Indian General Elections - 2014

[doppelganger]

Yaar I am a first time voter. So I will take my time understanding things. But my mood is anti incumbent more than pro opposition today.

 

[Infinity]

Yaar I am a first time voter. So I will take my time understanding things. But my mood is anti incumbent more than pro opposition today.

Good .................But please do vote...............

 

[Ayush]

@arp2041 @KRAIT @hinduguy @Ayush @doppelganger

The question that whether Modi is better than Rahul is a non starter in itself. Modi has ably administered a state and brought benefits (although the quantum and spread of those benefits is open for discussion and in a healthy democracy should be debated) to it while Rahul is someone I wouldn't even trust with running my neighborhood panwari. Rahul's lack of administrative acumen in glaringly obvious. That having been said, Modi needs to delink himself from the clowns in the VHP and the RSS who want to link social and cultural pride to politics- politics which must be absolutely a-religious in nature- THERE CAN BE NO 2ND OPINION ON THAT. But Modi seems to be able to manage that too- he's often reigned in the RSS fellows and shown them the door, he is not one to bow down easily and bend a knee no matter what his personal biases might be.

The problem though is- I have a grouse with most Modi supporters- not with Modi himself but with his supporters. That he is a prime candidate for the PM post is obvious- even I'll be "voting" for him. BUT what does voting for him construe- remember in this country we do not directly vote our PM in- we vote in the ruling party and we do that by voting in regional and local representatives. The threat is that most people blind sided by Modi's abilities- apt which they are- will ignore the possible short comings of their local reps. Remember a PM cannot micro-manage the whole nation. No single man or leader can shape the destiny of 1.2 billion people. To put any leader on a pedestal and accord to him divinity is a severe disservice to the nation. Modi or any other leader cannot be a panacea to our problems.

I had mentioned this to @KRAIT before: IF we the polity do not mature and pull ourselves out of petty politics then EVEN MODI will fail. The Congress will continue to enjoy its carte blanche when it comes to vote bank politics and divisive politics. The BJP and its allies need to put up a clean and able roster and not just one singular leader. Also we need to be careful and balanced in our appraisal of our leaders- even the best of them have made mistakes. The way we talk of them today is in the naive terms of absolute black and white- such a dynamic nations cannot afford such an inflexible and myopic approach.

But Congress needs to go- I'll post later on how they have single-handedly made the largest contribution to our fiscal deficit by enacting inefficient populist measures simply to win elections the last time around.

about your second paragraph I agree .we can't just rely on modi and hail him as a Messiah just like many Pakistanis are doing with IK.

even I support him for pm, but I look to him as a guy with nice administrative skills and having and a very healthy I don't give a damn attitude.
but we surely cant deny that he alone can't uplift 1.2 billion indians, we have to work at a local level too.

 

[KS]

Now a question to @hinduguy and @Kesang,

So what will be your choice if NDA goes ahead and declares that Modi would be its leader ? Would your choice change in that case?


@Infinity and @Jarha.

 

[livingdead]

I think most probably NDA will gain in the next election, but wont have enough seats to make Modi a PM.
@KS I will vote for regional party, if Modi is made official PM candidate by NDA but its nearly impossible without breaking NDA apart.

 

[KS]

@KS I will vote for regional party, if Modi is made official PM candidate by NDA but its nearly impossible without breaking NDA apart.

NDA is not breaking apart mate. Not even when Modi is declared as PM. If you are referring to JDU, that is not happening. Nitish umar is much more intelligent than that. In Bihar, BJP is a party with cadre, but no leader while JDU is the reverse. They dont have the cadre strength but have the leader.

Coming to the second part, dont you agree that regional parties have more or less been an impediment in the national politics tugging the govt according to their whims ?

Also dont you think that whether or not Modi is announced, in reality he will be playing a central role in the future dispensation and hence there is no point changing the choice just based on that alone..

 

[doppelganger]

Good .................But please do vote...............

100% brother. I am more excite about being able to vote now than being able to marry later. One is janamsiddh adhikaar. Other is very scary.

 

[KS]

North India can be easily influenced by caste appeal..

I have heard many commentators say that if Modi is able to project his OBC background, then combined with his pro-development message he will reap votes in the Hindi heartland..

BJP can never hope to beat Congress in the "secular" game..so BJP's mantra should be "win communal, govern secular". Modi has shown that it is possible..

 

[mehboobkz]

Rahul Gandhi chickens out from wharton speech. Not allowed to read out the speech, paper not allowed.
This bhuduram has no intellect, with just room temperature IQ, he can not deliver the leture.

