Indian Political Discussion

Noodler said:
Modi will win 2019 by the skin if his teeth. If Rahul gives way for someone else , Congress could see resurgence. Modi govt has not got a chance to face recession nor high crude. They have been really mediocre as expected with Jaitley at the helm of affairs. All they can do is change names of cities.
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why should Rahul give way for anything? (though Chidambaram/ Tharoor will be PM and RG will take place of his mother). In extremely trying times, he faced disaster, took on modi, kept congress together and is leading it back to victory. He has proved himself very very well. Modi put Jaitley at helm of affairs so modi is mediocre not Jaitley. stop defending him.
 
About 45 days back, a muslim person was caught with over 500 sims and many fake twitter/FB accounts. He was given the job of spreading the message for NOTA option as a counter to SC/ST act. He pretended to be an upper caste hindu and would send out whatsapp messages and SMSs to upper castes/OBC. Even during run up to the voting, TV programs like "Bahiyyaji Kahin" etc were showing a large number of young voters openly stating the NOTA option. BJP probably did not take it seriously. But to me it seems that Cambridge Analytica has done its job. They have managed to keep Upeer Caste/OBC voter away from booths and those who came to booth chose NOTA instead.
 
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@Hellfire, In one of the threads about ethanol production, I had written exactly the same. I had clearly stated that farm distress will continue to grow unless we ask farmers to go for more cash crops and somehow regulate what is sown across India. We are now having a problem of plenty and disproportionate crop distribution. Most farmers are sowing and cultivating traditional crops like wheat/paddy/sugar cane and vegetables while they can be easily asked to diversify to other products and also grow crops exclusively for export. One of the points missed in the article you quoted above is the rise in irrigated farmland. We all know that crop yields are about 10-25% higher in irrigated farmlands compared to rain fed lands. Once again, the problem for BJP has been the VIkaas and their Good Karma, rather the bad Karma.
 
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Hellfire said:
An interesting read.




LPG, toilet, house: BJP built solid rural assets but income didn’t rise

“Incomes” not rising, due to low crop prices and stagnating wages, has more than offset any “asset” gains in the recent period, which also probably explains the party’s heavy losses in the three states it ruled, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

Written by Harish Damodaran | New Delhi |

December 12, 2018

The big rural economy takeaway for the BJP from the just-concluded assembly elections is that mere asset creation — building roads, houses and toilets or providing access to electricity, LPG and broadband connectivity — isn’t enough.

For rural voters, incomes count as much, if not more.

“Incomes” not rising, due to low crop prices and stagnating wages, has more than offset any “asset” gains in the recent period, which also probably explains the party’s heavy losses in the three states it ruled, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The Modi government’s record in creation of assets and provision of amenities in rural areas is quite impressive. Consider the following:

* The total number of rural houses constructed since 2015-16 under Central schemes, including the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin, is 3.3 times that during the preceding four financial years. The last three fiscals alone (the current one still has 3.5 months left) have seen over 1 crore houses being built, with more than 27% of them in MP (15.43 lakh), Chhattisgarh (5.99 lakh) and Rajasthan (5.96 lakh).

* The pace of rural road construction has significantly increased during this government’s tenure (see table). Currently, only 10.89% of habitations in MP having minimum 250 population are without pucca all-weather roads, whereas this ratio was 60.14% in April 2000. The proportion of such unconnected habitations has similarly fallen from 50.04% to 8.54% in Rajasthan and from 60.52% to 3.98% for Chhattisgarh.


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* The number of active domestic LPG connections has, thanks to the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, gone up from 15.33 crore in June 2015 to 24.72 crore in October 2018, with overall household penetration levels, too, rising from 57.86% to 88.51%.

The states that have recorded substantially improved penetration during this period again include MP (from 39.12% to 73.49%), Chhattisgarh (27.63% to 71.23%) and Rajasthan (58.21% to 94.80%).

* Of the country’s 21.69 crore rural households, 20.87 crore (96.24%) are now electrified. Under the Modi government’s Saubhagya scheme, launched on September 25, 2017, the number of un-electrified households has reduced from around 4 crore to just 81.53 lakh. MP and Chhattisgarh have already achieved 100% and 99.21% electrification, respectively, while it is 95.59% for Rajasthan.

* More than 8.98 crore household toilets have been built in rural India since October 2, 2014 under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin. Household toilet penetration is now 100% in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, whereas the corresponding ratios for the three states before the programme began were 27.53%, 29.74% and 40.26%.

* The BharatNet project has so far enabled laying of optic fibre cable lines in 121,859 out of India’s 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats (GP). In 116,492 GPs, actual broadband connectivity through installation of equipment has taken place.

* 33.38 crore bank accounts, with 19.75 crore of it in rural areas, have been opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana.

However, all this asset creation work has not had the desired political impact – for the simple fact that the crisis in rural India today is primarily one of incomes.

One indicator is crop prices.

Since 2014-15, the average annual increase in the wholesale price index has been only 2.75% for “food articles” and 0.76% for “non-food” agricultural articles. As against this, the same during the preceding five-year period of the UPA government amounted to 12.26% and 11.04%, respectively, while higher than the average annual general wholesale inflation of 6.89%.

In other words, along with lower income growth, farmers have also experienced deterioration in terms of trade.

But it isn’t farmers alone.

