips to Desh that the “educated” class has really been propagandized against the BJP–this makes thinks awkward for me–I will look more towards Thailand/Vietnam for my (admittedly half-assed) business ventures. F**k Congress and the Gandhi family–haha, they will get nuked by their partners soon enough, which saddens me only b/c so many ordinary Indians will die too.
Satyajit, feel free to live in whatever universe palliates your pain right now. Me, I’m hoping that the Congress will continue to deliver on progress in this term. If it does, and the surge in their organization continues, Hindutva will be confined to the dustbin of history. And well, if the Congress drags India down the tubes as you are no doubt hoping, I will be sad for multiple reasons, Hindutva being the least of them.
Unlike you, we have to live there.
I am glad you are so sad as to haha about it, but as I said before, the BJP did not even have a clue about a full scale military invasion, and it actually set the terrorists who planned future attacks on India free. So, maybe some education on actual national security track records would help.
Just read “CHUP” or “Chapati Mystery” and you will see that the Pakistani/Pakistani-American crowd have their heads in the sand, ostrich-like, as Pakistan is heading towards implosion (which is sad and scary, I’m not celebrating it).
OK, how is Kargil at all comparable to Mumbai?
I’ll never feel safe again in India, after 11/26, so, don’t try to convince me otherwise.
But, it seems to me a much larger government failure to fail to protect civilians in the financial capital of India than to initially face a set-back in some mountain-range–i.e., why shouldn’t we, going forward, be much more ready to kill Islamist terrorists in our cities than in our hinterlands? Not that we shouldn’t kill them in both–and, by the way, can we get a bit tougher overall, so that the US will be allies with us, instead of viewing us Indians as such losers that they have to be friends with the evil Pakistanis?
Abhishek, funny how you never really have any facts to defend your positions–you just restate your talking point and wrap it up in an unwitty comeback. Any quick google search will demonstrate that Narasimha Rao took the decision, not MMS or Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, or Mr. Rahul Gandhi, or Mrs. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, or Mr. Rajiv Gandhi…and with respect to your remark to Rob– covert occupation of cliffs before the snows melt is not the same as a “full military invasion”…should you guys really bring it up though since you guys probably would’ve just gifted Kargil away like you tried to with Siachen? Now there’s a great national security lesson. Let the Pakistanis and the Chinese Link up at the junction with the Indian Border…
Anyhow, sorry to rain on your parade. Please do continue to celebrate dynastic nepotism, kleptocracy and kakistocracy (definition provided for your convenience). The rest of us will hope for a real government in the next election that actually puts the interests of the country above the interests of an autocratic and unqualified family and its lap dogs…
You found a eulogy at PVNR’s memorial to validate your claim that PVNR is the savior? Bravo! Evidence indeed!
Anyway, Wry, I’ve been following this blog for the last couple of weeks, and I have seen your resorting to rabid name calling at the first indication that somebody calls your bluffs. In a couple of cases, you gratuitously and without evidence (I looked) accused people of being acolytes of a babysitter, lapdogs, called YSR Reddy “Samuel” Reddy when his name isn’t that, added a Khan to somebody’s name, again as an insult and exhibited several other behaviors, which reflect the most extreme elements of the Hindutva ideology. Not to mention the rabid attacks usually characteristic of the unhinged such as referring to Sonia as Italian even when people corrected you on that, and insisting on using names like ‘Edvige Antonia “Sonia” Maino Gandhi’ (in your comment above). The fact that you are able to use coherent sentences and condescend to others by helpfully providing meanings and using big words whose meanings I am already aware of does not change this, so I will cease to engage with you at this point. You can indulge in your calumnies and abuses unopposed. I, of course, feel more magnanimous these days since the non Hindutva non-left alliance has a chance to make its mark and solidify its support, without the fabric of the country being ripped apart by the divisiveness of Advani and Modi.
Well, to each their own, but for those of us, who live there, have loved ones take the trains or go to markets or walk in neighborhoods, there has always been a certain level of risk they take. I think the government response to 26/11 was shameful in terms of the time it took to muster security forces, and their level of preparedness, and god forbid, if a similar situation arises, I would expect much more sophistication in the counterattack. I am inclined to believe that the attack itself, or one of its kind, would be hard to prevent – 10 people entering India from a malign country with which it shares its border are always going to be hard to detect, whereas missing a military force occupying strategic ground as happened during Kargil is tremendously incompetent.
Internal security, especially intelligence sharing, in India is politically a nightmare. Even in the light of 26/11, many non Congress governments were unwilling to allow outposts of central intelligence forces in states, or participate in regular and deep intelligence sharing, as the saw it as an encroachment of their powers. I am sure state Congress governments would have reacted similarly if the BJP had been in power. With this level of distrust and dysfunction, I really don’t see how a close to 100% success rate in foiling attacks can be achieved. These are serious structural problems which will not be solved overnight – however, the greatest threats to national security are internal religious war, and class warfare due to unequal sharing of the gains of liberalization. The BJP paid the price for the latter in the last election, and the Congress succeeded this time because it took that lesson to heart and focused on grassroots development. Things will be harder in a global recession, but broad based economic growth will be the best way out of India’s morass, not the stirring up of communal tensions and creating suspicions that 20% of the Indian population is a fifth column.
The general election is conducted by the Election Commission of India, which estimates an electorate of 714 million voters. There is an increase of 43 million voters over the 2004 election. During the budget presented in February 2009, Rs.1,120 Crores was budgeted for
India general election expenses.
Jennamya The general election is conducted by the Election Commission of India, which estimates an
electorate of 714 million voters. There is an increase of 43 million voters over the 2004
election. During the budget presented in February 2009, Rs.1,120 Crores was budgeted for
India general election expenses.
Jennamya attorney directory
Rob:
Actually Rob, I noticed the opposite. Most of the people I met (yes they like to call themselves the “educated urban class”) had switched over to BJP. Some were even voting–they are public figures and need to, others were armchair voters. These same people would have supported Congress 10-15 years ago. This was, in fact, one of the things I noted in my list of “ways India has changed.”
I saw quite afew videos of election results and analysis on http://www.youtube.com/user/istreamnews
Seems to be Times Now clips mostly.