Statewide and National runup to 2014 General elections

[Vayutuvan]

Cong wary after Rahul choices boomerang in Rajasthan & MP

...

"Rahul Gandhi is planning some surprises for the Lok Sabha elections too. He is forming a Rahul brigade at the Centre, and a few from the group might get ticket to contest in the Lok Sabha elections in the state," said a senior Congress leader.

ab mazA AyegA (Now the fun starts). Let us see whether number crunching yumbeeyay color coordinated iThingy toting wine quaffing cheese munching hAvuD educamacated elite's pptgiri can out-guess "low IQ" barely above BPL majority Indian voters.

[Karan M]

Dilli gave fordiwal lots of reasons to establish himself. There is neither time nor support for that kind of politics in Mumbai. The affluent south Mumbai friends can hardly make mush difference. Besides the only vote that fordiwal can try to get is the UP Vihar vote which is disenfranchised with SS MNS. However, in dilli they did not vote congress but voted BJP in huge numbers. I do not think it would work for fordiwal in Mumbai. Its going to be interesting anyway.

Well Mumbaikars would vote for Congis as usual. Nothing interesting.

well if they are usually pro-INC switching to AAP is easier for them, given how it neatly dovetails into INC policies while being "honest".

[krishnan]

http://www.mediacrooks.com/2013/12/the- ... qiEvSfJGmw

RT as much as possible

[RajeshA]

AAP is not Congress's B Team. It is Congress Network's new sanctuary for controlled shift of assets.

I want to believe this but do not have sufficient ammunition, pls provide me links to view topics substantiating this

IndraD ji,

this assessment is based on many tidbits of information I've been reading about Congress and AAP sharing online presence managers, Meenakshi Lekhi stating that Sonia Gandhi had written a letter to MMS in 2005 not to transfer Arvind Kejriwal out of Delhi, and the overall positive coverage Arvind Kejriwal receives in Delhi media studios which are mostly sympathetic to Congress viewpoint, Yogendra Yadav being earlier a Rahul-Bhakt, etc.

You may like to read my blog posts on this.

[SBajwa]

Arvind Kejriwal (IIT, IAS, NGOs, Jholay wala) age 45.

Prashant Bhushan (57 years old) is the son of Shanti Bhushan (Donated 1 Crore to AAP party , who was Union Minister for Law in the government of Morarji Desai between 1977 and 1979. Bhushan dropped out of studying electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras after a semester. He then studied first economics and then philosophy of science at Princeton University but left before graduating and returned to India where he received a law degree from Allahabad University.[1]


Yogendra Yadav (Jholay wala journalist) age 50

State of Democracy in South Asia (2008) co-authored and co-edited (with Sandeep Shastri and K C Suri).
Electoral Politics in Indian States (2009).
Democraccy in Multi-national Societies (2010) co-authored with Alfred Stepan and Juan Linz.

Manish Sisodia (Jholay wala Journalist) age 41

[vishvak]

I asked earlier regarding EVM manipulation which was often cited as reason for BJP failure , any further review/comment on issue?

EVM manipulation isn't still an issue?

No manipulation in semi-final is final verdict? Without any data?

[krishnan]

they wont play around the EVM thing because then it would be clear that they did something, with every second guy angry with them and with AAP jumping in it would be hard to do EVM manipulation

[pankajs]

Scapegoats for the Congress

Sins call for atonement, crimes must be punished. And what better, if such redemption can be detached from those really culpable and outsourced to some dumb creature that cannot complain? This was the idea behind the Biblical practice of casting a goat into the wilderness after ascribing all manner of ills and improvidence to it. Many virtues extolled by religion have waned over time; scapegoats have thrived.

Right now, the Congress really needs some scapegoats, big, healthy ones. We list a few suggestions for the high command's consideration.

A Goodly Supply

Manmohan Singh. He led the government but could not contain persistent inflation or reverse a crippling slowdown. That there would be corruption in the government is perfectly understandable (how else are parties supposed to mobilise the fortunes they need to function?), but did he even make an attempt to speak up in defence of the government when accused of assorted scams? Now, telecom is a scam in public perception, instead of the genuine revolution - which has spread to the remotest corners of the land, empowered people and raised productivity and economic growth - that deserves to be celebrated.

