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Sonia Gandhi: The Aakhri Mughal of Congress
Posted : 6:30 am, March 5, 2014 by albatrossinflightin
It was in October 2010 when a dozen MLAs belonging to the ruling BJP in Karnataka had rebelled against the leadership and were camping in a Goa resort that the local Congress leadership, whiffing the scent of power for the first time in many years, decided to explore the possibility of forming an alternative government with the support of the JDS. Siddramaiah had then emerged as the consensus candidate to head the Congress party delegation to New Delhi for seeking formal approval of the high command.

A bunch of very excited Congress leaders along with Siddramaiah flew to Delhi and sought an audience with Madam Sonia Gandhi. Two Karnataka Congress veterans with very good command over the English language were assigned the task of explaining all the details of government formation and the arrangement with JDS and the rebel BJP legislators. Sonia sat quietly and gave the Congressmen from Karnataka a patient hearing for close to 45 minutes. At the end of it, all she asked was this, “Why do you want to come to power from the backdoor?”

Siddramaiah and co were stunned by that question, for the least they were expecting was a pat on the back for dislodging the first BJP government in south India. They tried to then explain how the ‘communal’ BJP was growing every day in Karnataka and how the state might end up becoming another Gujarat if Congress doesn’t take drastic measures immediately. Again, Sonia had just one crisp sentence as a retort, “You win an election and come to power, not like this!”

This whole incident might come as a shock to many of the Internet Right-Wing Warriors who have a mental picture of a power hungry, corrupt Italian lady who heads the Congress party today. How could it be possible that the Congress president actually disapproves the party’s efforts to regain power from an arch enemy like the BJP? Wasn’t Sonia supposed to be the EVM manipulating power crazed dictator who had possibly come to power only because her husband and mother-in-law were assassinated under mysterious circumstances? Most conspiracy theorists conveniently forget that Sonia was a reluctant leader who remained outside power circles of the Congress party for 7 years after Rajiv’s death – for 5 of those years, Congress was actually in power and she could have easily had it all, if she so desired.

What explains the mystery of Sonia Gandhi then? Answer is simple, plain incompetence! For instance, let us see how the 2010 Karnataka crisis unfolded thereafter. The Congress delegation returned back to Bangalore and gathered all the party legislators in a resort on the outskirts of the town despite Sonia’s admonishment. With the nudging of the governor (former union law minister Hansraj Bharadwaj) and the help of some infamous moneybags, Congress continued its act of destabilizing the government till BJP won a chaotic vote of confidence on the floor of the house. So much for Sonia’s much vaunted power over the party and the Gandhi family’s hold over Congressmen.

This incompetence of leadership has been a Sonia Gandhi hallmark for a long time now. She essentially wields control over the party just by keeping all the factions happy through her central coterie. In the process, every Congress leader has become a law unto himself and has created a mini-corrupt empire of sorts. This arrangement is visible everywhere in the Congress party, be it central ministers or state chief ministers. For instance, the brazenness with which Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy ran AP Congress or the shamelessness of a Vilasrao Deshmukh who managed to return as the CM of Maharashtra despite Sonia’s unwillingness or the way Hooda has managed to contemptuously show the proverbial middle finger to the central leadership time and again are all symptoms of the same malaise. Of course, they do pay their dues to the Dilli sultanate every now and then by say indulging a Vadra’s land deals or an Italian chopper deal etc.

This kind of a mutually beneficial ecosystem is reminiscent of the last century of Mughal Empire after the death of the dreaded Auranzeb in 1707 when the power of Mughals was essentially titular in nature. Just like the Mughals started disintegrating and other regional dynasties like the Nizams or Shahs started emerging as independent power centres, Congress too is disintegrating into regional powerhouses like the Pawars, Mamata Banerjees and Jagan Reddys.

This is the essential difference between an Indira Gandhi and a Sonia Gandhi; while the former had absolute control over the party and the electorate, the latter’s powers are merely symbolic in nature. Even such super powerful leaders as Nijalingappa, Kamraj and Atulya Ghosh had to go into political oblivion once they opposed Indira unlike today when a Mamata Banerjee is prospering in Bengal and a Jagan Reddy is on the verge of becoming the CM of Seema-Andhra, despite daring Sonia openly. But for a criminal error of judgment by Indira of imposing an Emergency, even stalwarts like Moorarji Bhai and Jagjivan Babu wouldn’t have found their brief interlude of sunny days outside the Indira political system.

