India's industrial heartland of Maharashtra voted yesterday in a major test of the country's ruling Congress party, which was hoping to fend off rival Hindu nationalists and keep control of the key state.
The elections to the 288-seat state legislature were a close contest between the Congress party-led coalition and the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena alliance of Hindu nationalists.
More than 65 million people were eligible to cast votes in the first major state polls to be held since the Congress party and its allies won a surprise victory in national elections and formed the federal government in May.
A win by the Hindu nationalists would boost the morale of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is struggling to overcome the defeat in the national elections. Poll results will not be known until Saturday.
"It is a close fight. But we are going to win," said Kapil Sibal, a Congress party minister in the federal government, who toured Maharashtra ahead of the elections.
Opinion polls by two TV channels last week show the Congress has an edge.
A survey by ORG MARG-Headlines Today estimates the Congress and its allies to win between 165 and 175 seats out of 288 compared with 95 to 105 seats for the BJP and its allies.
Another poll commissioned by the New Delhi Television and the Indian Express newspaper gave the Congress coalition 132 seats, ahead of its rivals, but falling short of the 145-majority mark. The poll said the BJP-alliance would likely get just 111 seats.
Smaller parties and independent candidates, who may win up to 45 seats, will play a key role in the formation of the new government, said the poll, which assumes a 3 percent margin of error.
"The most likely scenario is a hung assembly where no one gets a clear majority," said Dorab Sopari-wala, a Bombay-based poll analyst.
Both alliances have pledged free electricity for farmers, more jobs, subsidized food grains, better roads and communications. For many voters, however, the promises mean nothing.
"Whoever comes to power it does not change our lives," said Pinky Parab, a vegetable vendor in Bombay. "I wish we could shape politicians with our votes," said Parab, who wouldn't disclose who she voted for.
In the city of Pune, south of Mumbai, grocery shop owner Satya Prakash Agarwal was equally disillusioned.
"Elections come and go, [and] hardly make any difference to us," Satya said.
Maharashtra's Chief Election Officer Urvinder Madan said some 12,400 federal security forces, including paramilitary troops, and 70,000 state police were called out to ensure peaceful polling. He said 15 percent of the 60,000 polling stations were in sensitive areas.
In Mumbai -- India's financial hub and the Maharashtra state capital -- some 5,200 political party workers with criminal records were detained in an attempt to prevent trouble, police said.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS