I-Pac Popularity Survey 2018: PM Modi 400% ahead than Rahul Gandhi in Online Poll

I-PAC leader popularity survey: For 2019, 48% chose Narendra Modi to take forward 'national agenda', 11% opt for Rahul Gandhi

In a survey conducted by The Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), 48% of over 57 lakh people from 712 districts reached out to in 55 days see Narendra Modi as the leader to take forward the 'agenda of the nation'.

The survey done by an advocacy group - mentored by political strategist Prashant Kishor - under National Agenda Forum (NAF) has nominated 923 leaders for the respondents to choose from.

Rahul Gandhi follows Modi with 11% votes whereas Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has claimed the third spot with 9.3% votes Meanwhile, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav with 7 % votes in the fourth spot followed by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati with 4.2% and 3.1% votes, respectively.

The survey states that the respondents cited women's empowerment, farm crisis, economic inequality, problems of students, education in health and hygiene, sanitation, communal unity and basic education among the top priority issues for the country.

The survey also lists 10 non-political personalities nominated by the people to join politics. Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar and Anna Hazare top this list.

I-PAC launched the NAF in July to mobilise about one crore citizens to formulate an actionable agenda for citizens to choose their leaders online in the 2019 elections, an official said on Sunday.

The I-PAC official told IANS that the NAF was a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary year. The NAF is formed to resurrect the conversation around Gandhi's 18-point Constructive Programme for independent India and use it to reimagine and co-create India's priorities to formulate an actionable agenda for the present.

The youth volunteers of the organisation would now meet the chosen leader in September or October. The agenda would then be taken to the entire nation, before it is adopted as part of the party manifesto in January 2019 for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Source: Firstpost.com

BJP pushes for Elections in 11 States to Coincide with Lok Sabha Polls

While most of the states due to go into elections in 2018 and 2019 are currently under BJP, rival parties like Congress have already said they are against the idea of clubbing state elections with Lok Sabha polls.

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is pushing for elections in 11 states to take place along with Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held in 2019. These states include Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Mizoram and Bihar.

BJP believes that if state governments and political parties are fine with the prospect of having elections to coincide with Lok Sabha polls, it could be done without bringing about any change in the Constitution.

This could be possible because elections in AP, Odisha and Telangana are likely to match the dates of Lok Sabha elections. Polls in Rajasthan, MP and Chattisgarh - the tenure of the BJP governments here expires in January of 2019 - can be pushed back while election dates in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand (all BJP-ruled states) and Mizoram (Congress government's tenure here expires in December) can be pushed forward to ensure all of these match Lok Sabha election dates.

Elections in Bihar are due towards the end of 2020 and there is murmur that preponing the elections here could suit Nitish Kumar's JD(U) as well.

The prospect of having Governor's rule to serve the objective of common poll dates though has many questioning the legal validity of such a move.

While BJP President Amit Shah wrote to Law Commission on Monday and expressed that his party is in favour of common polling dates, opposition parties like Congress and Trinamool Congress are vehemently against the idea. This means bringing about a Constitutional Amendment could prove to be an uphill task.
Source: Zeenews.india.com

Know - What ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala predicted about Modi Govt. and 2019 Lok Sabha Election

Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is confident about a Modi victory in 2019 elections. He is betting on these two Tata firms in the coming years.

Even as market pundits try to decode the reaction of Sensex and Nifty to political uncertainties, ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is confident on PM Modi winning the 2019 elections. In an interview to ET Now, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala said that the stock markets are currently bearish about the BJP’s prospects.

“I personally feel we are far more bearish about the BJP prospects than the actual reality…I would want that Mr Modi comes back. This election is going to be fought on personalities. I can write and give you one thing, BJP will form government, with most likely Mr Modi at the helm,” he told the channel.

Decoding the reaction of stocks markets during the past elections, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala noted that when the BJP lost during India shining, the Sensex was at 6,500, and it was 25,000 within that 4 years. “When later the Congress won by 209 seats, the Nifty went up by 40% in 2 days, and after that it never went down. India is greater than individuals,” he pointed out.