Realizing the limitations of her political talent and electoral charisma early in her political innings (probably when Pawar rebelled in the late 90s), Sonia has been running the Congress show by simply letting other Congressmen rule and loot as per their own whims and fancies. What this had created is an artificial buoyancy of the Congress party which simply prospered electorally for 10 years just by the virtue of creating mutually beneficial regional and sub-regional ecosystems of individual Congressmen of various hues and shapes. This electoral model had its limitations, for it could succeed only as long as a weak and pliant opposition cohabited in the same Lutyen’s sphere of Dilli. The other factor that kept Congress viable was the secularism bogie which had so many adherents to its tenets that the entire political spectrum would eventually remain subservient to the Congress’s cause of continuing to rule Dilli.

In the midst of all these happy political coexistences, India was changing like never before – a process that nobody in Dilli noticed until it was too late. Tokenism, which had worked fine for long enough to help Sonia prosper as a powerful national leader, had gone long past its sell-by date and India wanted substantial development not just RTI, Secularism, NREGA et al. For instance, 24/7 Bijlee was one of those symbolisms in which every Congress and non-BJP government in India had failed because it simply was not possible to give uninterrupted power supply in a mutually beneficial ecosystem that Congressmen had built under the aegis of Sonia Gandhi. Thus today Congress is facing its third and possibly the last phase of decline in 2014 after being in power for 60 years. Sonia Gandhi is the last Moghul of the Congress party.

The first phase of Congress decline actually began in 1977, after emergency, but then the Indira assassination event completely altered the 1984 elections, so for all practical purposes, we take 1989 as the year that marked the first phase of Congress’s electoral decline. This was a decline brought about by three major factors – 1) Increase in the index of opposition unity, 2) Emergence of the hitherto neglected silent majority of the other backward castes and 3) The rise of Hindu nationalism. This first phase lasted only about half-a-decade even as Congress lost its primacy as the lone dominant political force in India, for the party consolidated itself at the sub-40% national vote-share levels.

The second phase of Congress’s decline began in the mid-90s when for the first time the party went below the 30% national vote-share levels. This phase was again characterized by three important factors – 1) Weak Congress leadership, 2) Maturing of Hindu nationalism and 3) Deeply entrenched Mandalization of Indian polity. The commonality between these two phases of Congress’s electoral decline were related to class struggle and vigorous reinforcement of identities.

The Sonia years were essentially an artificial plateau created by building symbiotic political ecosystems with not only other Congress leaders but also other political parties. Sonia never gave the Congress party a new direction, she only temporarily arrested the decline of the party at a huge long term cost to the party and the nation. This plateauing of Congress’s vote-share was misconstrued as a reclaiming of the central legacy by many informed political pundits in Dilli. Eventually that misconception will prove to be costly for the Congress ecosystem.

Today Congress is staring at the third phase of political decline which may prove to be decisive in the end analysis. At every decline Congress has breached a major resistance level in terms of vote-share – 40% level in the late 80s and the 30% levels in the mid-90s – so it is now poised to breach the most important resistance level of all, the 20% levels. Two reasons why a sub-20% vote-share would be a likely deathblow to Congress are;

  1. Its wide geographic spread which was once a great asset to the party would be converted into a huge liability at below 20% national vote-share levels, for the seat conversion rate would then fall dramatically. For instance, in states like Bihar, Seemandhra, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Delhi etc. Congress may yet get a double digit vote-share but may win no seats at all – this is one of the prices that a political party pays in a first past the post system with a thinly spread out vote-share (for ex: BSP got a national vote-share of 6.2% in 2009 but was able to win only 21 seats, whereas a Samajwadi Party got only 3.4% national vote-share in the same election but won 23 seats due to concentrated presence).
  2. Declining demographic support systems – in two of our recent poll surveys of Karnataka and Jharkhand a unique finding that has huge implications is that almost 3 quarters of those who want Rahul Gandhi as the next PM belong to the minority community. This tells us a story of how Congress is losing the support of all other ethnic groups and is becoming an exclusively Muslim-minority centric party. As we have seen just a couple of months ago in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, a purely Muslim vote-bank will not be able to convert votes into seats.
There is an interesting historic parallel to Congress’s demographic disaster. Some 68 years ago in the last general elections of a British controlled India in 1946 a very unique electoral trend was witnessed when Congress got the united spectrum of the whole Hindu vote, whereas Muslim League was the sole beneficiary of an exclusive Muslim vote. Interestingly, just 6 years later (post-partition, of course), in the first general election of an independent India in 1952, the Muslim vote, in almost its entirety, returned back to the Congress while the Muslim League ceased to exist. Today, a Modi led BJP is targeting the united spectrum of the Hindu vote whereas the Congress is depending on an almost exclusive Muslim vote… 5 years later in 2019 history may well repeat itself in its full glory!

