ChinmayC Blog

By all available indicators, trends and analysis the Bhartiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—more precisely the Modi Government—is all set to perform a rare hattrick of coming-back-to-power in the  18 th  Lok Sabha or General Elecitons-2024 that starts on 19 th April and stretches like IPL all the way to 1 st June when the 7 th phase of voting is scheduled with the counting of results scheduled on 4 th June. A host of media reports/opinion polls, analysis by poll experts/psephologists, the confidence of the ruling BJP in achieving a 400+ tally of seats for its alliance, the NDA’s already achieved hattrick of winning three Assembly Elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2023, a divided opposition despite the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance or the INDIA bloc of 27 political parties, and of course, the bonds of an endearing Indian electorate all point to this prediction which is fast becoming a certainty like a wa...

Draupadi Murmu, a tribal BJP leader from the state of Odisha, has been elected as the 15 th President of India after she had secured more than 51% of the votes in the third round of counting that started today morning. Even as more rounds of counting still remain the final election announcement becomes a mere formality. Draupadi Murmu belongs to the Santhal tribe of India and thus becomes the first ever Scheduled Tribe person to become the President of India. And she is only the second woman President of the country after Pratibha Patil, the 12 th President during 2007-2012. Madam Murmu was born on 20 th June, 1958 in a village of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Both her father and her grandfather were village headmen (Sarpanch), and so in a way, she’d been associated with public life from her childhood. She had served in the profession of teaching and initially also worked as a clerk in the state irrigation department. In her personal life she had to face a series of tragedies—losing ...

Perhaps the Indian agitating farmers, protesting for more than 60 days, made two strategic mistakes at two crucial junctures. First when the Supreme Court of India stayed the Farm Laws till further orders and constituted a panel to carry forward the discussion. The farmers rejected this saying that all the four members of the panel were in support of the three Farm Laws, and that they wanted to talk with the Government only and wanted solutions through this. Perhaps, they could have perceived the stay on the implementation of the laws as a moral victory, and felt the opportunity in this, because the opinions of the panelists were not going to be the final say with the Supreme Court observing.   Second when the Government of India proposed what they had termed as the best offer: willing to stay the three laws for a period 18 months and carrying on the process of discussion, looking for required amendments of some provisions and so on. The farmers rejected this too saying that they...

The Indian National Congress (simply called the Congress), the oldest political party of India, was the single largest party in the legislative assembly election of Rajasthan in 2018 with just one seat less than simple majority and formed government with the support of independents and smaller parties. Thus, it had succeeded in snatching power from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who secured a landslide victory in 2013. This victory was one of the three major ones achieved by the Congress in 2018 with assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh also won—a tremendous performance for a party that was totally decimated by the BJP in the General Elections of 2014 and in the following assembly elections. However, the party’s persistence with its old guards alienated the young promising leaders, and as in Madhya Pradesh by Jyotiraditya Scindia in March this year dissidence grew in Rajasthan too with its dynamic leader Sachin Pilot breaking out in an open revolt on 12 th July 2020 af...

Assam, a state of the North Eastern India, is up again with a mass movement against the provisions of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) which implies granting citizenship on religious grounds. Numerous petitions from students, advocates, intellectuals and others against CAA are pending the Supreme Court, and so, although the matter is sub judice the various issues involved are in the public domain and are being continually debated and discussed. Therefore, I intend to bring up here certain aspects of the issues involved in relation to the realities in Assam and in other states of the North East. The crux of the CAA as far as Assam is concerned is again in relation to the ‘foreigners’ issue for which the state had to undertake a mass movement during 1979 to 1985 when the All Assam Students Union (AASU) provided the leadership that culminated in the signing of the Assam Accord with the Congress government led by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The newly-formed Assam Gana Pari...

While with his crusader mentor he was a dedicated and committed worker-activist trying to root out corruption from the face of India. His principles were then in the right place as he was fondly called the right hand of his mentor. However, he had another quality—ambition, and that too was very principled. He perhaps thought that eradicating corruption was a huge task as long as one had to fight a formidable system set in place over the years by corrupt governments. Therefore he thought that the only way to fight corruption effectively had to be from within. He had to have a political entity to enter the system and fight it. And from that moment his ambition took over command keeping principles in abeyance. He left his mentor high and dry and formed a new political party. Rest is history. Quick-fix developments and growing evidence over the last three years tend to show that Dehli Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) could be the first ever political party in the coun...

We have been used to getting impatient with Pakistan for being in a constant denial mode, but presently we are increasingly getting used to the Indian national opposition political party BJP demonstrating the same mode most lucidly. Interestingly enough, the BJP has always been used to castigating Pakistan in the strongest of terms for upsetting India with its constant irritants and then the denials instantly. That we are not beating around the bush would get clearer as we push ahead with this post.  As we all know one of the founder figures of the BJP, Lal Krishna Advani has always been used to opposing the idea of Narendra Modi taking over the lead role in BJP. But the BJP could no longer ignore Modi due to his natural aggressive leadership and recent achievements for his party. The Goa BJP national convention was the occasion when the party had to take a position on Modi considering the paramount importance of getting battle-ready for General Elections-2014. Threatened with int...