jha
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2009
- Messages
- 10,962
- Reaction score
- -8
- Country
- Location
Watch aajtak
office mein hain bhai.. kya ho raha hai....?
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Watch aajtak
Guys let's do a thought exercise. If Modi was Muslim and he ran a state, and given that all his other credentials remained the same (incorruptible, development oriented) but was accused by many of being complicit in anti Hindu riots and later cleared by the courts would we have supported him?
office mein hain bhai.. kya ho raha hai....?
Source from bjp suggest that ramkrupal yadav to join bjp tommorrow - bihar
The Hindu vote bank lasted all of 15 years – from 1989 to 2004. It began with the Ram Mandir movement, and petered out with the fall of the NDA in 2004, as rising prosperity and fast growth gave Hindus a reason to think beyond self-defeating communalism. The Muslim vote bank has been with us since partition and independence – nearly 67 years now. But even this vote bank is showing cracks in the vault and elections 2014 could mark the beginning of the end.
The Lok Sabha elections due next month will offer Muslims their last chance to vote as a community, to vote against someone rather than for something. Every party is issuing another cheque against this vote bank in the hope that the face of Narendra Modi will scare enough Muslims and ensure their cheque does not bounce. If the results of the recent assembly elections are any guide, some of those cheques proved a dud. In Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, Muslims voted in large enough numbers for the BJP despite the announcement of Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. He campaigned prominently in those states – enough to scare Muslims, if they wanted to be scared. On the contrary, many of the Muslim candidates put up by the Congress were defeated, and in Delhi the only Congress candidates to survive the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) onslaught were the Congress’s own Muslim candidates. In Gujarat, in the 2012 assembly elections, Muslims voted in large numbers for the BJP. But for their support Modi would not have been able to register his third big victory. The loss of votes to BJP renegades like Keshubhai Patel and his GPP was compensated by a larger vote share from Muslims this time. As Zafar Sareshwala and Asifa Khan noted in an article in Firstpost last year: “More than 31 percent of Muslims voted for BJP (in Gujarat) in 2012. Out of 12 Muslim majority constituencies, eight were won by the BJP. He (Modi) may not have given a single assembly ticket to Muslims, but in the local elections in February-March 2013, more than 200-plus Muslims were elected on a BJP ticket.” This is not to suggest that Muslims have developed any sudden affection for the BJP or Narendra Modi, but they are no longer willing to vote for the rest merely because of scare-mongering. In recent months, several Muslim clerics and maulanas have willy-nilly come to accept that building the BJP into some kind of ogre does not serve the community’s real goals. An India Today cover story on the Muslim mind quotes Abdulla Bakhavi, Imam of the Makhdoom Masjid in Mallapuram, Kerala, as saying: “Modi and BJP may be more moderate than they are in opposition. So let’s try them out too.” This has been the refrain from other clerics and maulanas too. While the imam may not represent common Muslim sentiment, there are broader reasons why Muslims are no longer willing to be treated as a vote bank. Here are a few reasons why. First, they are now spoilt for choice. In the battleground states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and elsewhere, they not only have the Congress, the BSP and the Samajwadi Party, but also AAP. While Muslims may vote tactically to defeat the BJP in some states, the mere fact that they are no longer wedded to one party indicates that they won’t be voting out of fear alone. In fact, some Muslims leaders are likely to campaign actively against so-called secular parties to expose their failure to deliver on promises to Muslims. This, despite worries in some quarters that if Muslims vote for new parties like AAP, the BJP could be the gainer. Many Muslims may be more angry with their claimed benefactors than their tormentors. Second, they are discovering their power of agency. Outside of Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir and Hyderabad, Muslims have seldom had Muslim parties to choose from. Now they do. In West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and even UP, there are Muslim parties that seek votes on their own terms. They are not yet close to inflection point, but their mere existence makes the other parties focus more on real Muslim issues rather than just religious symbolism. They are also offering Muslims more than just token representation. Like any other community, Muslims are voting on secular issues like jobs, education and freedom from discrimination. They want credible representation in mainstream parties. Third, demography is now working for them. According to India Today, in 46 Lok Sabha constituencies they constitute 30 percent or more of the electorate; in over 100 constituencies their vote makes all the difference between victory and defeat for the top two candidates. Muslims are beginning to count for many parties. Fourth, the community is no longer a monolith. They have begun to vote along class lines rather than just religious lines. In Bihar, Nitish Kumar has managed to create an alliance of Pasmanda (lower strata) Muslims and Mahadalits. Modi has roped in Ram Vilas Paswan to bring in both a section of the Dalit vote and a small chunk of the Muslim vote. Fifth, the turning point in the Muslim mood of fear of the BJP may have come on the day of the Patna blasts during a Modi rally last year. As journalist MJ Akbar noted: “When bombs went off in the middle of Modi’s oration at the Gandhi Maidan, his response became the acid test. He could have become provocative under pressure. Instead, he delivered his best lines. Impoverished Hindus, he said, had a choice — they could either fight poverty or they could fight Muslims. And impoverished Muslims could fight Hindus, or they could fight poverty. That summed up the mood of the nation, and calmed even those Muslims who did not want to believe what they heard.” Muslims may not vote for BJP or Modi this time. But they are not going to be stampeded into voting for the so-called secular parties either. They have abandoned fear and forsaken fear-mongers. When they press the EVM buttons to choose their representatives, this time they may vote more as individual Indian citizens rather than as a collective vote bank.
