Lok sabha polls | 6th phase 10 most high profile battles

Mulayam Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Priya Dutt, Milind Deora among those whose fate will be decided today

Voting is underway in 117 Lok Sabha constituencies in round six of the national election that ends on May 12. Of the 117 seats, the Congress holds 37 and the BJP 24 at present.Mulayam Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Priya Dutt, Milind Deoraamong those whose fate will be decided today. Here's a quick look at the top ten contests:

1) Samajawadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting from Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh). Mulayam is facing BJP's' Shatrughan Singh Chauhan and BSP's Dr Sanghamitra Maurya. The BJP candidate has asked the Election Commission to declare the constituency extra-sensitive. The SP chief won this seat in 1996, 2004 and 2009.

Dimple Yadav, the daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife, is seeking to defend her Kannauj seat that she won in 2012.

2) In Mathura, Jayant Chaudhary, son of Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, is locked in a stiff contest with Bharatiya Janata Party candidate and Bollywood star Hema Malini, whose campaign has been lacklustre, but Narendra Modi was there at a recent rally.

Milind Deora

3) Union minister of state for IT and Communications Milind Deora, seeking a hat-trick win from South Mumbai seat, is locked in a quadrangular fight with Bala Nandgaonkar (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena), Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena) and Meera Sanyal (Aam Aadmi Party). Sanyal, who polled approximately 10,000 votes in 2009, may draw some Muslim and minority votes due to AAP's relentless posturing against Modi.


4) Social activist turned politician, Medha Patkar recently joined AAP and is the Lok Sabha candidate from North East Mumbai constituency of Maharashtra. She is facing stiff competition from Sanjay Dina Patil of Nationalist Congress Party and BJP's Kirit Somaiya.

 

Priya Dutt, Congress MP

5) Priya Dutt, the daughter of late Congress leader Sunil Dutt and Poonam Mahajan, the daughter of former Union minister and BJP heavyweight Pramod Mahajan are locked in a tough fight for North-Central Mumbai seat. Samajwadi party's Farhan Azmi is also in the fray. While Priya is a two-time MP from the constituency, Poonam had got a drubbing in the 2009 Maharashtra Assembly elections when she fought on a BJP ticket from Ghatkopar West.

6) The Congress faces an acid test in West Bengal as it fought the 2009 Lok Sabha poll as an alliance partner of the Trinamool Congress. President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit and Mamata Banerjee’s bete noire Deepa Dasmunshi (Raiganj) are among the candidates. Abhijit had won the Jangipur seat by a slender margin of 2,536 votes in a 2012 by-election when his father Pranab Mukherjee vacated the seat to become the President of India. Read More article here - Lok sabha polls | 6th phase 10 most high profile battles

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