Prof KV Thomas. The food minister has been overseeing a prolonged phase of food price inflation, from atop the largest hoard of grain in India's history, touching 80 million tonnes (MT) when the buffer stocking norm called for only 31 MT. If only he had sold off large quantities of the grain locked up in government stocks fast enough in the open market, rice and wheat prices would not have gone up a steady 20% month after month, jacking up the price index, preventing the RBI from cutting interest rates and contributing to negative investment sentiments.

Coal India Ltd. India's state-owned coal monopoly has accumulated obscenely large reserves of cash but has no coal to spare. Coal India's monopoly is responsible for the much-abused, scam-ridden policy of captive mining. Its inability to mine India's huge reserves of coal has resulted in production shortfalls of around 20% in relation to the demand. It is primarily responsible for making 40,000-50,000 MW of installed generation capacity lie idle for want of fuel. This makes investment infructuous, raises the economy's capital output-ratio and makes a whole lot of bank lending turn sour. That apart, it denies the government the goodwill that should have been its for having laid power lines to 460,000 villages. It aborts the agro-processing revolution and cold chains that India needs to increase farm produce and transport it to consumption centres in towns fast.

Much of the Blame Real

Pranab Mukherjee. Under his watch as finance minister, the fiscal deficit stayed bloated long after the exigencies of the global crisis, tax policy stability came unstuck and the working of the finance ministry lost systemic elan. Policy stood paralysed as he headed dozens of groups of ministers and charged around the land doing political trouble-shooting. Now that he is the President and cannot really bleat in public, he would make a nice scapegoat.

Rahul Gandhi. Is he for real? Testing leadership material of Youth Congress types with multiple choice questions and snapping at workers while hearing what they have to say with the attention span of Alois Alzheimer's prize patients!

Sonia Gandhi's welfare politics. Her pursuit of redistribution and welfare at the expense of production and productivity, don't we now know, has fed the fiscal deficit, emaciated growth and killed job opportunities for India's youth.

We can produce yet more scapegoats. There is much in the charges against each that is entirely valid and can be easily made to stick. But the real black sheep graze elsewhere.

But, the Real Black Sheep...

The real problem is the Congress party's degeneration into a bunch of powerbrokers that has completely forgotten the political party's primal role, of empowering the people, of mediating between the people and the state. Only leaders and power matter for the party, the people have fallen off its map, except as voters who have to be managed with handouts, identity politics and poll-eve temptations.

This is why it stands devoid of any organic emancipatory imagination of its own and its government needs an external brain graft in the form of a National Advisory Council. This is why the party is oblivious of the sterling advance the country has made over the last 10 years and is incapable of converting that to its credit.

Steady rise in real rural wages, leading to enhanced consumption of superior foods, sharp fall in the infant mortality rate, the fastest decline in poverty, huge additions to rural power, roads and telecom, liberation of millions from the low-productivity drudgery of traditional farming - sterling achievements that remain orphans. In contrast, Modi takes credit for every blade of grass that grows in Gujarat.

Goats and sheep share a common trait: they are prone to ending up as mincemeat.

[Vayutuvan]

I think NN would be good - win or loose. He has the right cred. to take on one or more of the "fastest growing IIT start-up"s.
He would take some votes away from #Hazratkejribal. Even if he wins, I don't think he will fold up like MMS (now that SG/RG have been shown to falter and lost the confidence of the Cong(I) cadre). SO, he will be good for India. He has become an elite through his own hard work - no political gimmicks and no genuflecting to various foundation moneybags.

[Singha]

Undietv has lead story titled..can this man become next pm?
since undietv operates in lockstep with 10janpath they are testing
waters to see public response...nd it will better than threat
of a mms third term for sure

[vishvak]

If I remember correctly, there was a presentation PPT on BRF about rise of silicon valley in USA from WW2 electronics progress. In 4 decades since WW2 the mainframes and PCs were invented in the silicon valley.

Even then silicon valley bosses have not been elected by USA public.

So what has NN done, but then again, its about votes in elections.

