BJP still confident of repeat show even as a Cong slugs it out and AAP splits votes

News Network
November 28, 2022

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Kutch, Nov 28: The BJP is confident of maintaining its winning streak in Kutch district in Gujarat Assembly polls even as the Congress is carrying out a silent campaign in rural areas and the Aam Aadmi Party is setting the stage for a three-cornered fight by throwing its hat in the ring.

The All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is contesting in two minority-dominated seats. Kutch, which goes to polls in the first phase on December 1, has six Assembly constituencies - Abdasa, Bhuj, Rapar- all bordering Pakistan, and Mandvi, Anjar and Gandhidham.

The district has around 16 lakh voters spread across the six constituencies, out of which male and female voters are equally proportionate. Muslims comprise around 19 per cent of the total electorate, whereas the Dalits comprise around 12 per cent, and the Patels, including the Leuvas and Kadvas, constitute about 10.5 per cent. The Kshatriya and the Koli communities comprise around 6.5 per cent and 5.2 per cent of the electorate, respectively.

Although Dalits, Kshatriyas, Kolis, Brahmins, and Rajputs have been the committed voters of the saffron camp for the last two decades, a large section of the Patels, who have been with the BJP till 2012, went against the saffron camp following the 2015 Patidar agitation.

The Congress, on the other hand, has been the first choice of minorities and also for a section of Patels, Kshatriyas in rural areas, and other smaller communities like the Rabari.

The AAP, which has carried out a campaign blitzkrieg in the arid region with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal conducting a Tiranga Yatra in Kutch, is stressing fundamental issues such as education, health and water.

The AIMIM stresses the development poll plank of minorities in the area. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been winning a majority of the six seats in the Kutch district since 2002, is hopeful of making a clean sweep this time riding on both development plank and divided opposition.

"We are confident of making a clean sweep this time. There is no opposition to BJP as the people are with us for the development we had carried out post-earthquake in 2001," Kutch district media-in-charge Satwik Gadhvi told PTI.

According to BJP sources, although the party is not attaching much importance to the scattered opposition in the district, resentment among a section of party workers over the selection of candidates is a matter of concern as, in some places, it has altered the party's caste equations. In the Abdasa seat, BJP's candidate is former Congress turncoat and sitting MLA Pradyuman Sing Jadeja, from the Kshatriya community.

Apart from candidates of Congress and AAP, an independent candidate from the Kshatriya–Jadeja community is also contesting the polls. The independent candidate earlier used to be a BJP sympathizer. In the Bhuj seat, the party has replaced its two-time sitting MLA and Assembly Speaker Nimaben Acharya with local party leader Keshubhai Shivdas Patel, known for his organisational skills.

Supporters of Acharya are not happy with the development. In Anjar, the party has replaced its sitting MLA Vasanbhai Ahir with party leader Trikambhai Chhanga. In Mandvi, the BJP has picked Anirudhh Dave over its sitting MLA Virendrasinh Jadeja. Jadeja has been given a ticket from the neighbouring Rapar seat, which the Congress had won in 2017.

"For us, it is not the opposition, but resentment among a section of party workers is a matter of bit concern. In some seats, people from the same community, just as our official candidates, are contesting as Independents," a senior district BJP leader said.

Congress is carrying out a very low-pitch campaign. The opposition party is doing its best to avoid the minefield of communal politics and is focusing more on governance issues. For Congress, winning back the district, and especially retaining the two seats it had won last time, is a big challenge.

"We are confident of winning all the six seats in the Kutch district. The people here are fed up with the misrule of the BJP. The BJP is using all tricks like the communal campaign to everything at its disposal to win the election," Congress district president Yajuvendra Jadeja said.

Congress, like in the rest of Gujarat, is carrying out a silent campaign in Kutch also by reaching out to the masses in every remote corner of the region, trying to encash anti-incumbency against the BJP and its promises on governance issues if voted to power. However, the entry of the AAP and the AIMIM has disturbed the poll arithmetic of the region.