In the upcoming elections starting from April the 7th, Congress may witness an unprecedented meltdown in the northern, western and eastern India and its only ray of hope is this small belt of southern peninsula where Congress has to win at least 50+ seats out of a possible 95 seats that the party may contest here from a total of 113. The problem for the Congress party is that the three important factors that are causing its third phase of decline are all neither emotive issues of identity nor are they about a class struggle, but in fact they are wholly about governance, or the lack of it – 1) Need for better governance models, 2) Humungous corruption scams of UPA and 3) A united national vote instead of a divided regional vote. On all three counts Congress is found wanting. With pseudo secularism, crony socialism and convenient capitalism as the three weapons, Sonia and Rahul have managed to rule India for a decade, but now all the three weapons have been irreparably blunted, so the end of Congressism is just around the corner.

Detailed Election schedule as announced by the Election Commission

Related posts:

Jharkhand Story Part One: The Preamble

Analysis of BJP’s 2nd List

BJP’s 3rd List Analysis

http://5forty3.in/2014/03/sonia-gandhi-the-aakhri-mughal-of-congress/
 
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Ya I came to TN from Bangalore yesterday to cast my vote
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you are a MAN....:yahoo::yahoo:

I really want to see that Article.....
--
Sonia Gandhi: The Aakhri Mughal of Congress
Posted : 6:30 am, March 5, 2014 by albatrossinflightin
It was in October 2010 when a dozen MLAs belonging to the ruling BJP in Karnataka had rebelled against the leadership and were camping in a Goa resort that the local Congress leadership, whiffing the scent of power for the first time in many years, decided to explore the possibility of forming an alternative government with the support of the JDS. Siddramaiah had then emerged as the consensus candidate to head the Congress party delegation to New Delhi for seeking formal approval of the high command.

A bunch of very excited Congress leaders along with Siddramaiah flew to Delhi and sought an audience with Madam Sonia Gandhi. Two Karnataka Congress veterans with very good command over the English language were assigned the task of explaining all the details of government formation and the arrangement with JDS and the rebel BJP legislators. Sonia sat quietly and gave the Congressmen from Karnataka a patient hearing for close to 45 minutes. At the end of it, all she asked was this, “Why do you want to come to power from the backdoor?”

Siddramaiah and co were stunned by that question, for the least they were expecting was a pat on the back for dislodging the first BJP government in south India. They tried to then explain how the ‘communal’ BJP was growing every day in Karnataka and how the state might end up becoming another Gujarat if Congress doesn’t take drastic measures immediately. Again, Sonia had just one crisp sentence as a retort, “You win an election and come to power, not like this!”

This whole incident might come as a shock to many of the Internet Right-Wing Warriors who have a mental picture of a power hungry, corrupt Italian lady who heads the Congress party today. How could it be possible that the Congress president actually disapproves the party’s efforts to regain power from an arch enemy like the BJP? Wasn’t Sonia supposed to be the EVM manipulating power crazed dictator who had possibly come to power only because her husband and mother-in-law were assassinated under mysterious circumstances? Most conspiracy theorists conveniently forget that Sonia was a reluctant leader who remained outside power circles of the Congress party for 7 years after Rajiv’s death – for 5 of those years, Congress was actually in power and she could have easily had it all, if she so desired.