[Singha]

Hold out threat of a mms third term and people will run to support
any alternative incl Rahul gandhi

[johneeG]

Self Deleted.

[disha]

What is vote on account?

If nobody has answered., "vote on account" means "vote on the simplest budget to keep the government functioning". In this case the FM does not have to prepare a complete budget for the year earmarking all the allocations etc. but given the generally known government expenses for say the next 6-9 months., the "vote on account" passes that "budget".

This allows continuity in Government functioning while things are in transition.

Of course, the above explanation is simplistic statement to give an idea.

[disha]

Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, has received 400,000 Dollars from the Ford Foundation in the last three years - Arundhati Roy

Yay, thanks for digging further JohneeG., AK is a manchurian candidate of Rona-Dhona Party.

I will be very happy with 400k donation to my NGO in 3 years.


[IDEA]
Why not we BRF members start working on starting NGOs and applying to Ford Foundation and HIVOS and other foundations? We should start some 100 or so NGOs and hopefully 10 will get funding (and they have to accomodate the rest 90)
[/IDEA]

[Vayutuvan]

From pankajs's post:

But, the Real Black Sheep...

The real problem is the Congress party's degeneration into a bunch of powerbrokers that has completely forgotten the political party's primal role, of empowering the people, of mediating between the people and the state.

That is what happens when people have a little bit of success within the early adapter community and mistakenly assume that this small subset is the entire set. They forget that a chasm exists just BVR.

[Vayutuvan]

I asked earlier regarding EVM manipulation which was often cited as reason for BJP failure , any further review/comment on issue?

Yeah, in fact I posed the same question in a different way to Pranav and others who had been saying "EVM manipulation" at the drop of a hat. Now that BJP had won in the state elections, can we have some explanation of why EVMs were not manipulated by Cong(I)?

Disclaimer: I also do not believe that EVMs are tamper proof. Interested people can look up Shamos on Wikipedia and go from there for a technical explanation. Shamos is a well known theoretical CS (Computational Geometry - he is a co-author of the first comprehensive textbook on the subject) professor turned attorney.

[sudarshan]

There was one point in the counting of the CG election results, when the BJP tally suddenly started slipping, when I became convinced that EVM manipulation was going on in front of my eyes. In hindsight, it seems to have been more due to manipulation of tribal sentiments and active Maoist coercion. Fortunately BJP made up for it in other places.

The possibility is still there for 2014. But it's significant that it did not play any measurable role in a critical set of state elections.

[Vayutuvan]

If I remember correctly, there was a presentation PPT on BRF about rise of silicon valley in USA from WW2 electronics progress. In 4 decades since WW2 the mainframes and PCs were invented in the silicon valley.

Not mainframes - they came about from NW (GE schenactady, MIT Project MAC) and of course before that the original main (or more correctly only)frame at UPenn from the blue prints of Eckert and Mauchly and later John von Neumann (by some accounts supposedly insinuating himself into the project after all the plans were made by the former duo but and taking all the credit).

Re. SI valley, look at the numbers (which are from memory and oh probably from 2008 or so). When total US economy was about 10 trillion the entire Electronics Industry was about $600 Billion add another $600 billion from the SI valley Software guys (there are lots of Software companies in the east too) and other assorted stuff, say 1.5 trillion which is split between not only Bill Gateses, Larry Ellisons, Apple mahdis, but "highly paid" PERL hackers, Java Programmers, (and now app developers), the assorted VCs and BMW/Merc driving sales/marketing droids as compared to the rest 8.5 trillion divvied up between NW old-money, Chicago and Detroit Industrialists, Oil guys - there are lots of power centers and lobbies as powerful if not more than the (chappal wearing - there is at least one well known such) SI vallley VCs.

[Karan M]

Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, has received 400,000 Dollars from the Ford Foundation in the last three years - Arundhati Roy

The link in that article doesnt work.

says 2005-09, kabir took grants'
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/key- ... 14192.html

but where is the record?

[Karan M]

This states:

Kejriwal's NGO Kabir, of which Manish Sisodia is also part, received around $569,000 from Ford Foundation under the heads of transparency and governance. This has been disclosed on Kabir's website recently. There are speculations that this money too was used to fund the anti-corruption campaign, though, when Team Anna had declared its funds and assets earlier this year, this money was not shown in the accounts. On October 30, Hazare said Rs 40 lakh received from unknown sources will be returned. Pray, why it took so long? Media pressure?

