State polls: Congress win or opposition loss?
The ruling Congress party-led alliance has won state polls in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh and is set to form the government in Haryana.
Elections were held in the three states this month in polls seen as a major test for the Congress coalition after a strong victory in general elections in May.
The state poll results come at a time when a resurgent Congress, fresh from a victory at the centre, has begun to find footing as the single largest party.
However, analysts debating the outcome reflect more on the decline of the right-wing Hindu ideologue and a fractured opposition than a clear victory for the Congress.
The BJP has been struggling for some time to find an identity that would directly translate into votes. The BJP-Shiv Sena combine in Maharashtra failed to take advantage of the anti-incumbency factor.
Political pundits say it’s another example of the party’s failure to introspect post the Lok Sabha election.
Time alone will tell whether the ‘Marathi pride’ poll plank of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will help it strengthen as a mainstream party.
A horrible day in Haryana, and a challenge to India’s police
I had a truly depressing day in Haryana this week, reporting on the murder of a 21-year-old girl and her 22-year-old boyfriend .
It was sad enough to meet a village where many appeared proud of this brutal murder. To come home and see the photos of Sunita and Jasbir, laid out outside her father’s house for all the world to see, was heartbreaking.
Fear still stalks the villages of Balla and Machhroli where the murders took place. Jasbir’s family have been threatened by other villagers that they will also be killed if they speak to the media or if they refuse to drop charges.
Few of them had faith in the police. They said they were “too poor to pay a bribe”. Five people have been arrested, including the girl’s father, uncle and two cousins. I met another cousin, right on the spot where the bodies were laid out, who started by trying to intimidate us and ended up saying he was proud of the murder.
In a tiny police post, a corporal told me such cases rarely if ever reach prosecution. “Witnesses back out,” he told me. “The entire village is on one side”.
As I looked further into the story, I found that love liaisons like Sunita and Jasbir’s, between a couple from the same village, were a direct threat to the upper caste old men of Haryana.
A girl who dares marry against their will, and stay in her own village, might just mount a claim to a portion of the family’s land, as she is legally entitled to do.
Astounding that such cowards who’d strangle a pregnant woman and creep up on the back of another man can consider themselves to have fulfilled their duties.
Its frightening to consider what the playwright Terence said, ‘”Nothing human is alien to me” in this light. How lowly an act to have commited though. You have to wonder at first why this couple stayed near these other people, I suppose they wanted to make a stand for themselves. /That/ is fulfillment of a person’s duties; standing up for yourself in the face of such a horrible thing.
GHMC To Give Height Relaxation Waiver For Akkineni Family
Koride Mahesh, TNN 27 October 2009, 06:38am IST
HYDERABAD: The Akkineni family is all set to reap the harvest for doing their bit to ensure the ruling Congress’ victory at the hustings. And the dole will be in the form of height relaxations to Annapurna Studios to put up an international entertainment and media centre on its 22-acre premises……………..
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ hyderabad/GHMC-To-Give-Height-Relaxation -Waiver-For-Akkineni-Family/articleshow/ 5166144.cms
That’s what we are talking about…. the congress rule fellow indians