ABP-Neilsen survey: If polls held today, NDA may erase UPA
Business Standard
If polls were held today, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will get a mere 136 Lok Sabha seats, according to a survey done by ABP News-Nielsen. The main opposition, National Democratic Alliance, is likely to get 206 seats, while others parties will get 167 seats. Neither the UPA nor the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA will get the magic number 272 in the general elections if they were to take place today. Left parties together will get 34 seats. The NDA may try to form the government, but will need 66 more seats for that.
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Reverse gear on electoral reforms
Jagdeep S Chhokar,
Mint
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
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Congress to struggle in Bihar, Maharashtra, Delhi, UP: survey
Anuja,
Mint
If the national elections were held now, the Congress party will not fare well in electorally significant Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi and Maharashtra, a survey by television news channel ABP News and market researcher Nielsen has found. The four states together send 175 parliamentarians to the 543-member Lok Sabha, the lower House of India’s Parliament. The Congress will not increase its tally of 47 seats in these four states if the general election, due in 2014, were to be held now, the survey said.
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Back to the Future in Iran's Election
Sahar Namazikhah, Reza Marashi,
National Interest
As the field of candidates for Iran’s presidential election takes shape, the most intriguing entry into the race is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. His candidacy is a threat to all other candidates—and more critically, it presents a major challenge to Iran’s most powerful man, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Despite the generational changes that have shaped the Iranian system in recent years, Rafsanjani’s challenge to Khamenei may take this election back to the future.
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BJP needs to get its message right
Swapan Dasgupta,
Pioneer
In his autobiography which, unfortunately, has never received the importance it deserved, former British Prime Minister (a man who never lost an election) Tony Blair made a distinction between “activists” and “normal people”. He was alluding to the tendency of committed political workers who take an active interest in the inner workings of a political party having agendas and priorities that are far removed from everyday concerns of ordinary voters who troop to the polling booth once every four or five years.
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PTI and PPP: What went wrong?
Raza Habib Raja,
Pak Tea House
I must admit one thing: I had never expected around two years ago that Imran Khan’s Facebook supporters will actually come out on the polling day and vote. In fact not only they came out but they actually instilled passion and enthusiasm in the entire election campaign. Imran has motivated them and touched the raw visceral nerve of the class which previously has largely been apolitical. His appeal also influenced many of the youngsters from major urban cities who all came out during the campaign filling huge venues like Minar-e-Pakistan.
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Social engineering formula helped Congress win Karnataka elections
Smita Gupta,
Hindu
If the three-way division in the Bharatiya Janata Party vote was clearly the single biggest reason for the Congress’ convincing victory in the recent Karnataka Assembly elections, perhaps the most significant element in the latter’s electoral strategy was “social engineering.” The party, senior Congress functionaries say, taking inspiration from the late Devraj Urs, adopted a formula that shifted the spotlight away...
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