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I'm sorry, but this is now nothing but a slightly improved UPA-2.
Congress plus a cow?

whenever we speak of exposing leftists and anti-nationals, why is that the self professed liberal bongs and sickular - mallus get tensed?? at times like these I respect people like @mujhaidind, at least he puts his BS in open and makes it easy for us to determine who we have to fight with.
So what are you gonna do about it? Lynch us?

You guys call yourselves nationalists, but use worse sort of ethnic slurs to people who dont vote for you. Bongs are commies, mallus are sicular, biharis are casteist, delhiets are freeloaders and only you are nationalist. Nationalism ka theka le rakhha hai?

Truth be told, those who issue certificate of nationalism are worst sort of scoundrel who dont care for the nation but only their twisted ideology. You guys will happily let the country to go to dogs, if it helps to propagate your ideology. No doubt you and jehadi idiots make strange bedfellows and have respect for each other. I dont think any self respecting individual would care for your respect.
 
In Bihar and UP. Elsewhere, development plank counts more.


Yes, the umlaut is difficult to put in using the English keyboard. Oberfuehrer it should be. :agree:
I appreciate Das Gupta because he is almost like a lone ranger in a sea of left leaning literati.

Bad reason. There Is No Alternative is almost the Sangh Parivar's hymn.
 
So what are you gonna do about it? Lynch us?

wasn't I clear physical attack on any anti-national will only be helping him, as was in the case of kasuri and engineer rashid, it will only get these bastards a limelight that they dont deserve. Instead they need to be exposed and shamed. I don't want to turn you in to martyrs rather bring out the reality of you and expose it wide open.

You guys call yourselves nationalists, but use worse sort of ethnic slurs to people who dont vote for you. Bongs are commies, mallus are sicular, biharis are casteist, delhiets are freeloaders and only you are nationalist. Nationalism ka theka le rakhha hai?
Stop putting words in my mouth, if those are your thoughts on these people, then be brave to put them as your own. anyway whats wrong with your kind ? you guys call BJP supporters communal and bhakts and when they reply you back in the same fervor you start complaining..

Truth be told, those who issue certificate of nationalism are worst sort of scoundrel who dont care for the nation but only their twisted ideology.
MY middle finger awaits for those who considers arundati roy to be a nationalist.

You guys will happily let the country to go to dogs, if it helps to propagate your ideology.
yawwnnn!!!! For the last 70 years you guys tried to drill in an Ideology to vehemently oppose one particular community, tried to degrade its culture, now that you failed and when people started questioning your Ideology you accuse us of leading the nation to dogs !!! lol, One look at the states that follow your Ideology clearly explains how hypocrites you scums happen to be and paints a clear picture on who is leading the nation to dogs..

No doubt you and jehadi idiots make strange bedfellows and have respect for each other.
lol, we are not the ones that cry when SC hangs people like yakub-memon. our outrage is not selective. we don't twist history. we don't bed with anti-national at the end of the day we aren't hypocrites.


I dont think any self respecting individual would care for your respect.
Good for you.
 
Now all those grandiose public appearances in foreign countries are truly bitter to swallow- his talk was big when in a foreign country, promising the moon and the stars but he couldn't even deliver the most basic of needs to his people and has lost almost all chance of doing so for the foreseeable future. Pathetic.

This ^

I find it appalling that the guy still has gall to go ahead with his community addressing crap at Wembley's even after this drubbing, such a shameless chap!
 
This ^

I find it appalling that the guy still has gall to go ahead with his community addressing crap at Wembley's even after this drubbing, such a shameless chap!

C'mon, that's a bit pointless. This was arranged much before & the embarrassment caused by a cancellation of such an event would be far worse.
 
Modi can have his rockster concerts, just dont be petty and deride indians who dont agree with him. Even outside india he is in campaign mode.
 
C'mon, that's a bit pointless. This was arranged much before & the embarrassment caused by a cancellation of such an event would be far worse.

I was never a fan of holding these big events in host countries. what is the stupidity in holding such rallies without producing any results on the ground ?? In all these rallies he sold a dream and the pillars of that dream already started crumbling.
 