What explains the mystery of Sonia Gandhi then? Answer is simple, plain incompetence! For instance, let us see how the 2010 Karnataka crisis unfolded thereafter. The Congress delegation returned back to Bangalore and gathered all the party legislators in a resort on the outskirts of the town despite Sonia’s admonishment. With the nudging of the governor (former union law minister Hansraj Bharadwaj) and the help of some infamous moneybags, Congress continued its act of destabilizing the government till BJP won a chaotic vote of confidence on the floor of the house. So much for Sonia’s much vaunted power over the party and the Gandhi family’s hold over Congressmen.

This incompetence of leadership has been a Sonia Gandhi hallmark for a long time now. She essentially wields control over the party just by keeping all the factions happy through her central coterie. In the process, every Congress leader has become a law unto himself and has created a mini-corrupt empire of sorts. This arrangement is visible everywhere in the Congress party, be it central ministers or state chief ministers. For instance, the brazenness with which Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy ran AP Congress or the shamelessness of a Vilasrao Deshmukh who managed to return as the CM of Maharashtra despite Sonia’s unwillingness or the way Hooda has managed to contemptuously show the proverbial middle finger to the central leadership time and again are all symptoms of the same malaise. Of course, they do pay their dues to the Dilli sultanate every now and then by say indulging a Vadra’s land deals or an Italian chopper deal etc.

This kind of a mutually beneficial ecosystem is reminiscent of the last century of Mughal Empire after the death of the dreaded Auranzeb in 1707 when the power of Mughals was essentially titular in nature. Just like the Mughals started disintegrating and other regional dynasties like the Nizams or Shahs started emerging as independent power centres, Congress too is disintegrating into regional powerhouses like the Pawars, Mamata Banerjees and Jagan Reddys.

This is the essential difference between an Indira Gandhi and a Sonia Gandhi; while the former had absolute control over the party and the electorate, the latter’s powers are merely symbolic in nature. Even such super powerful leaders as Nijalingappa, Kamraj and Atulya Ghosh had to go into political oblivion once they opposed Indira unlike today when a Mamata Banerjee is prospering in Bengal and a Jagan Reddy is on the verge of becoming the CM of Seema-Andhra, despite daring Sonia openly. But for a criminal error of judgment by Indira of imposing an Emergency, even stalwarts like Moorarji Bhai and Jagjivan Babu wouldn’t have found their brief interlude of sunny days outside the Indira political system.

Realizing the limitations of her political talent and electoral charisma early in her political innings (probably when Pawar rebelled in the late 90s), Sonia has been running the Congress show by simply letting other Congressmen rule and loot as per their own whims and fancies. What this had created is an artificial buoyancy of the Congress party which simply prospered electorally for 10 years just by the virtue of creating mutually beneficial regional and sub-regional ecosystems of individual Congressmen of various hues and shapes. This electoral model had its limitations, for it could succeed only as long as a weak and pliant opposition cohabited in the same Lutyen’s sphere of Dilli. The other factor that kept Congress viable was the secularism bogie which had so many adherents to its tenets that the entire political spectrum would eventually remain subservient to the Congress’s cause of continuing to rule Dilli.

In the midst of all these happy political coexistences, India was changing like never before – a process that nobody in Dilli noticed until it was too late. Tokenism, which had worked fine for long enough to help Sonia prosper as a powerful national leader, had gone long past its sell-by date and India wanted substantial development not just RTI, Secularism, NREGA et al. For instance, 24/7 Bijlee was one of those symbolisms in which every Congress and non-BJP government in India had failed because it simply was not possible to give uninterrupted power supply in a mutually beneficial ecosystem that Congressmen had built under the aegis of Sonia Gandhi. Thus today Congress is facing its third and possibly the last phase of decline in 2014 after being in power for 60 years. Sonia Gandhi is the last Moghul of the Congress party.

The first phase of Congress decline actually began in 1977, after emergency, but then the Indira assassination event completely altered the 1984 elections, so for all practical purposes, we take 1989 as the year that marked the first phase of Congress’s electoral decline. This was a decline brought about by three major factors – 1) Increase in the index of opposition unity, 2) Emergence of the hitherto neglected silent majority of the other backward castes and 3) The rise of Hindu nationalism. This first phase lasted only about half-a-decade even as Congress lost its primacy as the lone dominant political force in India, for the party consolidated itself at the sub-40% national vote-share levels.

