Bihar is trapped in a fiscal cycle where debt sustains expenditure but rarely builds assets. Here is a state which behind electoral fervour and populist promises struggling to balance ambition with capacity.
The Opposition Mahagathbandhan “no holds barred” campaign centred around the “vote chori” allegations and the spirited efforts by Prashant Kishor’s fledgling Jan Suraaj Party will fail to dethrone the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in Bihar, or so predict the exit polls. The average of all exit polls foretells a sweeping victory for the ruling alliance in Bihar.
In the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly elections slated for March-April next year, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the principal Opposition BJP are caught in a new conflict, this time over two of the state’s cultural icons – Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
The skies over Bihar turned into a battleground for weeks, as helicopters and chartered planes carried top politicians across the state in a campaign of unmatched scale and cost. By Sunday evening, the airborne armada fell silent, marking the end of campaigning for the second phase of assembly elections after more than 450 sorties, according to news sources.
In Bihar’s highest-ever voter turnout, nearly 65% of 3.75 crore electors cast their ballots on Thursday across 121 constituencies in the first phase of the assembly elections — a high-stakes contest seen as a litmus test of the ruling NDA’s popularity.
Following the decision of the West Bengal government to exclude a large number of different Muslim communities from the state’s Other Backward Classes (OBC) list, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is being heavily criticized.
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday once again targeted the Election Commission of India (ECI) over alleged “vote chori” (vote theft) and electoral irregularities.
Controversy has been caused by a scathing article by senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor labeling dynastic politics as a serious threat to the Indian democracy, with a specific reference to the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has solidified political leadership as a birthright, and demands political reforms to make India more meritocratic.
Stepping up her attack on the special intensive revision (SIR) of voter list in the State, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday led a protest march in Kolkata and asserted that she would ensure the fall of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre if a single eligible voter was omitted from the electoral rolls.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has sparked a fresh controversy with his remarks suggesting that only a small section of the population — primarily from upper castes — dominates key institutions in India, including the armed forces, reports said.