While Arvind Kejriwal will speak.

 

[Infinity]

Now a question to @hinduguy and @Kesang,

So what will be your choice if NDA goes ahead and declares that Modi would be its leader ? Would your choice change in that case?


@Infinity and @Jarha.

We are a formidable No................

 

[Dillinger]

Can't buy me an election with budget freebies

"Can't buy me an election" is the theme of this year's budget. Finance ministers usually produce freebies, subsidies and waivers in their last budget before an election.
"Can't buy me love," sang the Beatles. "Can't buy me an election" is the theme of this year's budget. Finance ministers usually produce freebies, subsidies and waivers in their last budget before an election. Such attempts to buy votes have very little impact, but finance ministers persist in the hope that it may work this time.

But Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has just produced an election budget without any big freebies. He aims at fiscal prudence, not a spending spree, to win votes. He aims at accelerating GDP growth and taming inflation, and thinks voters will reward him for it in 2014. That's a risky gamble, but a refreshingly bold one.

He was Finance Minister five years ago too, when he presented his last full budget 15 months before the 2009 polls. This waived farm loans for small and medium farms, at a cost of over Rs 60,000 crore. It also expanded the rural employment guarantee programme (NREGA) to cover the whole country. Both politicians and the media saw this as a classic attempt to buy the 2009 election, one that succeeded.

In fact this was a false interpretation. Yes, the UPA greatly increased its seats, but not by purchasing voters wholesale in poor rural areas. Rather, the UPA swept all the major cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad). By contrast, the Congres won only 22 out of 115 seats in five of the poorest rural states - Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

Why? Because the outcome was driven mainly by record GDP growth of 8.5 per cent, not by the loan waiver or NREGA. Record growth hugely improved incomes and opportunities, most of all in urban areas. Hence the UPA swept the cities. In earlier times, dissatisfied voters voted three-quarters of incumbent governments out. But when fast GDP growth of 8.5 per cent arrived, suddenly three-quarters of incumbents gained re-election.

In the earlier BJP era of 1998-04 , anti-incumbency was rife because GDP growth averaged only 5.7 per cent per year, and poverty reduction declined by only 0.75 per cent per year. But then GDP growth shot up to 8.5 per cent per year in the reign of UPA-1 , accompanied by a doubling of poverty reduction to 1.5 per cent per year. The supposed tension between growth and poverty proved false: fast growth actually reduced poverty. Hence the old antiincumbency was replaced by pro-incumbency , benefiting not only the UPA in 2009 but many chief ministers too.

A seminal research study by Poonam Gupta and Arvind Panagariya (India: Election Outcomes and Economic Performance) showed that voters in 2009 were swayed less by national economic performance than by accelerated state government performance. According to CSO data, GDP growth shot up between 2000-04 and 2004-09 from 4.5 per cent per year to 12.4 per cent in Bihar, from 4.8 per cent to 10.2 per cent in Orissa, and from 6.1 per cent to 9.7 per cent in Chhattisgarh. These were all non-Congress states, and voters gave credit for fast growth to Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik and Raman Singh, not to Sonia Gandhi.

Can't buy me an election with budget freebies - The Economic Times

@arp2041, @KRAIT, @hinduguy, @Ayush, @doppelganger Read and comment if you see fit.

 

[Infinity]

North India can be easily influenced by caste appeal..

I have heard many commentators say that if Modi is able to project his OBC background, then combined with his pro-development message he will reap votes in the Hindi heartland..

BJP can never hope to beat Congress in the "secular" game..so BJP's mantra should be "win communal, govern secular". Modi has shown that it is possible..

UP is the big State which has BJP has to cash.......................like in 1998 ...............if it has to acquire 180+ seats

 

[mehboobkz]

Narendra Modi's treatment by Wharton slammed by US Congressman - Indian Express

Meanwhile according to an unscientific poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal revealed that more than 90 per cent of the over 4,000 respondents said that Wharton was "wrong" to revoke Modi's invitation, while only 6.3 per cent of them have

justified the decision.

 

[KS]

We are a formidable No................

Who all will comprise the third front ?

 

[Ayush]

@arp2041, @KRAIT, @hinduguy, @Ayush, @doppelganger Read and comment if you see fit.

good for the countries economy. but then this is just another plot, to basically woo the people by making them realise that freebies are if no good and that they are a responsible party who are not gonna waste money.
but still better than before.