In the same interview, the big bull of Dalal Street said that the Tsunami of inflows into the stock markets, especially through mutual funds will continue. “Look at the way the savings will grow. If India has to be a $10 trillion economy by 2030, savings will be $3 trillion a year. Even if 10% of that comes to the stock market, the share market will be at $300 billion. I want to point out that 32% of household wealth in US is now equity,” he said.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala then shared his love for the Tata Enterprise and exuded confidence in N Chandrasekaran’s abilities to take the behemoth to greater heights. “Those who built the Tata Enterprise, Sir Ratan Tata, and Sir Jamsetji Tata, they willed their wealth to charity. They have a very big cancer hospital in Bombay, and every child is examined by them. If they feel they can cure it, they provide free treatment.

The first steel plant, first 5-star hotel and first software company, first power plant, first car manufacturing plant, the Indian Institute of Sciences. Tata enterprise is a role model of what is wealth. They are creating wealth for the good of society. What nobler aim can a human have?” he said.

So where exactly is he seeing value creation in the Tata Enterprise. “In the next 5-10 years Tata Steel and Tata Communication can do well,” he said. According to the investment maestro, 18-24% in the stock market is reasonable returns. “It’s not that I’m a great and well known investor so I make 30%, it doesn’t work that way,” he said.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala also advised investors to buy jewellery to tide through difficult times. “It’s very important to buy jewellery. Our ancestors have told to put 3-4% and I don’t even have a quarter percent. I know of many friends who have gotten past 5 years by selling jewellery,” he said.
Source: financialexpress.com

Amit Shah asks BJP Cadres to Prepare for Solo 2019 Elections Fight in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will go solo in Maharastra for the 2019 polls, said party president Amit Shah on Sunday.

Shah's direction comes three days after BJP ally Shiv Sena boycotted the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on Friday asking for more accountability from the Centre.

Shah held closed-door assessment meeting of senior party leaders here with the focus on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and strengthening the cadre in Maharashtra.

Ahead of the crucial floor test, the party held a meeting where the decision to boycott the house proceeding was taken. Later, Sena lauded Congress president Rahul Gandhi in its mouthpiece Saamana over the latter’s speech during no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha.

Asking party cadres to prepare for the elections alone, Shah laid down a 23-point working strategy and discussed issues such as increasing the party strength, addressing new voters' groups based on their profession, gender, likings etc and a regular follow up of the voters by the local party workers.

The party will soon declare the names of candidates for all 48 seats in Maharashtra, he added.

In 2014, of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, BJP had won 23 seats, the Shiv Sena 18, the NCP four, the Congress two, and former BJP ally Swabhimani Paksh one.

The BJP leader also singer Lata Mangeshkar at her home in south Mumbai as part of the party's "contact for support" campaign.

Apart from meeting the 'Vistaraks' of the party whose mandate is to increase the network of the BJP in different geographies, Shah also interacted with the members of the 'Lok Sabha Toli', a group that consists of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state unit chief Raosaheb Danve, Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil and Pankaja Munde, Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar, among others.
Source: ZeeNews

Modi in West Midnapore on 16-July: How BJP is Raising Poll Heat ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections

It’s just been a fortnight and Bengal has become a must stop for two BJP stalwarts — Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is eyeing 22 seats, out of which they are right now focussed on three seats from the tribal districts of Jhargram, Purulia, West Midnapore and Bankura. These areas have given the party unexpected success in the Panchayat polls.

A neck-and-neck fight in Purulia and Jhargram, despite allegations of electoral malpractices, threat and intimidation by the ruling party, has convinced the BJP leaders that political winds are shifting in the tribal belt. Grievances are growing and now is the time to reap the dividends.

Modi has chosen the tribal-dominated district of West Midnapore as the venue for kicking off his campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Bengal. This would also be the place to roll his pro-farmer campaign, the increase in MSP on rice and over a dozen agricultural produce.

On June 28, when Amit Shah was in Purulia, he addressed the rally in the capacity of the party national president, attacking the Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee’s governance. Modi is purely going to raise his decibels in favour of the central schemes his government has initiated and ask if the benefits had reached them or not.