- See more at: http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2011/11/41 ... olF2L.dpuf

--

would it kill these guys to provide archived references or links? any analyst would be questioned if he/she presented data without citations, links.

[Karan M]

Conveniently, kabir website is down. http://www.kabir.org.in/

[Muppalla]

Conveniently, kabir website is down. http://www.kabir.org.in/

Here is the slide that I prepared for a different purpose (links are here):

Is Kejriwal of AAP a mole planted by foreign Intel?
-Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia received several tranches of money from Ford foundation

Steven Solnick representative of Ford from reputed News paper "Business Standard", "the Foundation’s last instalment to Kabir was in 2010. Our first grant to the NGO was of $1,72,000 in 2005 ; the second was in 2008 of $1,97,000,“

Links:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PET209A.html
http://www.voltairenet.org/article30039.html
http://www.indiatvnews.com/print/news/k ... 340-1.html
http://www.ibtl.in/news/exclusive/1162/ ... dhati-roy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjsBxwRxSy8
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/it ... 412658.ece
http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 109_1.html

[RoyG]

Muppallaji,

In the end it doesn't matter. Arvind Kejriwal's ideas are totally antithetical to our dharmic civilization. He has nothing to offer besides the same or purer brand of leftism that the Congress has given India. NACxalites are advising him. This is an emotional movement which will have disastrous consequences for India if it is allowed to spread. Naxals for some time have been trying to move into the urban areas. The last thing we want is the red revolution that Nepal went through. His movement has to be checkmated and neutralized ASAP.

[Rahul M]

needs to be forwarded to people like swati sarkar and mediacrooks.

[Chandragupta]

BJP should give more tickets to Army vets & family members. AAP played a master stroke giving ticket to the honourable NSG Commado. With actions like these and slogans such as Vane Matram & Bharat Mata ki Jai, they might also try to position them as a Nationalist alternative to BJP. BJP should have approached people such as Anuj Nayyar's father, family members of Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Saurabh Kalia, Yogendra Yadav, Khetrapal et al.

[pankajs]

Former MLA targets Digvijaya Singh for Congress debacle in MP

BHOPAL: AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh may have publicly claimed to be the setting sun and taken a seat in the second row at election campaign meetings. But despite his distance from assembly polls 2013, the former chief minister has become the Congress' most targeted punching bag after its third electoral debacle in the state. After Rajya Sabha MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi called Digvijay Singh the conspirator on Tuesday, former Congress MLA from Mahidpur assembly seat Kalpana Parulekar on Wednesday demanded a ban on the senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh politics.

Known to be a fire-brand leader with a motor-mouth, Kalpana Parulekar spit venom against Digvijay Singh after she lost the Mahidpur seat disastrously and lost her security deposit. Parulekar wrote a letter to the party high-command asking for strict and punitive action against Digvijaya Singh for engineering the defeat in the assembly polls where the Congress was curtailed to only 57 out of 230 seats. I have already sent the letter to the high command explaining how Digvijaya Singh is responsible for the debacle in Madhya Pradesh,'' she said on Wednesday afternoon.

"Digvijaya Singh and all his men in the state Congress like PCC chief Kantilal Bhuria and MP from Ujjain Prem Chand Guddhu should be expelled forthwith for their active role in the defeat. Digvijay Singh is hated by the people of Madhya Pradesh because he has always played dirty politics in the state,'' she explained. Parulekar refused to accept chief minister Shivraj Singh's popularity in the state. Instead, she put the blame on Kantilal Bhuria for being a weak and ineffective PCC president.

Digvijaya Singh wanted Jyotiraditya Scindia to lose the elections. He never approved of or appreciated Scindia even if it meant that Shivraj Singh chouhan would rule for 20 years. To further the damage, he appointed his man Bhuria to lead the state Congress when the man was incapable of raising issues. There is no politician as shrewd and cunning as Digvijay aSingh. He wants that either he or his son should occupy the seat of chief minister,'' Parulekar alleged. How is it possible that his son gets a major victory from Raghogarh and all other Congress candidates from the region get defeated?'' she asked.