The Congress and the BJP are apprehensive that AAP might eat into their votes among the Patel community, Kshatriyas, a section of minorities, and Dalits, thus delivering a fatal blow in the closely-contested seats.

Although the local BJP unit is elated over the entry of AIMIM as there will be a contender for minority votes apart from the Congress in seats like Bhuj and Mandvi, which has considerable Muslim electorate, and AIMIM is in the fray, the Congress is working to minimize the damage that the AAP and AIMIM may cause. The AAP stresses governance issues in the arid region and has promised to end the region's water crisis if voted to power.

"The people of this area, especially in remote areas, lack basic amenities like education, health, and water. For us, good governance is first and foremost," Kutch district AAP media in-charge Ankita Gor said.

The biggest positive aspect for the AAP in the election is the freshness it brings to the decade-old binary of Congress and BJP in the state's political arena and its track record of delivering good governance, party leaders said.

According to locals, the negative factor for AAP in the Kutch region is the absence of the organizational strength to take on the well-oiled election machinery of the BJP and Congress. The AIMIM said it is contesting only two seats in the entire Kutch district, so the allegation that they are here to cut in Congress's vote is baseless.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won the Kachchh Lok Sabha seat, which it has been winning since 1996, by pocketing more than 62 per cent of the total votes polled, whereas the Congress bagged just 32 per cent.

Apart from governance issues, drug hauls, a water crisis, and communal clashes have become major election issues. Elections for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held on December 1 and 5. The votes will be counted on December 8. 

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News Network
March 21,2024

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New Delhi: India has now become more unequal in terms of wealth concentration than the British colonial period as income and wealth of the top 1% of the country’s population have hit historical highs, according to a paper released by World Inequality Lab.

By 2022-23, the top 1 per cent income share in India was 22.6 per cent and the top 1 per cent wealth share rose to 40.1 per cent, with India’s top 1 per cent income share among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Co-authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, the paper stated that the “Billionaire Raj” headed by “India’s modern bourgeoisie” is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. 

The paper said there is evidence to suggest the Indian tax system might be “regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth”. A restructuring of the tax code is needed, the paper said, adding that a levy of a “super tax” of 2 per cent on the net wealth of 167 wealthiest families would yield 0.5 per cent of national income in revenues and create space for investments.

“A restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition are needed to enable the average Indian, and not just the elites, to meaningfully benefit from the ongoing wave of globalisation. Besides serving as a tool to fight inequality, a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues and create valuable fiscal space to facilitate such investments,” the paper said. 

The paper has analysed data based on the annual tax tabulations published by the Indian income tax authorities to extract the distribution of top income earners between 1922-2020.

The share of national income going to the top 10 per cent fell from 37 per cent in 1951 to 30 per cent by 1982 after which it began steadily rising. From the early 1990s onwards, the top 10 per cent share increased substantially over the next three decades, nearly touching 60 per cent in the most recent years, the paper said. This compares with the bottom 50 per cent getting only 15 per cent of India’s national income in 2022-23.

 The top 1 per cent earn on average Rs 5.3 million, 23 times the average Indian (Rs 0.23 million). Average incomes for the bottom 50 per cent and the middle 40 per cent stood at Rs 71,000 (0.3 times national average) and Rs 1,65,000 (0.7 times national average), respectively.
The richest, nearly 10,000 individuals (of 92 million Indian adults) earn on average Rs 480 million (2,069 times the average Indian). “To get a sense of just how skewed the distribution is, one would have to be at nearly the 90th percentile to earn the average income in India,” the paper said.

In 2022, just the top 0.1 per cent in India earned nearly 10 per cent of the national income, while the top 0.01 per cent earned 4.3 per cent share of the national income and top 0.001 per cent earned 2.1 per cent of the national income.

Enlisting the probable reasons for sharp rise in top 1 per cent income shares, the paper said public and private sector wage growth could have played a part till the late 1990s, adding that there are good reasons to believe capital incomes likely played a role in subsequent years. For the shares of the bottom 50 per cent and middle 40 per cent remaining depressed, the paper said, the primary reason has been the lack of quality broad-based education, focused on the masses and not just the elites.

