India elections

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Misregulated is very accurate...


BTW how well will the CPI-M do this time round?

[minionofmidas]

Bad in Kerala, well in WB and Tripura is my guess. But I'm no expert on that. I don't even have a clue why the CPI and CPI-M remain split, now that Mao is dead...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

"Communists in split shock" eh?
I remember the CPI-M[arxist] doing well in the WB local elections a bit ago.

No more NCP to split the vote in Maharashtra?
Excellent...

[minionofmidas]

No more NCP to split the vote in Maharashtra?
Excellent...

Probably more like two or even three of them...Anyway the NCP is also quite strong in Chhattisgarh and the state party chairman was among the guys trying to form an NDA-affiliated party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

AIDMK appears to have agreed to join an alliance with the BJP... while DMK seem to have agreed to join Congress in an alliance.
Which is the complete opposite of the last election...

[minionofmidas]

Yeah well, whoever believes Tamil Nadu politics had anything to do with issues or principles better had his mind checked.
The NCP factions are fighting about who gets to keep the name and the symbol.
Rebellion has broken out in the Congress in Kerala, with some octogenarian leader, K.Karkulidharan or something like that, who'd been unhappy with the CM for years, having finally walked out taking 17 Assembly members with him. That's not enough for the Government to lose the majority. His son, who is an Assembly member himself, surprised everybody by not joining. (He fell short of calling his father senile though). Anyways, they will found a new party, to be known probably as Indira Gandhi Congress, and will contest elections. Nobody expects them to win much, but it might mean a worse Congress and thus a better Communist showing in the state. (The BJP doesn't figure at all in Kerala, which is only 55% Hindu but 25% Muslim and 20% Christian).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I like Kerala, it's got a high literacy rate and usually has a high turnout come election time. Also the BJP et al do badly there
Do you think that the CPI-M might be able to win more seats than Congress in Kerala (it's 8 each at the moment)?

Why is politics in Tamil Nadu so insanely unprincipled?
I've never been able to understand why...

[minionofmidas]

Sorry, the name up there should be Karunakaran.
The Communists seemed finished for the moment in Kerala, but this thing should help them. I still can't see them winning a majority of the state's seats yet. Btw: Is that 8-8 for the two major parties or 8-8 for the two political blocks, the different leftie groups vs Congress, Muslim League and Kerala Congress (a Commie splinter-off)? Anyway, Congress is playing this secession biz cool. They just say they are not going to expel him, if he really founds his own party he's out anyway, but as for now nothing has actually happened.
The first opinion poll is out and says the NDA is increasing its position slightly, the Congress is losing seats, others pretty much unchanged. This might change if more parties ally with Congress though.
Parliament will be dissolved on February 6th, but the Election dates have not been set yet. That's done by the Electoral Commission, not the PM. There will also be state Elections in Andhra Pradesh (regional outfit TDP with BJP as junior partner vs a split opposition of Congress, AIMIM (Muslim party strong in Hyderabad, united to Cong), TRS (regional party demanding separate statehood for the Telangana) and the CPI. There were talks about an alliance but they seem to have fallen flat), Sikkim (doesn't matter), Orissa (just as Andhra, governed by regional outfit Biju JD with BJP backing. Cong only real opposition, has just recruited some rebel BJD politicos. Election one and a half years ahead of schedule), probably Karnataka (governed by Congress, but with the opposition split five way between BJP, their ally JD (U), the JD (S), the AIPJD and the Janata Party 50% of the vote should be enough for 90% of the seats. Indeed Congress talks of all Lok Sabha seats from the state and an increased majority in the Legislative Assembly, where they currently have about two thirds). Early polls in Maharashtra are also possible - it's just half a year early, as here in KA - but unlikely because the NCP is a partner in the government and obviously has no reason to want elections now.
Oh yeah, Tamil Nadu. It started when film stars entered politics. There is also the fact that DMK and AIADMK both endorse Tamil nationalism and socialist rhetoric, neither of which means anything. So effectively there is no difference between them except who runs them and who votes for them, and they can't really ally with each other as that would be kind of pointless. Similarly all the minor parties, which are effectively vote banks and include Communists and Congress, prefer to ally with the DMK simply because its smaller and therefore more ready to make seat-sharing arrangements. The BJP seems not to be active in the state at all, which I'd advise Congress to do too. But who am I for Congress to listen to me...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's 8 CPI-M and 8 Congress. Some smaller parties have seats as well.

