The 2009 Parliamentary election returned the Congress party to power with more seats than even the most optimistic predictions. From 145 seats in 2004, the Congress increased its tally to 206 seats. No doubt, the five-year UPA rule had been characterised by unprecedented growth, but this is too simplistic an explanation since the Congress’s performance varied widely across the states in the elections. For instance, it won just nine out...
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I won't disclose my assets: KG Balakrishnan by Dakshina Muraleedharan
Former Chief Justic of India KG Balakrishnan does a U-turn on disclosing his assets. Justic Balakrishnan has informed the Inecome Tax Department that he does not want to disclose his assets because it is not related to public welfare in any way. Under intense pressure, former CJI and the current NHRC chief had early this month agreed to publicise details of his assets. The ex-CJI has faced allegations that he has wealth that...
More »Rs. 50 lakh spent on Hazare's fast: Digvijay
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has questioned the “huge” funding for social activist Anna Hazare's hunger strike in New Delhi to demand a Lokpal Bill, and asked whether politicians were uncivilised and could not be members of civil society. Speaking at the Press Club here on Saturday, he claimed that Rs.50 lakh was spent on Mr. Hazare's four-day agitation at Jantar Mantar. “When we demanded that it should be brought out...
More »Violence back in Nandigram, West Bengal's ground zero by Smita Gupta
Violence is back in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district as the polling date for the 16 Assembly seats here draws close: Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres are returning, under police protection, to the villages from where they fled in the wake of the Trinamool Congress' stunning successes here in recent elections. In West Bengal's ground zero, Nandigram — located in Purba Medinipur district — the problem is particularly acute. The...
More »BJP weighs Anna effect by Radhika Ramaseshan
The BJP is still sizing up the fallout of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption activism, undecided whether it would be able to reap political dividends, if any, from the urban, middle-class “upsurge” across the country. The leadership is expected to exchange notes and work out its strategy once the Assembly polls verdict is out. “The outcome will show whether the movement (that came in the midst of the state polls) had an impact...
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