I was never a fan of holding these big events in host countries. what is the stupidity in holding such rallies without producing any results on the ground ?? In all these rallies he sold a dream and the pillars of that dream already started crumbling.

I agree. Maybe the first couple were interesting but it is now boring.....and grating.

Shekhar Gupta: Modi's 2014 after-glow is over

Why the Bihar defeat can be the best thing for him as PM, but only if he has the humility to read the writing on the wall

Shekhar Gupta November 9, 2015 Last Updated at 00:25 IST

Bihar was never the most important state for Indian politics. Even in the period before Jharkhand was carved out of it, it was a distant second to Uttar Pradesh in the number of MPs it sent to Lok Sabha. Today, with 40 MPs, it is only the fourth largest after UP, Maharashtra and West Bengal, with Tamil Nadu a close fifth. But it is the equivalent of what in American politics is described as the bellwether state. It’s an audacious line to write, but a close look at politics of the past 50 years will tell you that unlike Bengal, now what Bihar thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.

The first setbacks to the Congress were delivered here in the mid-60s, starting with the rise of lower-middle caste alliances in 1967, and the phenomenon then spread until Indira Gandhi put it down briefly. It was then the JP movement in 1974 and finally, the rise of Lalu Yadav. In each case the change in the state had a decisive impact on national politics. The latest election result is a turning point of comparable significance.

The Congress inherited power after Independence and ruled unchallenged for nearly half a century because the opposition was divided. But once its rivals started to merge forces and resources, politics changed. Everything happens much faster in these hyper-connected times. So what took decades in the past has just taken 18 months now. The power of IOU, or the Index of Opposition Unity, is now well understood. Bihar has reaffirmed it, and it will set the template for forthcoming state elections. It is too early to start guesswork on what may happen in Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. But in Assam, the Congress, Badruddin Ajmal's AIUDF and the Left will review their politics. So will the Left and Congress in West Bengal and in Tamil Nadu, where the BJP was expecting to make a significant entry. It will need to take a fresh look at its prospects.

Bihar isn't the first setback Narendra Modi has suffered since May 2014. Delhi was the first. But it is a half-state, AAP was considered a sui generis phenomenon and thus unlikely to make a national impact. Bihar is the real thing. Modi will, therefore, need to make two important calls. One, how does he readjust his governance with the fantasy of a quick increase of numbers in Rajya Sabha fully I demolished? Will he now agree to talk to the opposition and establish a working equation of decency to have the parliament functioning and bills passed? This is tougher than it sounds. It would entail Modi getting out of campaign mode and settling down to calmer, old-fashioned governance.

Two, he will have to take a call on his politics. The Modi-Shah leadership model will be under questioning. The prominence given to Amit Shah in Bihar, where his portrait was used along with Modi’s on election posters and where he addressed five rallies a day, indicated that he had been anointed as the number two in the party after Modi. This Gujarati takeover was internally resented. It will now be questioned. So the call Modi will need to make is, does he loosen his control over the party? Does he become more like a full-time prime minister and not lead every state election as frontally as in Delhi and now Bihar? Further, he needs no more evidence after Bihar that polarisation cannot deliver election victories to him, that in India of 2015 there is no vote for beating up anybody, and that Pakistan and terrorism may be issues of great passion and partisanship on warrior news channels and Twitter but not in the world of real public opinion. He and Shah showed a lack of understanding of the Bihari mind. Their campaign was disrespectful of its political wisdom. In years, I haven’t seen something sillier than the “relaunch” of brand Emperor Ashoka. Hopefully they will be smart enough not to take this imperiousness elsewhere in India. This will affect, most of all, the project of taking Assam through polarisation.

The second call is Modi’s and will be of greater consequence to his partymen. The first was what matters to India at a non-partisan level. It will be wonderful if Modi now brings the focus back on governance with greater commitment than image-building, electoral politics and divisive campaigning. In short, it will be a real gain if this setback persuades him to become more prime ministerial. He should now be calling the top opposition leaders, improving the parliamentary environment and building some real momentum on governance. He should also be speaking out on divisiveness and intolerance and distance himself from abusive social media armies, irresponsible bigoted colleagues, party-men and sundry sycophants who bring no value but only contribute to building an aura of negativity around his government.