After Parulekar, another Congress leader from Indore Raghu Parmar joined the blame-game fray. It is unfair to put the blame on Digvijaya Singh when we know that tickets distribution has been faulty. I can vouch that the Indore V candidature was given to Pankaj Sanghvi in exchange for money. I directly allege that chief of the screening committee Madhusudan Mistry took money and sold the seat to Sangvi. If the party wants to expel me, so be it,'' he said.

[ramana]

Theives fall out!!!!

OTH is Diggi the Kaliyug Shakuni for Rahul baba?

[V_Raman]

Theives fall out!!!!

OTH is Diggi the Kaliyug Shakuni for Rahul baba?

Aha! What an analogy ramanaji!

[IndraD]

some comments from india today

KEDGREE WALLHA is a corrupt donkey, he had made many garndstanding rhetoric and empty pledges to the ignorant and naive impressionable mugs in order to loot their votes in the CONGI style, but in reality this double talking scum is an ISI agent with deep links with I.M. who have partly funded him with counterfeit money. The stray K2E wanted power, lust, money and graft, now that he has it all, the illiterate buffoon then irresponsibly cut and runs with tail between his leg, does he thinks the Sun shines from his @$$? He is in a monkey business all the freebies that he promised to dish out, costs money who will pay for it? THe donkey has no knowledge in Financial management and economic policies, the whole manifesto is flawed, the numbers don't stack up and is full of bull $$H1T. If the party is honest, on corrupt and able, why don't they form the government instead of bull $$hit1ng non stop. Abe miules time for talking crap is over it is now time to walk and prove with support from your surrogate Baap.

aap party head Arvid before election has gone 3 to 4 times to all poor people houses and slum areas in day and night and has assured this and that and now he has gotten vote from them. Now Arvind did not have time to go those areas to tell them thanks also forget help to them . Aap party head leaders has same characters like Congress leaders whom you can see before election and then forget poor. Now Arvind has been meeting all big big business men and big big media people to show his new lila

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/arvi ... ml#comment

[Karan M]

Conveniently, kabir website is down. http://www.kabir.org.in/

Here is the slide that I prepared for a different purpose (links are here):

Is Kejriwal of AAP a mole planted by foreign Intel?
-Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia received several tranches of money from Ford foundation

Steven Solnick representative of Ford from reputed News paper "Business Standard", "the Foundation’s last instalment to Kabir was in 2010. Our first grant to the NGO was of $1,72,000 in 2005 ; the second was in 2008 of $1,97,000,“

Links:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PET209A.html
http://www.voltairenet.org/article30039.html
http://www.indiatvnews.com/print/news/k ... 340-1.html
http://www.ibtl.in/news/exclusive/1162/ ... dhati-roy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjsBxwRxSy8
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/it ... 412658.ece
http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 109_1.html

Thank you saar!! Last link is indeed a keeper.

http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 109_1.html

Ford Foundation India too denied allegations that it was propping the anti-graft movement. Its representative, Steven Solnick, said the Foundation’s last instalment to Kabir was in 2010. “Our first grant to the NGO was of $1,72,000 in 2005 ; the second was in 2008 of $1,97,000,” he told Business Standard.

Thats a lotta green. And where did the money go?

“Both were exclusively for work on Right to Information Act and on training people how to use it,” he said. The Foundation had agreed to give the NGO a grant this year. “But they told us that they have not been able to begin any work. Hence, the money was not given.”

Wow, so they took ~$400k and no idea of what it was used for. At Rs 40 to the $, thats Rs 160,00,000.

[Muppalla]

needs to be forwarded to people like swati sarkar and mediacrooks.

I did to swati Sarkar as she is on my google+ circles because of prior hangout. Someone should do to mediacrooks. Probably he may have all this stuff as he pretty digital savvy.

[Rudradev]

Merlin, Im not at all sure that "youth" will be re-energized to vote for AAP a second time around.

Youth voters are energetic, but highly impressionable, impatient and most of all very very fickle. Hell, in my own college days I went from being a fervent SS-BJP supporter to a far leftist and then all the way back around, 360 degrees in 3 short years! It was a time to experiment with new ideas, dominated by the urge try out new solutions more than anything else.