“One reason to be concerned with such high levels of inequality is that extreme concentration of incomes and wealth is likely to facilitate disproportionate influence on society and government. This is even more so in contexts with weak democratic institutions. After largely being a role model among post-colonial nations in this regard, the integrity of various key institutions in India appears to have been compromised in recent years. This makes the possibility of India’s slide towards plutocracy even more real. If only for this reason, income and wealth inequality in India must be closely tracked and challenged,” it said.

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News Network
March 15,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 13: The Supreme Court on Friday took exception to the State Bank of India (SBI) for not disclosing complete details of Electoral Bonds, including unique alfa numeric numbers, furnished to the Election Commission for uploading on the website.

A five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the SBI seeking its response on Monday after the court was informed that the issuing bank for the Electoral Bonds has not disclosed unique alfa numeric number of each bond.

"They have not disclosed the bond numbers. It has to be disclosed by the State Bank of India. All details have to be provided by the SBI," the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, noted.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said as per the Constitution bench judgment of February 15, 2024, all details were to be disclosed.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted since the SBI was a party to the judgment, notice may be issued to it.

The court said the counsel for SBI should have been here.

"If you see the judgment, we have specified that bond numbers have to be provided," the bench said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the main petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

On an application by the EC, the bench said the details of Electoral Bonds furnished by the poll panel before the top court should be scanned and returned to it for the purpose of uploading on the website.

The Election Commission through advocate Amit Sharma filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to release data on electoral bonds furnished to the top court in terms of previous orders of April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023.

As per March 11, 2024 order, the Election Commission on Thursday uploaded the data on electoral bonds furnished to it by the SBI.

However, in an application, the poll panel said it had furnished to the Supreme Court a number of sealed envelopes, containing details on EBs encashed by the political parties, during the course of hearing in the matter.

It sought a direction for the return of those sealed envelopes to comply with the directions to upload it on the website as per order of March 11.

On Monday, the Supreme Court had told the SBI to furnish details of purchasers of Electoral Bonds and names of political parties redeemed those instruments by March 12 to the Election Commission, rejecting its plea for extension of time until June 30 for the purpose.

It had then directed the Election Commission to publish the information provided by the SBI on its website on March 15.

In its February 15, 2024 judgment, the SC had declared the Electoral Bonds scheme, introduced in 2018 for donation to political parties, as "unconstitutional" for being violative of the right to information.

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News Network
March 27,2024

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Gokarna (Uttara Kannada): Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Wednesday said the Congress will decide about making him the Chief Minister in future, bringing to the fore again the issue of leadership change.

There was stiff competition between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar for the Chief Minister's post after the Assembly election results in May last year, and the Congress had managed to convince the latter and made him the Deputy Chief Minister.

There were some reports at the time that a compromise had been reached based on a "rotational Chief Minister formula," according to which Shivakumar will become CM after two-and-half years but they have not been officially confirmed by the party.

During a temple visit here, a priest prayed that God's blessings may be showered on Shivakumar, and he became the Chief Minister.

Speaking to reporters here in Uttara Kannada district, Shivakumar, who has in the past made no secret of his ambition to become Chief Minister, amid speculations of change in guard mid-way of the Assembly term, responded to talk in some political circles about the leadership issue.

"What's wrong if a priest expresses his desire before God while praying? The priest has expressed his desire. Now Siddaramaiah is the Chief Minister, I'm working as Deputy Chief Minister under him, also as party's state President. People speak about it and desiring it (Shivakumar should become CM) is a different matter, it will be decided by our party," Shivakumar said.

"Now we are all working under the leadership of Siddaramaiah, and our desire is that the state should progress further under his leadership," he said.

"There will be people including supporters and priests, who pray for us, they will express their opinion. Can we stop them from doing it? At the temple it is between God and his disciple, they have expressed their feelings to God," Shivakumar added. 

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