Mumbai BJP gears for May 16, orders 4000 kg of laddoos

The BJP workers across the nation are preparing for May 16, the counting day. All the exit poll surveys have predicted a big win for the party and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. 

Ahead of the big day, the Mumbai BJP is busy placing order for laddoos to distribute among the workers as soon as the results start coming out. Atul Shah, BJP leader looking after the prepartions says "We are going to distribute 4000 kg laddus to the public and workers in South Mumbai." 

Also BJP will be putting up giant LCD screens to watch the results. As soon as NDA gets majority they will start distributing laddoos, burst crackers and celebrate with colour. 

"We received the order for 25,000 laddoos from the BJP. We are working day and night to deliver it on big day," said Buntybhai of Jai Ganesh Sweet Bhandar, Girgaum. The party has placed a bulk order for the laddoos for the big day. 

Exit polls sweeten countdown for NDA

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is tipped to form the next government with many exit polls projecting a clear majority for the coalition in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections.

The projections suggest that the BJP is set to record its best-ever performance, with some polls giving it well over 200 seats. In contrast, the Congress is headed for its worst-ever showing in a Lok Sabha election with a tally of less than 100 seats, the exit polls said.

Four channels — NewsX, India TV, ABP News and CNN-IBN — put the NDA well past the halfway mark of 272. NewsX and India TV projected 289 seats for the NDA while ABP News gave it 281 seats. The CNN-IBN tally for the NDA was in the 279-282 range.

The India Today Group post-poll survey was a bit more conservative, putting the NDA figure in the range of 261-283, which is within striking distance of forming a government even if the coalition scores on the lower side. Times Now put the NDA number much lower at 249.

Most of the polls showed the United Progressive Alliance getting between 101 and 148 seats. NewsX gave the UPA 101 seats, India TV 107 seats, ABP News 97 and CNN-IBN 92-102.

‘Others’, including regional parties and the Left Front, were projected to get between 146 and 156 seats.

The exit polls predicted the BJP drawing a blank in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but in north India a Narendra Modi wave was set to sweep aside regional heavyweights like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar.

The BJP’s biggest gains are in Uttar Pradesh where at least two surveys have predicted the party to win 54 seats, three short of its all-time high of 57 in 1998. Likewise in Bihar, the exit poll results dismissed any chance of the RJD’s resurgence, giving a clear lead to the NDA.

In its maiden election, the Aam Aadmi Party is tipped to pick up an average of five seats and an all-India vote share of about four per cent.

Source - The Hindu

Gujarat, UP, Punjab votes for Lok Sabha, assembly

Brisk polling in Gujarat as 26 Lok Sabha seats go to polls - Polling started on a brisk note in most of Gujarat's 26 Lok Sabha seats Wednesday with long queues witnessed at some places even before the polling stations opened. According to state election officials, an average of 8-10 percent voting has been recorded ...

Chandigarh, Apr 30 (IANS): Balloting began Wednesday in Punjab for all its 13 Lok Sabha seats that went to the polls in a single phase, officials said.

Prominent candidates are Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Bharatiya Janata Party's Arun Jaitley, Congress's Amarinder Singh, and three-time BJP MP, actor Vinod Khanna.

As many as 253 candidates are in the fray.

People queued up at polling stations even before 7 a.m.

A total of 234,011 poll officials have been deployed.

The Election Commission is expecting a voter turnout of 80 percent this time. In the 2009 election, Punjab had recorded over 70 percent polling.

Over 75,000 police and paramilitary personnel have been stationed across the state to ensure peaceful polling, said Director General of Police Suresh Arora.

Punjab has 13,582 polling stations and 22,060 polling booths. Out of these, 2,442 polling stations have been declared hyper-sensitive and 4,632 sensitive, Arora said.

Lucknow, Apr 30 (IANS): Lok Sabha polls in 14 constituencies and by-polls for two state assembly seats began in Uttar Pradesh Wednesday, officials said.

The candidates to look out for include Congress president Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli and Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh from Lucknow.

The other prominent contenders include BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi from Kanpur against former union minister Sriprakash Jaiswal of the Congress.

Over 24.6 million voters are eligible to vote at 25,380 polling booths.

As many as 233 candidates are in the fray for the Lok Sabha polls.

Mumbai St Xavier's principal earns BJP flak for criticising Gujarat

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday filed a complaint against Father Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of one of the Mumbai’s most prestigious educational institutes, St Xavier’s College, according to TV reports.

Mascarenhas has criticised the ‘Gujarat Model of Development’ in a letter, which was uploaded on the college’s website and emailed to all the students of the college.

Father Frazer Mascarenhas misused his position to influence students, BJP said according to TV reports.

The letter asks students to ‘choose wisely’ in the election, and states that “All the Human Development Index indicators and the cultural polarisation of the population show that Gujarat has had a terrible experience in the last 10 years,” the letter reads.

The letter, sent to around 3,000 students, asked them not to support leaders who pose a threat to the future of secular democracy.

“The prospect of an alliance of corporate capital and communal forces coming to power constitutes a real threat to the future of our secular democracy. Support for people who pledge to work to take Human Development Indicators higher and who commit themselves to a pluralistic culture in diverse India – this is the hope for the future,” the letter adds.

Mascarenhas also adds, “Those schools for an ordinary populace show abject neglect with a very high dropout rate in Gujarat in the last 10 years.” The letter acknowledges the Congress’s Food Security and Rojgar Yojana schemes.

“As opposed to this, efforts such as the Rojgar Yojana and the Food Security Act have been called “election sops”. However, some of our best social scientists like Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze have supported these as necessary in the emergency economic situation the country and the world is facing”

When asked why he chose to send out this letter, Mascerhanes said, “At a time when the Gujarat Model is being discussed fervently in the media and public domain, I have given my students a few considerations based on that. I have not mentioned any political party in the letter. I want my students to make an informed decision on April 24,” said the principal. Parents and academicians have expressed shock over the act of a principal using his reach to influence students. “As an educationist, we must not let our personal political views influence students’ electoral choices,” said the principal of a city college.

Read more - http://www.hindustantimes.com/elections2014/state-of-the-states/bjp-files-complaint-against-st-xavier-s-principal-who-criticised-gujarat-model-asked-students-to-choose-wisely/article1-1211284.aspx?htsw0023