And my experience was way back in the 90s! Today's youth, brought up in the age of 24-7 news, internet, Twitter and consumerism are 100 times more ADHD, swinging back and forth at a far higher frequency than I ever did. In a Delhi repoll AAP will no longer be the New Story. For its appeal to the youth voter, at least, this will be its greatest liability.

[Shanmukh]

If re-election is held BJP will face AAP as the main challenger in all the seats with Congress supporters voting for them.

It will be BJP+Others >AAP+INC+Others

So BJP has to increase its vote share and not lose it or fritter it with Dilli Billi nakre.


nageshks, Any insight if this is the case?

Ramana-ji,
The Congress MLAs are caught in a bind. They touched their nadir this time, and are not likely to recover in a few months time, unless the law and order situation or inflation deteriorates to the extent that the people recollect the Congress government fondly. The Central Congress authority has all but disintegrated, and they are on their own now. But as for the Congress MLAs themselves, they are not likely to support the AAP openly, for a simple reason. They have nowhere else to go. So - there are only two courses of action. Refuse to fight (or put up only a token fight) this time, and hope to return next time, or fight for their seats as hard as they can, because they have lost by small margins in some constituencies. My guess is that there will be some of both. In places where the Congress MLAs decide to fight, their votebank is unlikely to migrate to the AAP, except for perhaps the Muslims (for whom defeating the BJP is a priority). But in other places, their votes will be up for grabs. Who grabs what is open to question. My guess is that the educated class votebank of the Congress will back the AAP, while the OBC part of the Congress votebank will gravitate towards the BJP (OBC consolidation in favour of the BJP, particularly in the rural areas of Delhi is already happening, and will further continue). AAP and BJP will be fighting for the spoils over the corpse of the Congress, and it all boils down to their campaign and ability to grab as much of the Congress' corpse as possible.

Second , there is no certainty that the AAP will be able to repeat this particular performance again. Their victory, particularly in the BJP strongholds like Rohini, Greater Kailash, etc was unprecedented. But the reasons for these may lie in the chaos that pervaded the BJP until Harshvardhan came on the scene. While the AAP candidates were already decided some months ago, the BJP only finalised its candidates list in the first week of November. And the tickets granted to the kids of the BJP heavyweights caused a lot of heartburn in the party (Greater Kailash was granted to V K Malhotra's son, Model Town to Vijay Goel's son, etc). So, the party's poor performance in these areas may well be the result of internal sabotage in the BJP. Also, until NaMo and Harshvardhan took charge of the party, there was no authority, and everyone was fighting everyone in the Delhi unit. Neither Navjot Singh Sidhu, nor Nitin Gadkari had any control over the BJP's Delhi unit. And truly, if not for a fantastic rearguard action by the senior BJP leadership in Delhi (SS, and NaMo in particular), the situation of the BJP would have been much worse.

Nevertheless, there is no minimising the damage done to the BJP by the revolt of a section of the party's educated class base, particularly the young voters. Nothing illustrates this better than the BJP's performance in Rohini, Delhi Cantt., and Janakpuri, all traditional strongholds, all held by popular legislators. Still, two of the three were felled by the AAP wave by political greenhorns, and even a stalwart like Prof. Jagdish Mukhi in Janakpuri was hard put to it to hold his own against the AAP (he won by some 3K votes). Nevertheless, the AAP wave did not touch Harshvardhan (he won by a greater margin than last time), and educated voters did not desert him. Consequently, the educated class' disenchantment is not total, and the BJP has time to repair the damage. If they announce their candidates the moment the EC announces the next elections, and focus on a strong campaign to woo back the educated class, they may well retrieve their fortunes. Any Congress vote migration to the AAP can be counteracted by the BJP taking back the educated class vote to a large extent.

