Tuesday, March 26th, 2019
Jaya Prada joins BJP, may take on former mentor-turned-rival Azam Khan in Rampur
Actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada joined the BJP on Tuesday and may return to Rampur, the Lok Sabha seat she first won more than 10 years ago, to take on Samajwadi Party strongman Azam Khan, who once helped secure her victory there. From ally to adversary Shortly before the 2004 election, Jaya Prada, earlier associated with the Telugu Desam Party, joined the SP, which fielded her in Rampur against sitting MP Begum Noor Bano. She won comfortably. Over the following years she was drawn into the SP’s internal feuds, siding with generalRead More
SP-BSP alliance fields Akhilesh Yadav from Azamgarh to counter Modi-Yogi in east UP
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to contest the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat is a calculated move by the SP-BSP alliance to win back ground in eastern Uttar Pradesh and blunt what it calls the Modi-Yogi effect, according to political observers and alliance insiders. The 2014 setback In 2014 the BJP won 71 of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats and its ally Apna Dal took two. SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav held Azamgarh, but the BJP took every other seat in the eastern region, including traditional SP and BSP strongholds suchRead More
From UP to Assam and Odisha: PM Modi’s 2019 campaign blitz begins on Thursday
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, the party’s two biggest campaigners, are expected to address around 125 and 150 rallies between the last week of March and mid-May, when campaigning for the general election ends, two BJP leaders said on condition of anonymity. The schedule Mr Modi will open his campaign with a rally in Meerut on March 28 and address another in Jammu the same day, one of the leaders said. He will visit Odisha on March 29 and April 1, and address two rallies apieceRead More
Lok Sabha Election 2019: the Congress NYAY promise of Rs 72,000 a year, and the problem of measuring household income
On 25 March 2019, a fortnight before the Lok Sabha election, Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced the party’s main campaign promise: NYAY (Nyuntam Aay Yojana), a minimum income guarantee for the poorest households in the country. What was promised Under the plan, the poorest 20 per cent of households, which the party put at about five crore families or 25 crore people, would receive Rs 6,000 a month, or Rs 72,000 a year, paid directly into their accounts. The party described it as a way of ensuring that no family’sRead More