How reliable are polls in India? As it's such a huge and diverse country I wouldn't think very accurate... but polls in the U.K are either innacurate and/or blatently biased...

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Ah... says it all really...

[minionofmidas]

How reliable are polls in India? As it's such a huge and diverse country I wouldn't think very accurate...

I don't know. They polled a remarkable number of people though, something like 15K across 20 states or something...Still, who knows what kind of people they polled...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

15,000?

[minionofmidas]

That's the number I remember. I read this yesterday morning, so I may be wrong. Or maybe it's a typo...But I distinctly remember it as 13,000 or 15,000.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

For one poll? That'll cost a lot of money...

BTW how well will the RJD do in Bihar?
I remember them doing very badly in 1999.

[minionofmidas]

For one poll? That'll cost a lot of money...

BTW how well will the RJD do in Bihar?
I remember them doing very badly in 1999.

Hey, I don't know everything! The RJD wants an electoral alliance with Congress, the only reason it's not finalized (in my opinion) is that Congress fears this might scare away other allies. Whatever his popularity in Bihar, which appears highly polarized, Laloo Prasad is extremely unpopular in the rest of India. Kinda like everybody's favorite whipping boy, in fact.
If anyone makes populist noises and points out being born into poverty, the other camp will shout "Lalooism!"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is he India's answer to Huey Long?

He's governing Bihar via the "Wallace method" (ie: his wife is techinically in charge, but he is pulling the strings) if I remember correctly.

Bihar has a reputation for political violence doesn't it?

[jaichind]

For one poll? That'll cost a lot of money...

BTW how well will the RJD do in Bihar?
I remember them doing very badly in 1999.

Last I checked it should be an uphill struggle for the NDA this time around.  In Bihar the JD(U) is in bad shape despite the merger of the Samata Party into the JD(U) or perhaps because of it.  The BJP-JD(U) swept Bihar last time around in 1999 but that was the height of the media assult on RJD "Jungle Raj."  The amount of defections of from JD(U) and BJP to RJD are an indication that the RJD-INC-Left Front prospects are getting brighter.  While such a front on paper is powerful it still comes down with effective seat adjustment.  In Jarkarhand the NDA government is crisis prone and the JMM might very well throw its weight behind RJD-INC-Left Front.    

[jaichind]

Former UP CM Kalyan Singh is rejoining the BJP. He'd walked out before the last general election and set up his own outfit. It took (I think) 2 Lok Sabha seats but its five percent vote share across the state probably cost the BJP 10-12 seats. I'm not sure how they fared in the State polls since.
His party isn't following him back into the fold actually, but as he's the only prominent head most voters will. In fact it's really a caste-based "vote bank". He's the only Lodh who's made it this big, so the Lodhs vote for him...Hey, that's India!

Well, during the last Lok Shaba election in 1999, Kalyan Singh was still in the BJP and was the CM of UP.  His relationship with the BJP was strained at that stage but did not walk out.  The Lodh community is part of the OBC (Other backward castes) group of castes and Kalyan Singh help the BJP capture a good dead of the OBC vote starting in the early 1990s despite that the fact that the BJP in UP is basically an upper caste outfit.  After a disappointing 1999 LS election in UP Kalyan Singh was eased out as CM by the upper caste establisment and he soon bolted from the BJP soon after that.  For sure he did not leave the BJP and float his own outfit before 1999 or the BJP would not even get the 29 seats in UP it got.  Kalyan Singh's outfit did participate in the 2002 UP assembly election and captured about 5 out of 425 seats available.  There are few Lodh dominated segments but they are significant in large number of districts and for now Kalyan Singh has them in his vote bank.