Finally, it also depends on what the AAP does. The party is already thinking of projecting Kejriwal as the PM candidate, and letting him contest the Lok Sabha. If this happens, this will be a HUGE advantage to the BJP in the Delhi elections. Many voted to make Kejriwal the CM. If he wants to become a Lok Sabha member before he has found his own feet in the Delhi Assembly, it will send the wrong signals to the Delhi electorate. It will signal the AAP's lack of seriousness in addressing Delhi's problems, since Kejriwal is already looking for greener pastures elsewhere, and merely used the Delhi electorate as a springboard for his political successes. I am really hoping that Kejriwal will contest the Lok Sabha elections. On the other hand, if the AAP does not project Kejriwal as the AAP's Lok Sabha candidate, there will be far less seriousness attached to their Lok Sabha campaign and it will be advantage Modi in the Lok Sabha elections. AAP is actually caught in a dilemma about what they should do regarding the Lok Sabha polls and much will depend on that.

My own reading of the situation is that the situation is bad in Delhi for the BJP, but not at all desperate. Much of it is really in their hands. If they unite internally, and put up a strong campaign to woo back the educated class (which is quite likely to forgive the BJP, should it be properly humble, contrite, united and coherent), they will win Delhi Assembly. Else, they will fritter away another chance, as they have been for the last 15 years.

[Karan M]

Merlin, Im not at all sure that "youth" will be re-energized to vote for AAP a second time around.

Youth voters are energetic, but highly impressionable, impatient and most of all very very fickle. Hell, in my own college days I went from being a fervent SS-BJP supporter to a far leftist and then all the way back around, 360 degrees in 3 short years! It was a time to experiment with new ideas, dominated by the urge try out new solutions more than anything else.

And my experience was way back in the 90s! Today's youth, brought up in the age of 24-7 news, internet, Twitter and consumerism are 100 times more ADHD, swinging back and forth at a far higher frequency than I ever did. In a Delhi repoll AAP will no longer be the New Story. For its appeal to the youth voter, at least, this will be its greatest liability.

From the marketing standpoint, FUD might be a good idea to employ against AAP, especially given there are actually valid reasons to be concerned about them. The core AAP types will remain AAP. The impressionable might break into two categories - cognitive dissonance, so will remain AAP. Others may swing. Worth a try.

[pankajs]

If BJP can force farzilal to attack Modi first that would be the end of "Fazi for CM and Modi for PM" campaign. It would also force the "Fazi for CM and Modi for PM" to split and BJP will benefit.

Modi himself should not attack Farzi first but go all out on the AAP manifesto, Bushan, Yadav, AAP-CON connection, etc. Once Farzilal takes the baits and attacks him he should go all out of Farzi and his nutty statements, etc.

Edit: Rewording of the last para.

[vina]

One good thing about the rise of the AAP is this. Kapil Sibal is toast in 2014. So we wont be seeing that douche bag back in the LS. Thank goodness for small mercies. He is the target of ire of the Jan Lokpal bill wallahs for his too clever by half forked tongue lawyer wheeling dealing.

The shenaningans he tried with muzzling the internet with is ridiculous KLPD (Kapil's Legally Perimitted Data) Department and the way he tried to push censorship when the mullahs raised instance of "blasphemy" but went to the court to represent MF Hussian in his depiction of Hindu Goddesses is a classic instance of hypocrisy.

[Karan M]

Who are you and what did you do with our usual vina?

Total hacking onlee

[pankajs]

BJP may replace many losing candidates if there is repoll in Delhi

After an internal analysis of the party's poll performance in the December 4 elections, the top BJP leadership has concluded that while most of their winning candidates may be repeated, the party will have to bring in new faces for the seats that the party has lost, mostly to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).{Good. Will clear out useless "heavy weights" and their undeserving cronies}

"It is the credibility quotient that will matter the most," said a senior party leader who has analyzed the party's performance.

The party has also realized that it made a mistake by not taking the AAP phenomenon into cognizance, and has now decided to take it seriously if Delhi has to face a second round of elections after a gap of some months.

Party sources said it was only in the last two weeks or 10 days before the polls that a couple of BJP leaders discussed the threat from AAP contestants, and even then most BJP leaders refused to acknowledge Arvind Kejriwal's outfit as a serious competition. "It shows that most of the leaders, specially the Delhi leaders had very little connect with the people," admitted a senior leader, while another called the Delhi results and the AAP phenomenon "a wake up call" for the party.

