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Amid scorching heat and with a seat already decided, the more than 4.9 crore voters of Gujarat will decide the fate of 266 candidates for the remaining 25 parliamentary and five Assembly constituencies on Tuesday. Among those who will vote are Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who will exercise their in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency.
Shobhli Rathwa, from the Bharkuwa village in Gujarat’s tribal Chhota Udepur district, walks to a well a kilometre from her mud-thatched home almost a dozen times a day to fetch water for her family of five and two cattle. Each time she lugs the water back home, she passes by the cemented water tap “installed” a year ago in her courtyard as part of the Centre’s ambitious ‘Nal Se Jal’ scheme.
On April 16, Felipe Neri Cardinal Ferrao, the Archbishop of Goa and Daman, issued a circular urging Catholics to vote for candidates with secular credentials “committed to upholding the values enshrined in the Constitution”.
Noting that a voter turnout of 66-67% cannot be termed low, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the Opposition alliance has not been able to enthuse their supporters to come to the polling booth and vote and that they seemed to have lost faith in the Congress-led Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance as an alternative.
This election in Bihar is being fought on a very untidy field. Here, the Opposition’s grand alliance or Mahagathbandhan that was put together with much flamboyance and fanfare in 2015 to take on the Narendra Modi-BJP, has been dramatically reconstituted, most leaders and candidates on both sides of the political fence have changed sides since, many more than once, and Nitish Kumar most prominently.
As the BJP increasingly looks to expand in Punjab and grow out of its image of being an urban Hindu party, it is increasingly likely that it will come in conflict with its former ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Sikh religious establishment on which the Akalis have a hold.
On April 24 in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “They ask me why 400 paar? I reply – because of your stratagems in the states. Daliton ke, Advisaiyon ke, OBCs ke aarakshan chori karne ka jo khel khel rahe ho. Use lootne ka khel khel rahe ho. Aapke ye khel band karne ke liye, hamesha ke liye band karne ke liye, aapke mansoobon ko hamesha hamesha taala lagaane ke liye Modi ko 400 paar chahiye (You are playing games to steal the reservation of Dalits, tribals and OBCs. You are trying to loot them. To stop this game of yours for ever, and to put a lock on your intentions, Modi wants 400 paar).
ADDRESSING a rally in Aligarh earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned its famed locks as among those put on priority by the Uttar Pradesh government as part of its ‘One District, One Product (ODOP)’ initiative. “The BJP government is strengthening every industry. The small-scale industries here have also got a lot of help from Mudra Yojana,” Modi said.