The Bihar verdict also settles any remaining doubts that the Modi momentum of the summer of 2014 is now fully over. Elections, voter choices, public opinion will now be determined by performance. If you apply this test to Bihar, results will be self-explanatory. Four of the central portfolios most important in terms of public opinion and popular satisfaction are agriculture, telecom, food and skill development. Ministers for all of these, Radhe Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, come from Bihar and have been campaigning there full-time. Each portfolio is a disaster. Dal prices are at historic peaks, agriculture has stalled as the minister does no more than hold forth on “Jaivik kheti” (organic farming), the promise of two crore new jobs is a joke and, if this is a smartphone generation, call drops, rising tariffs and fishy ambiguity on net neutrality also infuriate it. In fact the most effective Nitish line in this campaign was his mocking of Prasad as the Call-Drop Minister. Or in describing his BSNL as Bhai Sahib Nahin Lagega.

Modi’s 2014 victory was based on a promise. That cheque has been cashed. Now he will be judged on performance and delivery: governance, real figures, inflation, growth, jobs, social cohesion, irrespective of how awe-inspiring his oratorical performance might be for his delirious NRI audience at Wembley. Bihar has stopped his electoral juggernaut. It can still be the best thing for him as prime minister, but only if he has the humility to accept this reality.
 
Symbolically, the Assembly elections in Bihar were the biggest after Lok Sabha 2014. If the 2014 vote gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unprecedented prominence as a national party, trumping caste politics in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, a year-and-a- half on, Bihar 2015 was seen to be a test of the durability of Brand Modi, his capacity to embody the BJP’s agenda in State after State. That question seems to have been settled, to the BJP’s clear discomfort.

In more practical terms, the Bihar verdict will force the government to recalibrate its hopes of making up numbers in the Rajya Sabha to more confidently push through key legislation like the Goods and Services Tax Bill. The fate of the Modi government’s “development” pitch — which had caught the imagination of a growing urban middle class that saw faster economic reforms and investment as central to progress — hinges on the passage of reforms.

Vikas Pathak
The BJP has already gone back on its changes to the land acquisition legislation, which was supposed to amend the UPA’s “pro-farmer” initiative of 2013 by freeing some categories from the consent clause and social impact assessment. The Bihar verdict is likely to make it difficult to revisit this.

With the Grand Alliance racing to a tally of about 180 out of 243 seats and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s tally being just about 60, Bihar will certainly not add much to the BJP’s Rajya Sabha kitty. And the government risks battling charges of “policy paralysis”, the way the UPA did through its second term, in the absence of a Rajya Sabha majority.

But more than mere numbers, the manner of the Alliance’s victory, and the personalised clash it set up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will give the Opposition an aggressive spring in their step. Having tasted blood, the Opposition is likely to be more assertive in Parliament’s winter session. The last few months have seen many controversies on the cultural front — with intellectuals and artists returning awards, citing “growing intolerance” — and these are likely to resonate in Parliament later this month.

Image dented

The Bihar polls seem to have unsettled many narratives that had informed Indian politics in the last one year and opened the country to multiple possibilities and uncertainties. Mr. Modi seemed invincible until just the other day — but for the one setback in Delhi, where the BJP was wiped out — but Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad’s convincing victory has cut into that discourse of invincibility.

“Bihar is not Delhi. It is a large, populous state that is politically crucial. If Nitish Kumar wins, his national stature will rise overnight,” a BJP leader had told me more than a week ago.

The sense in the BJP’s ranks is that another term for Mr. Kumar catapults him to a symbolic stature he had never enjoyed before, and that he may become the fulcrum for anti-BJP forces nationally. For, he had positioned himself against Mr. Modi two years back and lost badly in the Lok Sabha polls, but has emphatically regained regional prominence now by convincingly defeating the BJP.

