India

[ibfc]

Mar 20, 2022 14:05:30 GMT Georg Ebner said:

The ImPression of many, that the INC is now on the verge from temporary to perpetual coma, is underlined by NumberCrunchers (i haven't calculated the vote-% in my table posted earlier because i have not found so far at wikipedia the total numbers of valid votes for this year's stateElec.):

This may be slightly misleading as the bulk of INC vote share in the 16-20 cycle came from Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh none of which have yet voted in this cycle.

[ibfc]

N Biren Singh has been elected as the leader of the BJP legislature party in Manipur and should be sworn in as CM over the next couple of days. The delay was on account of an inauspicious period that started with the declaration of results and ended only with Holi and intra party wrangling in multiple states over who should be the CM. The party leadership decided to let things drag out as the oath taking couldn’t anyway happen this week due to the inauspicious period. In Manipur’s case, T Biswajit Singh was also vying for the top job. In Goa, there is a contest between incumbent CM, Dr Pramod Sawant and Vishwajeet Rane while Uttarakhand is in utter confusion due to the incumbent CM having lost his seat. However, I would expect all of these to be cleared up over the next few days to finally culminate with Yogi’s swearing in towards the end of the week.

[ibfc]

Pushkar Singh Dhami will be the Uttarakhand CM. He will have to find a seat and get himself elected to the Assembly within 6 months. He becomes the first ever CM of Uttarakhand to retain power after an election.

Dr Pramod Sawant will be the Goa CM. He’s only the first CM in Goa’s history to retain power after an election following Dayanand Bandodkar, Sasikala Kakodkar, Pratapsingh Rane and Luizinho Faleiro (who was the last in 1999). In what may be considered to be a pattern, Sawant like the first three is a Maratha from the New Conquests.

[ibfc]

Three assembly bypoll results declared today. Massive win for the BJD in Odisha’s Brajrajnagar while the Congress comfortably held on to Thrikkakara in Kerala. Pushkar Dhami managed to get himself elected to the Uttarakhand assembly in some style by winning the Champawat seat with 92.94% of the vote.

[The Bishop]

I think the last result was clearly a deliberate decision by the opposition not to campaign (though of course he was always likely to win anyway)

[ibfc]

Not at a party level. It was more a case of Dhami buying out the Congress candidate.

[ibfc]

Rajya Sabha polls took place this week. While most of the seats were uncontested, there were contests in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Haryana. The BJP snatched opposition seats in MH and HR while congress held on in RJ. Congress JD(S) split helped BJP hold on Karnataka. MH result is big because an opposition getting extra votes is not normal and has really shaken up things ahead of the long delayed municipal polls. Haryana was about Kuldeep Bishnoi finally ditching the INC (again). He’ll probably join the BJP now after having been an unhappy ally during the 2014 LS polls. He famously refused a 45-45 seat sharing offer by the BJP for the Haryana assembly polls in 2014 after the LS polls. A glance at the eventual results would show how ill advised that turned out to be.

[ibfc]

NDA has announced that Draupadi Murmu as its candidate to be the next President of India. The election will be held in July. A Santhal from Mayurbhanj in Odisha, she would be the first native of Odisha, the second woman and the first tribal to be the President. An RSS worker, she was a minister in the BJD BJP coalition government in Odisha and also served as the Governor of Jharkhand during Modi’s first term. She had been expected to be declared the Presidential nominee in 2017 but lost out to Ram Nath Kovind in the end.

The opposition has announced that the former BJP leader (most recently in the TMC), Yashwant Sinha will be its candidate. Sinha held the Finance and Foreign Ministers portfolios in the Vajpayee government and quit the BJP post the rise of Modi. His son Jayant is the BJP MP from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand (his former constituency) and was a minister in the Modi government for some time.

[Georg Ebner]

Jun 21, 2022 16:15:06 GMT ibfc said:

NDA has announced that Draupadi Murmu as its candidate to be the next President of India. The election will be held in July. A Santhal from Mayurbhanj in Odisha, she would be the first native of Odisha, the second woman and the first tribal to be the President. An RSS worker, she was a minister in the BJD BJP coalition government in Odisha and also served as the Governor of Jharkhand during Modi’s first term. She had been expected to be declared the Presidential nominee in 2017 but lost out to Ram Nath Kovind in the end.

The opposition has announced that the former BJP leader (most recently in the TMC), Yashwant Sinha will be its candidate. Sinha held the Finance and Foreign Ministers portfolios in the Vajpayee government and quit the BJP post the rise of Modi. His son Jayant is the BJP MP from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand (his former constituency) and was a minister in the Modi government for some time.

Both choices clearly make sense: The UPA-one is a desperate attempt to split the NDA, whereas the latter tries to make it impossible for Odisha's BJD to oppose their candidate (in theory the NDA are so close to a majority, that it needs only the BJD; in practice more supportive parties will be required, of course).