The table shows a marked decline in rural wage growth for agricultural and non-agricultural occupations after 2014-15, with the average yearly increase working out to about 5.2% in nominal terms. That is slightly above the corresponding rise of 4.9% in the rural consumer price index, pointing to a virtual stagnation in real rural wages. The reason here has partly to do with low crop prices, reducing the demand for farm labour. Moreover, a sluggish economy has led to a drying up of job opportunities for rural migrant workers, especially in sectors such as construction, real estate and manufacturing.

This is in contrast to the UPA period, which witnessed double-digit rural wage growth on the back of a booming farm as well as non-farm economy.

With incomes under stress – particularly in the post-demonetisation period, when crop prices have been more prone to falling than rising – it is not surprising that investing in public and household assets alone has not helped the ruling party’s electoral cause. It is one thing to provide free electricity or LPG connection to poor rural families. But without jobs and incomes, paying for power or refilling of the cylinder becomes that much more difficult.

source: LPG, toilet, house: BJP built solid rural assets but income didn’t rise

Comment:

While the NDA government at the center has actually been seen to perform on ground, with improving parameters indicative of effect on the economy, the fact that the populist schemes trump pragmatic and hard decision, should not be forgotten. People are less bothered about Mandir, Cows and drinking urine (not against anyone's wishes to, but seriously?). Additionally, there is a glut within the rural section, which feels deprived of the spin offs which were promised in 2014.

BJP is bound to fail if it does not undertake a course correction.

While Yogi Adityanath has been quite active in curbing the various gangs in UP and the same is welcomed, the flip side is the entire thrust on only cow, in whose name vigilantism is being undertaken by people with nothing better to do, and an apparent public posturing of the government to tacitly approve the same (thereby undermining the image that they hope to create of law & order by going after criminals) continues to undermine them. They have, at the same time, failed miserably at improving the infrastructure within the state in terms of roads and improving civic amenities. In certain aspects, the condition has worsened.

By promising Article 370, Ram Mandir and Uniform Civil Code, the fact that they have not made a single move on these, is also undermining their plank. There was and is no reason why the Article 370 has not been revisited, the Ram Mandir issue remains pending inspite of Allahabad High Court giving the judgement in 2010 and why they have failed to bring in a Uniform Civil Code yet continue to alienate the various groups in India with their divisive and often hateful utterances. Such posturing merely indicates a duplicity, something which the common voter is now increasingly able to identify.
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I doubt rural wages and food prices were important. Look at the high rates of growth during the UPA period from 2011 to 2014, and they still lost.

People are stupid enough to vote based on unrealistic political promises.
 
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There are 9 seats where congress won by nearly 1000 votes in MP and 4 seats by less than 2000 votes. And average NOTA vote is 2000 votes per seat. Main reason of defeat in MP is SC ST act. Otherwise BJP could have won 120 seats.
 
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what remains to be seen is if BJP learns rom this debacle. IMHO to get their core vote base back they need to do the following:

1. Sack the FM (although it may be too late to have any impact on ground in terms of monetary policy). Announce tax sops for middle class/salaried class. rationalise GST ASAP.
2. Bring a bill on Ram Mandir- not an Ordinance- and expose the COng and other parties. They cant openly oppose the bill. If the bill passes, BJP wins.
3. Go all out prosecuting cases against Gandhis,Chidu and Vadra and secure conviction before elections. This will need some serious back room manoeuvring. Can amit shah do it? well, its his litmus test.

If not, then we should be prepared for Khichdi coalition with Raga and Mummyji pulling the strings in the background, and the country getting doomed.
 
Shekhar Singh said:
There are 9 seats where congress won by nearly 1000 votes in MP and 4 seats by less than 2000 votes. And average NOTA vote is 2000 votes per seat. Main reason of defeat in MP is SC ST act. Otherwise BJP could have won 120 seats.
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The total number of NOTA votes in RJ alone is more than the combined difference in votes of MP & RJ. And if you include all the NOTA votes than the difference is more than the combined total of all states barring Telangana.
 
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ghostwhowalks said:
what remains to be seen is if BJP learns rom this debacle. IMHO to get their core vote base back they need to do the following:

1. Sack the FM (although it may be too late to have any impact on ground in terms of monetary policy). Announce tax sops for middle class/salaried class. rationalise GST ASAP.
2. Bring a bill on Ram Mandir- not an Ordinance- and expose the COng and other parties. They cant openly oppose the bill. If the bill passes, BJP wins.
3. Go all out prosecuting cases against Gandhis,Chidu and Vadra and secure conviction before elections. This will need some serious back room manoeuvring. Can amit shah do it? well, its his litmus test.

If not, then we should be prepared for Khichdi coalition with Raga and Mummyji pulling the strings in the background, and the country getting doomed.
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On the other forum I had stated that this FM is Jai-Italy and furthering the ambitions of Congress. He is part of Lutyen's mafia which actually runs this nation. I had that time also stated that his main aim to ensure that Modi economic reasons alone.
 
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The biggest lie spoken and found acceptance with electorate was that loans worth "sadhe teen lakh pachaas hazaar carore" of fifteen industrialists have been waived off while the loans of farmers have not been. Its either sadhe teen lakh or teen lakh pachaas hazaar. what is sadhe teen lakh pachaas hazaar? BJP did not counter this lie effectively and harped on Ram temple.
 
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