Kalyan Singh had shown signs of returning to the much weakened BJP but he was driving a hard bargin between the Samajwadi Party and BJP.  I guess he is going with BJP.  I was on my home province of Taiwan for Chinese New Years and did not get to read much about Kalyan Singh's return but I expect that this will acclerate INC and BSP talks in UP for an alliance as BJP just got a shot in the arm.  If the INC and BSP does not hang togeather they will hang seperately given the possible revival of the BJP and the obvious strength of the SP in UP.

[jaichind]

"Communists in split shock" eh?
I remember the CPI-M[arxist] doing well in the WB local elections a bit ago.

No more NCP to split the vote in Maharashtra?
Excellent...

The Indian Communist Party (CPI) split back in 1964 into Right and Left factions.  The Right faction controlled the party and stayed CPI and the Left faction became CPI(M) or CPM for Marxist.  The split was over the USSR-PRC split where CPI sided with USSR and CPI(M) was for PRC.  CPI also insisted that alliances with "progressive" elements of the INC was acceptable while CPI(M) has rejected the line.  CPI(M) itself broke with the PRC in 1979 when the PRC opposed the USSR intervention in Afganistan but CPI(M) as well as CPI supported it.  

[jaichind]

Bad in Kerala, well in WB and Tripura is my guess. But I'm no expert on that. I don't even have a clue why the CPI and CPI-M remain split, now that Mao is dead...

The main issue is still the nature of a "progressive" centrist outfits like INC.  Whereas CPI insist that alliance with a progressive INC is possible on the long run the CPM insists that the class nature of the INC makes such an alliance impossible and hurts the working class it claims to represent.  The CPM does accept tactial alliances with the INC to defeat the BJP but no long term relationship.  There as been reunification talks between the two parties but have broken down over the issue I raised above.

[jaichind]

That's the number I remember. I read this yesterday morning, so I may be wrong. Or maybe it's a typo...But I distinctly remember it as 13,000 or 15,000.

Polls in India have a relatively poor record.  Mainly because the multi-polar mature of many election contests it is very difficult to translate % of the vote of each party to the number of seats each party could expect to get.  Adding the number of poeple polled will not change this.

[minionofmidas]

Well, during the last Lok Shaba election in 1999, Kalyan Singh was still in the BJP and was the CM of UP.  His relationship with the BJP was strained at that stage but did not walk out.  The Lodh community is part of the OBC (Other backward castes) group of castes and Kalyan Singh help the BJP capture a good dead of the OBC vote starting in the early 1990s despite that the fact that the BJP in UP is basically an upper caste outfit.  After a disappointing 1999 LS election in UP Kalyan Singh was eased out as CM by the upper caste establisment and he soon bolted from the BJP soon after that.  For sure he did not leave the BJP and float his own outfit before 1999 or the BJP would not even get the 29 seats in UP it got.  

Well, so much for the reliability of Indian newspaper reporting. That's where I got my version from. Probably they were just copying it from BJP press releases...
Kalyan Singh was allied to the SP and the RLD in the last assembly elections, I read yesterday. The RLD, strong among Jats, seems to be interested in joining a (not yet certain) Congress-BSP alliance, which would leave Mulayam Singh without his allies. The Communists will likely be allied with Congress outside their stronghold states but pretend that they aren't. They would also not join a Cong-led Ministry at the Centre but would prefer to tolerate it from the outside.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Question: what colour is used to represent Congress on maps? I know that The BJP is Orange, the Communists are Red, but I'm never sure what colour should be used for Congress.

[minionofmidas]

In Black-and-White Newspapers, the Congress is White, the BJP is Grey, and all others are Black.
Green or White will do fine.
And the BJP is not orange, its saffron!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Orangy-yellow then.
Is making that mistake enough to get me on the hitlist of a bunch of Hindu extremists?

[minionofmidas]

Orangy-yellow then.
Is making that mistake enough to get me on the hitlist of a bunch of Hindu extremists?

Might be.