Once informed that the tribal community is dissatisfied with the irregularity of state doles, delayed payment and above all, politicisation of distribution of benefits, the Prime Minister is going to uphold the transparent dealings of the central schemes where credits are directly linked to the beneficiary’s bank accounts.

There will be more arrows in his quiver.

The BJP has lined up a series of heavyweight leaders to campaign in Bengal. Modi himself will tour some of the districts where the party expects to be lucky.

After all, the slogan of this election is Ebar Bangla (now Bengal).

The ruling Trinamool Congress is a bit worried as it is likely to face a tough opposition in BJP, now that the Left and Congress have become non-players in Bengal and the anti-incumbency votes are unlikely to be divided, at least in these tribal areas where the masses are not known to try out many parties.

If there is a player/contestant from the tribal party or if the tribals pitch independent candidates, the contest is always two-pronged: between the incumbent or power-in-place and the tribals. But if the tribals feel they are inadequate in strength, they usually back the Opposition, which has the maximum chance of fulfilling their aspirations.

Right now, the BJP appears to be the only alternative close at hand and given RSS’s penetration in the tribal villages, even the ruling Trinamool Congress is in a difficult spot. The ruling party, however, is not sitting idle. It is mobilising all its strength to repair the weaknesses before going to the polls.

The Panchayat verdict has been an eye-opener and the chief minister, who usually prefers being oblivious to the faults and frailties of her party, has for once, realised that wisdom lies in acknowledging the problems and looking for a solution.

The first thing she did was to remove the people’s representatives, who were functioning as ministers and MLAs, and had grown too big for their boots. The locals were dissatisfied with them. Power had made them inaccessible and ostensibly rich.

While the humble abodes of people’s representatives became palaces and cycles were given up for SUVs, the tribal community was toiling to get four square meals. Even access to the subsidised ration, the wages of NREGA and other social welfare benefits depended on how close the tribals were to the political dadas.

Realising that there is hardly any time before the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee convened an emergency meeting with the tribals at the state headquarters last week.

The tribals were driven in the city in AC volvo buses, were looked after well and made to pour out their hearts, especially their angst, disillusionment and grievances.

Incidentally, the former tribal welfare affairs minister lost his portfolio after the BJP won 42 per cent seats in Jhargram and 33 per cent seats in Purulia.

Mamata formed a committee comprising all the tribal heads at the grassroots level. There was no people’s representative, except for Ritabrata Banerjee, who has been appointed the convener of the committee. Ritabrata has been expelled from the CPM for his allegedly wayward and un-communist ways and lavish lifestyle.

How Ritabrata is going to fit into the scheme of things by being the eyes, ear and voice of the tribals is now a big question.
Source: dailyo.in

PM Modi to Address 50 Rallies across India by February 2019

New Delhi: With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address 50 rallies across the country by February next year, covering more than 100 Lok Sabha constituencies, sources said on Thursday.

This is in stark contrast to the 437 big rallies he addressed in the run up to the 2014 general election, according to NDTV. The report quoted BJP chief Amit Shah as saying that that Modi participated in 5,827 public interfacing events and travelled over three lakh kilometres across 25 states "to connect himself to the people everywhere" ahead of the 2014 polls.

According to PTI, the source said that BJP chief Amit Shah and senior leaders Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari will address 50 rallies each ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

All the rallies have been planned to prepare the ground for the party's campaign. Each rally is being designed so that it covers two to three Lok Sabha constituencies, the source added.

Before the election dates of the Lok Sabha elections are announced, the BJP will already have covered at least 400 Lok Sabha constituencies by organising 200 rallies, a party leader said.

Besides these 50 rallies, Modi will also address rallies in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where elections are scheduled later this year, the party leader said.

Wednesday's rally in Malout in Punjab was first of these rallies. Another similar farmers gathering is being planned at Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh this month.