[ibfc]

Jun 21, 2022 20:52:27 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Jun 21, 2022 16:15:06 GMT ibfc said:

NDA has announced that Draupadi Murmu as its candidate to be the next President of India. The election will be held in July. A Santhal from Mayurbhanj in Odisha, she would be the first native of Odisha, the second woman and the first tribal to be the President. An RSS worker, she was a minister in the BJD BJP coalition government in Odisha and also served as the Governor of Jharkhand during Modi’s first term. She had been expected to be declared the Presidential nominee in 2017 but lost out to Ram Nath Kovind in the end.

The opposition has announced that the former BJP leader (most recently in the TMC), Yashwant Sinha will be its candidate. Sinha held the Finance and Foreign Ministers portfolios in the Vajpayee government and quit the BJP post the rise of Modi. His son Jayant is the BJP MP from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand (his former constituency) and was a minister in the Modi government for some time.

Both choices clearly make sense: The UPA-one is a desperate attempt to split the NDA, whereas the latter tries to make it impossible for Odisha's BJD to oppose their candidate (in theory the NDA are so close to a majority, that it needs only the BJD; in practice more supportive parties will be required, of course).

Yes, Naveen Patnaik already tweeted that he’s delighted with the candidature. He also mentioned that Modi had already spoken to him. Would expect YSRCP support also. A party in a tricky position is the JMM which will find it difficult to oppose a tribal woman (especially a Santhal) as it is itself basically a party of Santhals.

[ibfc]

Jun 22, 2022 2:21:25 GMT ibfc said:

Jun 21, 2022 20:52:27 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Both choices clearly make sense: The UPA-one is a desperate attempt to split the NDA, whereas the latter tries to make it impossible for Odisha's BJD to oppose their candidate (in theory the NDA are so close to a majority, that it needs only the BJD; in practice more supportive parties will be required, of course).

Yes, Naveen Patnaik already tweeted that he’s delighted with the candidature. He also mentioned that Modi had already spoken to him. Would expect YSRCP support also. A party in a tricky position is the JMM which will find it difficult to oppose a tribal woman (especially a Santhal) as it is itself basically a party of Santhals.

A few updates on the Presidential front with a number of non NDA parties supporting Murmu; YSRCP, BJD, TDP, Akali Dal and the Shinde Group of the Shiv Sena. A bunch of MPs are trying to get the Uddhav group of the Sena to also join in. The two large parties that haven’t yet formally announced support for either candidate are the AAP and the JMM.
The opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha is struggling to gain momentum as the Congress isn’t very interested in the campaign and the TMC which initially proposed his name is now wary of being seen as supporting him due to the large Santhal population in West Bengal. Mamta Banerjee even went to the extent of saying there could’ve been an uncontested election if the BJP had kept the opposition in the loop on Mrs Murmu (this is hogwash, of course).

[Georg Ebner]

Jul 11, 2022 8:21:49 GMT ibfc said:

Jun 22, 2022 2:21:25 GMT ibfc said:

Yes, Naveen Patnaik already tweeted that he’s delighted with the candidature. He also mentioned that Modi had already spoken to him. Would expect YSRCP support also. A party in a tricky position is the JMM which will find it difficult to oppose a tribal woman (especially a Santhal) as it is itself basically a party of Santhals.

A few updates on the Presidential front with a number of non NDA parties supporting Murmu; YSRCP, BJD, TDP, Akali Dal and the Shinde Group of the Shiv Sena. A bunch of MPs are trying to get the Uddhav group of the Sena to also join in. The two large parties that haven’t yet formally announced support for either candidate are the AAP and the JMM.
The opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha is struggling to gain momentum as the Congress isn’t very interested in the campaign and the TMC which initially proposed his name is now wary of being seen as supporting him due to the large Santhal population in West Bengal. Mamta Banerjee even went to the extent of saying there could’ve been an uncontested election if the BJP had kept the opposition in the loop on Mrs Murmu (this is hogwash, of course).

How do the SHS-delegates break, by the way?

[ibfc]

Jul 11, 2022 14:20:30 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Jul 11, 2022 8:21:49 GMT ibfc said:

A few updates on the Presidential front with a number of non NDA parties supporting Murmu; YSRCP, BJD, TDP, Akali Dal and the Shinde Group of the Shiv Sena. A bunch of MPs are trying to get the Uddhav group of the Sena to also join in. The two large parties that haven’t yet formally announced support for either candidate are the AAP and the JMM.
The opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha is struggling to gain momentum as the Congress isn’t very interested in the campaign and the TMC which initially proposed his name is now wary of being seen as supporting him due to the large Santhal population in West Bengal. Mamta Banerjee even went to the extent of saying there could’ve been an uncontested election if the BJP had kept the opposition in the loop on Mrs Murmu (this is hogwash, of course).

How do the SHS-delegates break, by the way?

The Sena has 56 MLAs and 22 MPs (19 LS and 3 RS). The MLAs are currently split 40-16 in favour of Shinde Group. The RS MPs are all with Uddhav as they have been nominated by him and two of them, Sanjay Raut and Priyanka Chaturvedi are hate figures for the Shinde camp. One of the LS MPs is actually from Dadra and Nagar Haveli and is the wife of the former independent MP who was found dead in mysterious circumstances. She then blamed the BJP for the murder and proceeded to contest the bypoll on a Sena ticket. She’s essentially an independent and the Sena just gave the ticket to her to bait the BJP. I would expect her to be with Sinha.