Why cheques issued on Muslim vote bank may bounce in 2014 | Firstpost
Is gulail.Com's Ashish khetan fighting on AAP ticket? Iska baap to jail mein hai let bjp come to power in sabhi bikau kutton ki lee jayegi!!
New Delhi, March 9: The BJP has cleared the decks for Narendra Modi to contest the Lok Sabha poll from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi.
Barring unforeseen, eleventh-hour issues, it seems certain that Modi, the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, will take his first shot in a parliamentary election from one of the heartland’s most prestigious seats that has a track record of embracing “outsiders” who bring a solid political cachet.
BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi, who represents Varanasi in the Lok Sabha at present, told the media: “I have no problems with a decision that is taken to enhance the prestige of the party and the prestige of its PM candidate, Shri Modi, and a decision that brings the maximum number of seats for the BJP.”
Joshi said a final decision on Varanasi and other seats would be taken when the BJP’s highest decision-making body, its parliamentary board, meets on March 13. “Modi will, of course, be present in this meeting,” he said.
Normally, the 18-member central election committee puts the seal on candidate selection. But sources said since heavyweights like Joshi, Rajnath Singh, Modi, L.K. Advani and possibly Arun Jaitley await a hearing on the seats they will contest from, the 11-member board is expected to meet separately.
Joshi may be fielded from Kanpur. Once a BJP stronghold, the party yielded the constituency to the Congress in 2004 and 2009. Still, Kanpur holds a spark of hope because in the 2012 Assembly elections, of the 10 seats, the Samajwadi Party won five, the BJP four and the Congress one.
Varanasi has five Assembly seats: of these, the BJP won three, the Apna Dal, a caste party of Kurmis, got one and the Samajwadi one. The BJP’s winners — Jyotsna Srivastava, Ravindra Jaiswal and Shyamdev Roy Chaudhuri “Dada” — have never lost an election for years, irrespective of how the party did in the parliamentary polls. The trio is considered as the BJP’s most “durable asset” in Uttar Pradesh.
Asked if he would accept the parliamentary panel’s decision, regardless of what it might be, Joshi replied: “Every disciplined soldier (of the BJP) accepts its decisions and I am certainly one.”
He, however, admitted to being “disturbed” by the Varanasi-datelined media reports, suggesting a groundswell of favour for Modi and a proportionate degree of sentiment against him. He said he had raised the matter with the BJP president in the central election committee meeting on Saturday.
Queried on the “poster war” in the city between his and Modi’s cheerleaders, Joshi said: “The posters with the caption, ‘Bring Modi and Save India’, date back to when he was there to address a rally. These posters have been put up all over the country. My posters carry my Holi greetings for the people. So this talk of a poster war is a product of the media’s fixation and media manipulation.”
Asked if he would be heartbroken to leave Varanasi for another constituency, he said: “Don’t be over-smart in trying to coax the kind of answers the media seeks from me.”
But it was not easy to bring Joshi around, said sources. RSS seniors, includingsarsanghachalak Mohanrao Bhagwat, spoke to him from Bangalore where they have congregated for the annual delegates’ convention.
It was conveyed clearly that no leader’s public shenanigans or display of insubordination would be brooked on the plea that he or she had “served” the BJP as a “loyalist” and, therefore, craved the Sangh’s “indulgence”. “There is a message in this for Sushma (Swaraj) and Advani too,” a source said.
Sushma spoke out against the BJP’s move to merge the BSR Congress in Karnataka, although she was the original patron of the BSR Congress president.
Those in the BJP impressed on Joshi that Kanpur would be a “sure-fire” winnable seat this time because the incumbent MP, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, of the Congress had become “discredited” while the Samajwadi’s overall graph had plummeted since 2012.
The RSS and the BJP felt Joshi should instantly dispel the speculation that he was on a warpath against Rajnath because of Varanasi. He wasn’t keen though, said sources.
Late last night, journalists were informed on email that Joshi would be interacting with peasant leaders this morning to elicit their views and proposals that could be incorporated into the BJP manifesto he was working on. Thereafter, he would address a news conference.
“Read between the lines, the text was that Joshi would have to scotch the rumours of resentment etc. Obviously, we do not wish to drag journalists out on a Sunday afternoon for a presser on farming issues,” a source said.
Joshi arrived behind the appointed hour and looked tetchy when he saw journalists. “I am here to address farming representatives and not you,” he said.
By then, the journalists were assured by members of the BJP’s media cell, who showed up in sufficient strength, that “Doctor Sahab” will indeed speak to them and answer all their questions.
That was the mandate handed out to Joshi by the RSS and the BJP’s top echelon that combine the ruthlessness of a patriarchal order and the cold efficiency of present-day corporate practices when the Sangh Parivar’s interests are at stake.
Varanasi stage set for Modi
@Bhai Zakir
@Guynextdoor2
@ExtraOdinary
@The_Showstopper
Pic speaks 1000 words! Illegal sand mining captured at the dried Sabarmati river. If lens can capture this, why couldn't the police? Because they have got immunity for #feku govt.