ChinmayC Blog

In the previous post here, I said that in spite of the near-certainty of a ‘walkover’ for the Modi Government the General Elections-2024 could still be no less than a cricket thriller! And, like many of the opposition leaders who have been relentlessly accusing the Government of India of ‘vindictive politics’ I too hereby stay ‘vindicated’! Ha! Ha! The momentous day of 21 st March, 2024 started with the central government freezing the accounts of the Congress party leaving it almost penniless for the looming election expenses and ended (not really!) with the arrest of the three-time Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from his official residence around 9 o’clock in the night on corruption charges relating to the Delhi Liquor Scam that started in 2021-22 leading to the arrests of several leaders of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). CM Kejriwal has been skipping summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) since November last year. After he refused the 9 th summons, the ED, act...

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...

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...

General Elections-2014 for Lok Sabha —the lower house of the Indian Parliament—has been a record in terms of maximum number of phases. The polling process was completed in nine phases starting 7 th April and ending 12 th May. Voting percentage has been a record too for General Elections-2014 as this has been the highest since 1984. In 1984 voting percentage was 64% and it gave a landslide victory for the Congress led by late Rajiv Gandhi who became the Prime Minister. Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi a sympathy wave was cited as the main reason for the mandate. However, the high percentage of voting normally accompanying a wave was not anti-incumbency that time. This time the national average percentage is around 66% and this could normally signify an anti-incumbency wave. One more record has been made in terms of the lowest ever level of politics with unprecedented aggression, personalized attacks and polarization for General Elections-2014. Even the constitutional body...

The Congress led UPA-2 approved the division of the Southern State of Andhra Pradesh into the long fought-after Telangana and the consequent Seemandhra after initiating the process over the last few months. As the draft Telangana Bill took shape in practically geographic terms the state Assembly of Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh rejected the Bill. Supporters and opposition groups emerged within the same political party and the fight for-and-against shifted to the capital as the last session of the 15 th Indian Parliament began on 5 th of February, 2014. The Union Cabinet approved the final Telangana Draft Bill on 7 th February clearing the way for its presentation in Parliament. It had been Telangana all the way then leading to early adjournments of both the houses every day—only with grudging concessions given to present the interim Railway Budget and the Vote-on-Account General Budget 2014-15. On 12 th February the interim Railway Budget was presented in Lok Sabha, the lower house...

Nobody could have imagined in his/her wildest of dreams that the premiere and the most trustworthy investigating agency of India would find itself suddenly out of business. It actually happened on Thursday, the 7 th of November, 2013 when the Gauhati (Guwahati) High Court while hearing on a petition held the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) ‘unconstitutional’, and not even a ‘police force’. It quashed the April 1, 1963 Resolution constituting CBI under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 and declared all its actions unconstitutional.   The judgment by the division bench, comprising justices I A Ansari and Indira Shah, came on a writ petition filed by Navendra Kumar challenging an order by a single judge of the high court in 2007 on the resolution through which CBI was set up. The whole country was plunged into a deep crisis. For obvious reasons. CBI has been investigating innumerable cases relating to corruption, frauds, high profile murders and more all over t...

If the unprecedented nastiness pervading the Indian political scenario even six months before the all important General Elections-2014 is any indication we could very well prepare ourselves for things to follow. Desperate to win and grab power to rule the country political parties are throwing away all decency and restraint and are indulging in a war of calling dirty and dirtiest names to counter each others' chances. From ‘ shehzade ’ (Prince—BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi launching an attack on the Congress’s so-called dynastic rule to ‘fascist’, ‘Hitler’, ‘psychopath’ or ‘megalomaniac’. Leader M calls leader NM as the most communal person of the country while utterly bitterly failing to contain communal clashes breaking out again and again in his state. The same leader M has his sights focused on becoming the next Prime Minister and for that ‘noble’ purpose he marshals all minor or break-away parties into a conventions against communalism while communal clashes r...