The second phase of Congress’s decline began in the mid-90s when for the first time the party went below the 30% national vote-share levels. This phase was again characterized by three important factors – 1) Weak Congress leadership, 2) Maturing of Hindu nationalism and 3) Deeply entrenched Mandalization of Indian polity. The commonality between these two phases of Congress’s electoral decline were related to class struggle and vigorous reinforcement of identities.

The Sonia years were essentially an artificial plateau created by building symbiotic political ecosystems with not only other Congress leaders but also other political parties. Sonia never gave the Congress party a new direction, she only temporarily arrested the decline of the party at a huge long term cost to the party and the nation. This plateauing of Congress’s vote-share was misconstrued as a reclaiming of the central legacy by many informed political pundits in Dilli. Eventually that misconception will prove to be costly for the Congress ecosystem.

Today Congress is staring at the third phase of political decline which may prove to be decisive in the end analysis. At every decline Congress has breached a major resistance level in terms of vote-share – 40% level in the late 80s and the 30% levels in the mid-90s – so it is now poised to breach the most important resistance level of all, the 20% levels. Two reasons why a sub-20% vote-share would be a likely deathblow to Congress are;

  1. Its wide geographic spread which was once a great asset to the party would be converted into a huge liability at below 20% national vote-share levels, for the seat conversion rate would then fall dramatically. For instance, in states like Bihar, Seemandhra, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Delhi etc. Congress may yet get a double digit vote-share but may win no seats at all – this is one of the prices that a political party pays in a first past the post system with a thinly spread out vote-share (for ex: BSP got a national vote-share of 6.2% in 2009 but was able to win only 21 seats, whereas a Samajwadi Party got only 3.4% national vote-share in the same election but won 23 seats due to concentrated presence).
  2. Declining demographic support systems – in two of our recent poll surveys of Karnataka and Jharkhand a unique finding that has huge implications is that almost 3 quarters of those who want Rahul Gandhi as the next PM belong to the minority community. This tells us a story of how Congress is losing the support of all other ethnic groups and is becoming an exclusively Muslim-minority centric party. As we have seen just a couple of months ago in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, a purely Muslim vote-bank will not be able to convert votes into seats.
There is an interesting historic parallel to Congress’s demographic disaster. Some 68 years ago in the last general elections of a British controlled India in 1946 a very unique electoral trend was witnessed when Congress got the united spectrum of the whole Hindu vote, whereas Muslim League was the sole beneficiary of an exclusive Muslim vote. Interestingly, just 6 years later (post-partition, of course), in the first general election of an independent India in 1952, the Muslim vote, in almost its entirety, returned back to the Congress while the Muslim League ceased to exist. Today, a Modi led BJP is targeting the united spectrum of the Hindu vote whereas the Congress is depending on an almost exclusive Muslim vote… 5 years later in 2019 history may well repeat itself in its full glory!

In the upcoming elections starting from April the 7th, Congress may witness an unprecedented meltdown in the northern, western and eastern India and its only ray of hope is this small belt of southern peninsula where Congress has to win at least 50+ seats out of a possible 95 seats that the party may contest here from a total of 113. The problem for the Congress party is that the three important factors that are causing its third phase of decline are all neither emotive issues of identity nor are they about a class struggle, but in fact they are wholly about governance, or the lack of it – 1) Need for better governance models, 2) Humungous corruption scams of UPA and 3) A united national vote instead of a divided regional vote. On all three counts Congress is found wanting. With pseudo secularism, crony socialism and convenient capitalism as the three weapons, Sonia and Rahul have managed to rule India for a decade, but now all the three weapons have been irreparably blunted, so the end of Congressism is just around the corner.

Detailed Election schedule as announced by the Election Commission

Related posts:
 
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Noon Analysis of 24th April by Dr. Praveen Patil: Stunning picture of 24th April (2PM Exitpoll)
Posted : 8:07 am, April 24, 2014 by admin
feb1411lalumodi-666x320.jpg


This is the most crucial phase of the 2014 election which will likely decide the exact strength of the NDA-BJP and also probably give us an idea about the nature of the coalition that may come to power on 16th May. The first few phases were relatively easy for the BJP as it was fighting in strength areas in all the major states. In UP the first two phases of western region voted overwhelmingly for BJP as a result of major polarization which was so strong that even Dalits who are traditional Mayawati voters chose BJP in sufficiently large numbers to send alarm bells in the BSP camp. Similarly, in Bihar, in the dozen odd seats that went to polls in the first two phases, BJP enjoyed a clear edge over its rivals, so much so that even a substantial chunk of Muslims voted for BJP.