However, there is a caveat here. Some feel that despite the Grand Alliance’s strong showing, the fact that the result has given a new lease of life to Mr. Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) may lead to a clash of personalities in Bihar in the long run. Mr. Kumar will also have to rein in unruly elements in the RJD, who may be emboldened, having gained power after a decade.

How far the duo of Mr. Kumar and Mr. Prasad can dent the BJP’s base depends on how the two get along and whether Mr. Kumar can deliver a sound administration in alliance with a resuscitated RJD. Moreover, regional leaders have conflicting ambitions, and a potential victory for Mamata Bannerjee in Bengal in 2016 may fuel her own national ambitions.

For the Congress — India’s grand old party — the feelings are mixed. “Do people still talk about the Congress on the streets?” a Congress leader asked me last month in Patna. People indeed did not, but the question itself showed the kind of dilemma the party is grappling with. It swept north India decades back but does not have any presence independent of its allies now.

Thus, while the BJP’s drubbing comes as a breather for the Congress, as it has helped halt the saffron party in its tracks for the moment, the fact that regional parties have been in the vanguard of this “secular” victory isn’t great news for the Congress. For, it would not want regional players to hog the limelight and be seen to be playing second fiddle.

Hindutva agenda

The result may also have delivered a setback to hard Hindutva as an instrument for electoral success. The Bihar polls saw acerbic debates on beef, with the BJP also courting controversy by running an advertisement in local newspapers of a woman embracing a cow and posing questions to Mr. Kumar about statements of his allies on beef-eating. BJP President Amit Shah also controversially said that fire-crackers would go off in Pakistan if the BJP lost the election. Add to this some unsavoury statements on film-star Shah Rukh Khan from BJP leaders over his remarks about “growing intolerance” in India, and many saw Hindutva as a key part of the saffron party’s poll strategy.

With the plan not working, the BJP has earned its share of brickbats for its apparent bid to polarise the electorate. The party may now be forced to rethink using this strategy in Uttar Pradesh (UP), which goes to the polls by early 2017 and has had a history of communal problems. Moreover, the fact that some organisations in the larger Sangh Parivar see Hindutva as part of their long-term vision may make the government’s choices more difficult.

Caste politics seemed to have receded in UP and Bihar in 2014, with the BJP sweeping the States and reducing Mandal politics and Mayawati’s Dalit mobilisation to footnotes there. With Mr. Prasad and Mr. Kumar joining hands to trounce the BJP, Mandal politics has got a fresh lease of life. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also contributed to this, with its chief Mohan Bhagwat more than once calling for a committee to review who should get the benefit of quotas and for how long. The success of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in panchayat polls in UP last week too is a warning for the BJP.

Though many among the Extremely Backward Classes — a category created by Mr. Kumar to carve out a fresh vote bank in Bihar — seemed to be looking at their individual caste interests rather than behaving like a cohesive bloc this time, the Grand Alliance’s success has consolidated the salience of Mandal politics.

This, then, is another symbolic setback for the BJP: it has failed to triumph over an alliance of OBC chieftains and also failed to get the lion’s share of Dalit votes despite its alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi. In other words, it has failed to emerge as an umbrella party of castes down the Hindu social pyramid.

Despite the setback to Mr. Modi, there is no doubt that he is still popular on the ground in Bihar. But the BJP had no chief ministerial face to take on Mr. Kumar, who was hailed as a good Chief Minister across the State for improving Bihar’s roads and its law and order situation. This seems to have proved to be the crucial difference between the two parties.

Many BJP leaders feel that despite Mr. Modi being popular, he was “over-exposed” in Bihar. The strategy, they feel, backfired, harming Mr. Modi’s own image in the process.

Bihar poll verdict forcing a shift in strategy for BJP, writes Vikas Pathak - The Hindu
 
Modi can have his rockster concerts, just dont be petty and deride indians who dont agree with him. Even outside india he is in campaign mode.