A party source said that the exercise has been planned to bring the organisation into election mode and prepare a platform for the BJP's campaign.
Source: firstpost.com

PM Modi says Grand Alliance is merely a Grand Race to be the Prime Minister

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the proposed grand opposition alliance is merely a "grand race" by his rivals to be the prime minister and accused the Congress of working to discredit every institution due to its "culture of Emergency".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the proposed grand opposition alliance is merely a “grand race” by his rivals to be the prime minister and accused the Congress of working to discredit every institution due to its “culture of Emergency”. In a wide-ranging interview to Swarajya magazine, he also touched on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and security concerns about his safety, saying that being among people gives him a lot of strength as he was not a ‘Shahenshah’ who is unaffected by people’s warmth. Targeting opposition parties, he said they are driven by “personal survival and power politics” and they have no agenda except to remove him with “hatred for Modi” being their “sole gluing force”.

The Congress, he said, had graduated from “Modi hatred” to “India hatred”, accusing the opposition party of going on an overdrive to discredit every possible institution in the last seven to eight years. Expressing confidence that people will vote the BJP back to power in the next Lok Sabha elections, he said the Congress is fighting a battle for its survival (“astitva ki ladai”) and is now running from pillar to post looking for allies.

Ridiculing the Congress amid its efforts to stitch together an alliance against the BJP, he said the Rahul Gandhi-led party is now like a regional party and cannot become a cementing force or anchor for any combine of opposition parties.

The prime minister dubbed the next election a choice between governance and development on one side and chaos on the other as he cited the example of Karnataka, where the Congress-JD(S) alliance “stole the mandate” to form government with “development taking a back seat”.

“In any election, a non-ideological and opportunist coalition is the best guarantee for chaos,” he said, describing Karnataka as “a trailer of what is possibly in store”. You would expect ministers meeting each other to solve development issues but in Karnataka they meet only to quell infighting, he said. The BJP, he said, contests elections on the issues of development and good governance and the mandates it has received in state after state are historic.

“Hence, we are confident that people will repose their trust in us. They (opposition) have no agenda except to remove Modi. Hatred for Modi is the sole gluing force for the opposition,” he said. Modi rejected the comparison of an opposition alliance with a similar alliance of the then opposition in the 1977 and 1989 elections. While the common motive in 1977 was to protect democracy following the Emergency, the opposition joined hands 12 years later after the “record-breaking corruption” of Bofors had hurt the entire nation, he said.

“Today, these alliances are not motivated by national good but they are about personal survival and power politics. They have no agenda except to remove Modi,” he said. The entire focus in the opposition is on power politics with Rahul Gandhi saying he is ready to be prime minister while TMC chief Mamata Banerjee is also eying the top post but the Left has a “problem” with her, the prime minister said.

The Samajwadi Party, he added, thinks its leader more than anyone else deserves to be prime minister. He also rejected the criticism that freedom of expression and sanctity of institutions are shrinking under the BJP, saying it is absurd and incorrect and that it is not his party’s value system at all.

“In fact, some of our leaders, including sitting Cabinet ministers, ministers in various states, went to jail during the Emergency and withstood lathis. This shows how much we cherish democratic values and freedom. Hence, I find such a discourse about damage to institutions under the BJP absurd and incorrect. That is not our value
ystem at all,” he said. It is the Congress whose culture is the “culture of the Emergency”, he said.

Modi said Congress leaders “victimised” the then Army Chief and the CAG for not toeing their party’s line when it was in power. “In opposition, they mocked the Indian Army for the surgical strikes, they find fault with our other security forces. Now they also attack reputed rating agencies that are optimistic about India, they discredit the RBI… Now they are after the courts,” he said.

“Their onslaught on the election process of India is alarming. Instead of introspecting why in state after state people are rejecting them, the Congress is finding fault in the poll process. What can one say to such a thought process,” he asked. “Our institutions and our democracy are vibrant as always. India’s democratic ethos cannot be trampled over,” he asserted.

It is the Congress, he said, which that has subverted our democracy, judiciary and media time and again. Modi also praised the social media, saying it has made our discourse a lot more democratic. On Jammu and Kashmir, he said the Centre’s goal in the state is “good governance, development, responsibility and accountability”.

“Recurrent terror attacks” that were common under the UPA rule are now history, Modi asserted. The state has been under Governor’s rule since June 20. To a question on whether the BJP’s allies are on the same page with it and if the NDA is weaker today, Modi asserted that his party views the alliance not as a compulsion but as an article of faith.
Source: financialexpress.com