In Vidharbha, Marathwada and Western Maharashtra (Sugar belt), BJP-SS did surprisingly well to put even local bigwigs of NCP and Congress in trouble – Maharashtra watchers would know that no matter what the overall trends of any elections, there are local Maratha and non-Maratha chieftains who never lose elections because of huge cooperative networks and tacit understanding with opposition, but this time defying all odds people have probably voted for BJP-SS. Even in Karnataka, a state that Congress should have overwhelmed, BJP has done surprisingly well and may even end up topping the list.

It is in this backdrop that today’s polls are being held wherein BJP’s karyakartas must be already super charged and there might be a sense of gloom among the foot soldiers of the opposition ranks. Yet, BJP stands in that typical zone where complacency begins to set in. Also at this crucial juncture, every state that is going to polls today has a certain degree of resistance to the BJP’s juggernaut.

In UP’s 11 seats this is the OBC belt where Mulayam’s SP has the strongest presence – Mulayam (Mainpuri), son Abhishek (Firozabad) and daughter in law Dimple Yadav (Kannauj) have all won from this region which should give us an idea as to the strength of SP here. In Bihar’s 7 seats, there is considerable amount of local-level anti-incumbency against some of the sitting MPs whilst BJP has given tickets to 5 sitting MPs. There is also a great deal of polarization among the Muslim voters in this phase unlike the earlier phases of Bihar – so much so that JDU’s Muslim candidate withdrew from the contest in Kishanganj to defeat BJP. In Maharashtra too, the Konkan belt that is going to polls today mostly is seen as the weak link in the BJP-SS story of 2014.

Is there a dip in the Modi wave’s strength as per early trends? This should tell us whether all the concerns in the run-up to today’s polls were accurate or was it just another media myth created in order to simply give some last minute feel-good reporting from ground by the secular-socialists.

UP



There seems to be a definite fight between BJP and SP here, as Yadavs and Muslims are consolidating behind SP, while upper castes are consolidating BJP. The Other OBCs will be the key here, but again there seems to be a split in the other OBC vote as Lodhs are heavily consolidating behind BJP as nearly 60% have voted for the party, but Kurmis are split in 30:45 between BJP and SP. One interesting feature of this round in UP is that Brahmins are also totally consolidating behind BJP unlike the first two phases where the Brahmin vote was getting split. For instance, from about 79 data points for Brahmins till noon, about 51 had voted for the BJP. The Thakur consolidation is as strong as the past two phases.

Bihar



Seemanchal is proving to be a big roadblock for the BJP juggernaut as there is a very tight race between BJP+ and Congress-RJD. Here there are some surprises in this round of polling at least till now; Muslims are solidly consolidating behind Congress-RJD unlike the first two phases when BJP+ got some amounts of Muslim vote. The Yadav vote is also getting surprisingly split, which may be a ray of hope for the BJP, for if there was Yadav consolidation also behind Lalu Prasad Yadav, then it would have been even more tough going for the BJP. The upper castes are voting about 55%+ in favour of the BJP, which is not exactly overwhelming, so some of the impact of overt Dalit and OBC outreach of BJP is probably showing in this phase. But the silver lining for BJP is that substantial number of Dalits are voting for the party.



Tamil Nadu

Early indications are showing that DMK could actually emerge as a surprise player in the next government. Has the Amma strategy backfired? We cannot say for sure as of now as we are still getting some key caste based data points. There seems to be definite surge in few urban pockets of Tamil Nadu for DMK. The Vanniyar consolidation behind PMK and the extent of Goundar/Nadar consolidation behind NDA is not yet fully known at this point of time, which will be clearer in about 2 hours by our next report. Tamil Nadu is probably going to be another big surprise of 24th!

[Next report in about 2 hours will be crucial which will give us more depth, especially in Mumbai/Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu along with the heartland]
 
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