He is campaigning for India, not BJP. Make in India and Invest in India. It is clearly working, and he always brings back billions during his foreign visits.
FDI_INDIA.jpeg


Unfortunately Congress and Media don't seem to agree with him. They would rather trash India and scare away all foreign investment even if it means slightly bringing down Modi and the BJP. Their policy is one of scorched Earth. It is unique in this planet, not even Republicans or Democrats would ever dare to make the statements and do the things that happen on a daily basis in Indian politics. It is the dirtiest game on earth, but BJP doesn't want to play. That needs to change. Pull out all the stops and adopt the Indira Gandhi playbook, BJP needs to go down to their level if they want to start winning. Messages of positivity and development can only go so far.
 
Bihar has delivered a tectonic verdict that will have a variety of implications for national politics and governance. In a sense, the decisive victory of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine sinks the electoral logic that has been prevailing since May 2014, when the BJP, led by Narendra Modi, earned a majority in the Lok Sabha and followed it up with a series of wins in state assembly elections from Maharashtra to Haryana to Jharkhand.
That road from 2014 is now over, and the long and unpredictable journey to 2019 has begun.

What does that mean? The next parliamentary contest is 3.5 years away and to be sure there are numerous state elections in between. No doubt the BJP will both win and lose its share. Yet, the coming together of two regional rivals –- Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav — in Bihar indicates the beginnings of a consolidation of state parties to check the BJP’s advance.

Kumar has the potential to be positioned as an alternative to Modi. Or, at least, be presented in the media and in public life as an equally successful chief minister as Modi was (one who has also won three elections), a non-dynast with a clean image, and a possible coalition-builder. If nothing else, Kumar’s swearing-in ceremony in Patna is likely to see a gathering of non-BJP politicians and CMs and become a rallying ground, literally, for those who have been seeking an effective platform to take on Modi.

Much will depend on the trust between the Congress and regional parties it has often had an uneasy relationship with. To cite a precedent, the team-building that Sonia Gandhi resorted to in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha election should be on the Congress’ immediate agenda, knowing it cannot beat Modi on its own.

In Parliament, the Congress’ filibustering in the monsoon session would seem to have been validated (if that is the word) by the Bihar results and will inevitably find greater support from other opposition parties in the winter session. This will add to the Modi government’s headache.
A serious introspection is called for on the part of the BJP and the NDA government. In the period after 2004, the party carved a reputation for itself as being sensitive to India’s federal impulses and empowered a set of strong regional leaders. The best of these, Narendra Modi, later made the quantum leap to prime minister.
Post-2014, the BJP seems to have junked this template and resorted to an over-projection of Modi. True, this has won it many new states. But the quest for political expansion has taken its toll on Modi’s time and resources. It has come in the way of sober governance, and negotiated and layered legislative and policy processes in Delhi. On all of these, a course correction is necessary.

Further, the Modi government needs to ask itself what drawbacks and failings led to it frittering away so much political capital put together with such effort in 2014. State elections, even major state elections, take place all the time. But 18 months after a resounding Lok Sabha victory, did Bihar really need to become such a defining political test? The fact that it was allowed to clearly reflects some missteps. Comparisons can be drawn with the 1987 West Bengal election, when then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi pitched himself against Jyoti Basu and the CPI(M), only to face humiliation.

Indeed, references to the Rajiv Gandhi government (1984-89) are being made a trifle too frequently these days. The manner in which the narrative has been allowed to be shaped by adversaries and the uneasy feeling that the 2014 mandate has somehow been, if not lost at least misinterpreted or distorted by allied groups in recent months, has led to some alarm. Bihar is both a symptom and a product of this predicament.

It is for Modi to rescue and re-emphasise his mandate and bring the ship of state back on course. At the very least, a busy and robust period of economic policy-making in the coming weeks, right till the Budget of 2016, is recommended. That aside, the absence of strategic direction in key social sector ministries should be recognised and rectified in any ministerial reshuffle that may follow.

In the overall reckoning, the Bihar election has rudely ended the BJP’s reverie that it is set for unlimited growth while the Congress and regional parties conveniently disappear. Frankly, if Modi wants a second term, he has to act now as if the current term is his final term.
On Sunday, the Grand Alliance beat the NDA. More than that, urgency knocked out complacency.

Bihar, a symptom and product - ET Blogs
 
Does anyone numbers on how the margin of loss was? I don't know of a credible place where I can get those numbers from.
 
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