In fact the "wake up call" due to the AAP effect has come to BJP for the Lok Sabha polls, according to party sources.

Whether it is re-election for the assembly or the coming Lok Sabha polls due in six months time, BJP is worried about the dealing with the AAP party. Even while the party is dependent much on the Narendra Modi factor to swing votes in its favour to some extent, the party has decided to be very careful in choosing its contestants for Delhi, following the "credibility quotient" factor, that BJP admits has gone in favour of the Kejriwal's campaign for the AAP party.

BJP is also of the view that a repeat fight for Delhi will be between it and the AAP, with the Congress totally out of the game. According to the BJP calculations except for the essentially the Muslim votes Congress has not been able to retain any other vote specially in the resettlement colonies in outer Delhi and in central Delhi.{Pls do the maths by adding Muslim votes to AAP in full}

However, with the an unexpected boost in the Jat and Gujjar votebank, BJP now has to worry about the middle class voters in central Delhi, which according to party leaders go more by "image of the contestant rather than any other factor."

Since the margins that BJP candidates have lost by to AAP candidates is small in most constituencies, "whoever makes the mistake of forming government now and faltering within the next six months will impact on the polls and will lose in the next round," feel BJP leaders.

[pankajs]

Pressure grows on Obama administration to reach out to Modi

WASHINGTON: A prominent American analyst and veteran South Asia hand has aligned with the growing sentiment in Washington DC that the US administration should engage the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, regardless of the outcome of elections in India.

In a brief on the BJP's strong showing in the just concluded assembly polls, Teresita Schaffer, a former state department mandarin, policy wonk, and a senior fellow at Brookings Institutions, says while it is too early to forecast the outcome of the 2014 polls, "the US cannot afford to continue restricting its contacts with a politician of Modi's importance to a relatively low level."

Pointing out that the US had limited its official contact with Modi "even after ambassadors of other major powers had opened dialogues with him", Schaffer said normal US practice is to maintain contact across the political spectrum, unless there is some overwhelming reason not to — members of listed terrorist organizations, for example. Only the US consul general in Mumbai, whose consular jurisdiction includes Gujarat, has met Modi so far.

"Controversy about the nature and level of contacts with opposition figures is not unusual in the diplomatic world," Schaffer, a longtime South Asia expert, writes, adding, with respect to Modi, that "the longer a self-imposed ban remains in place, the more complicated and embarrassing it is to change it."

Schaffer's reasoning mirrors the growing sentiment on the Hill where some lawmakers are pressing the administration to reach out to Modi.

Eni Faleomavega, a ranking House member of the South Asia subcommittee recently called on the Obama administration to "shift its attitude and engage in dialogue with Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, just as the European Union and the UK are doing, and many other nations around the world.'' "Chief minister Modi is a democratically elected leader and has been elected 3 times by the majority of some 60 million constituents. He may well be India's next Prime Minister and Resolutions like H.R 417 (which praises the administration for banning Modi) do little to help strengthen US-India relations," says Faleomavega.

Pillorying the state department for succumbing to pressure from anti-Modi lobbies, he went as far as suggesting "should chief minister Narendra Modi become India's next Prime Minister, he should decline a visit to the United States unless the State Department takes a stand now and informs him in advance of whether or not a visa would be granted should he apply."

Schaffer and others in the thinktank community steer clear of the politics behind Foggy Bottom's no-contact policy, but there is a growing feeling that the state department is taking an unreasonably cussed stand on the issue. On their part, US officials say in private conversations that any decision on Modi at this point will add the controversy and will be instantly politicized in India, and they would rather have a status quo. In any case, they have indicated, if Modi does become Prime Minister, the visa ban will become infructuous because heads of government are entitled to diplomatic privileges.

The UPA government has also steered clear of the issue. On Tuesday, India's foreign secretary Sujatha Singh held talks with a state department team led by secretary of state John Kerry with the conversation centering mainly on regional issues, including the US drawdown from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Modi should make the countries that have boycotted him sweat. His first travel to any country should be on the Blue passport on visitors visa. Is this possible for a PM to reject a diplomatic passport and opt for the ordinary blue one? Let protocols be dammed and force other countries to deal with it.