The remaining 18 LS MPs are an interesting case. Uddhav held a meeting on the Presidential Poll today and the number of MPs who attended it seem to range from 7 to 13. Uddhav himself acknowledged that 3 MPs attended through video conferencing (possible as all their constituencies are currently facing floods). Two MPs, Shrikanth Shinde (the CM’s son and Bhavna Gawli, (the MP from Yavatmal- Washim) definitely didn’t attend). One of the MPs who attended, Gajanan Kirtikar the MP from Mumbai North West came out and said that 15 MPs have requested Uddhav to back Murmu. The MPs are by and large screwed because none of them can really win without BJP or UPA support and it’s not clear whether the UPA would allot so many seats to the Uddhav faction. As for the BJP, it is definitely going to demand a lot more seats from Shinde that it gave the last time; so these guys probably aren’t assured of seats even if they switch to Shinde. So their best bet would be to get the party united again and hope that the BJP will then give them more seats. I am sceptical of this as the BJP has no reason at all to trust Uddhav and would want extra seats from Maharashtra to compensate for possible losses elsewhere. Maharashtra has a huge pro NDA bias in national elections and the BJP can easily hope to gain 5-6 seats that today have Sena MPs.

[Georg Ebner]

Jul 11, 2022 15:49:34 GMT ibfc said:

Jul 11, 2022 14:20:30 GMT Georg Ebner said:

How do the SHS-delegates break, by the way?

The Sena has 56 MLAs and 22 MPs (19 LS and 3 RS). The MLAs are currently split 40-16 in favour of Shinde Group. The RS MPs are all with Uddhav as they have been nominated by him and two of them, Sanjay Raut and Priyanka Chaturvedi are hate figures for the Shinde camp. One of the LS MPs is actually from Dadra and Nagar Haveli and is the wife of the former independent MP who was found dead in mysterious circumstances. She then blamed the BJP for the murder and proceeded to contest the bypoll on a Sena ticket. She’s essentially an independent and the Sena just gave the ticket to her to bait the BJP. I would expect her to be with Sinha.

The remaining 18 LS MPs are an interesting case. Uddhav held a meeting on the Presidential Poll today and the number of MPs who attended it seem to range from 7 to 13. Uddhav himself acknowledged that 3 MPs attended through video conferencing (possible as all their constituencies are currently facing floods). Two MPs, Shrikanth Shinde (the CM’s son and Bhavna Gawli, (the MP from Yavatmal- Washim) definitely didn’t attend). One of the MPs who attended, Gajanan Kirtikar the MP from Mumbai North West came out and said that 15 MPs have requested Uddhav to back Murmu. The MPs are by and large screwed because none of them can really win without BJP or UPA support and it’s not clear whether the UPA would allot so many seats to the Uddhav faction. As for the BJP, it is definitely going to demand a lot more seats from Shinde that it gave the last time; so these guys probably aren’t assured of seats even if they switch to Shinde. So their best bet would be to get the party united again and hope that the BJP will then give them more seats. I am sceptical of this as the BJP has no reason at all to trust Uddhav and would want extra seats from Maharashtra to compensate for possible losses elsewhere. Maharashtra has a huge pro NDA bias in national elections and the BJP can easily hope to gain 5-6 seats that today have Sena MPs.

[ibfc]

Draupadi Murmu has been elected as the 15th President of India. She defeated Yashwant Sinha by a margin of 64.03% to 35.97%. While this is a slight dip from Kovind's vote share in 2017, this is substantially above the NDA's support in the electoral college. There has been massive cross voting in a few states in Murmu's favour. The most notable are Assam and Jharkhand where more opposition MLAs seem to have cross voted than voted correctly. Mrs Murmu is the first tribal, second woman,first Odia and second BJP member to become the President of India as well as the first President born after Indian independence.

[minionofmidas]

Jul 21, 2022 16:50:31 GMT ibfc said:

Draupadi is the first President born after Indian independence.

Huh. Makes sense, I guess.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Jul 21, 2022 20:54:09 GMT minionofmidas said:

Jul 21, 2022 16:50:31 GMT ibfc said:

Draupadi is the first President born after Indian independence.

Huh. Makes sense, I guess.

Italy still hasn't had a president born in the era of the republic. The first prime minister to fit that bill was d'Alema in 1998, so quite a contrast.

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 21, 2022 22:44:06 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Jul 21, 2022 20:54:09 GMT minionofmidas said:

Huh. Makes sense, I guess.

Italy still hasn't had a president born in the era of the republic. The first prime minister to fit that bill was d'Alema in 1998, so quite a contrast.

Blimey, that is quite a factoid.

[ibfc]

The first Indian PM born after independence is Modi.

[rcronald]

Real?