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Kejriwal vs Modi: AAP opens war room in Varanasi

Kejriwal

Kejriwal

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday opened its war room in Varanasi’s Mahmoorganj area, opening up a new front in the high-profile battle between party supremo Arvind Kejriwal and BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

As part of its first activity, the AAP cited its own survey covering 80,000 households out of the total 3.14 lakh in Varanasi and said Kejriwal was trailing behind Modi by 50,000 votes.

Of the 16,00,000 voters, 300,000 are Muslims.

With Mukhtar Ansari deciding against contesting from Varanasi, trying to avoid a major split in the Muslim vote bank,  AAP is hopeful of an inroad. But the party keeps distancing itself from Ansari for obvious reasons. Another beneficiary may be Congress nominee Ajay Rai.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, as BSP nominee Ansari got 1.85 lakh votes, losing to BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi only by about 17,000 votes.

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Get India elections analysis with conf call in US

The Wall Street investor conference calls analyzing Indian elections are getting a growing number of callers.

A large and varied number of people across the United States are dialing into a unique conference call that takes place every week to discuss what is being described as the most consequential elections in India’s history.

Elections in India, Modi, Gandhi, Kejriwal

Though of interest and open to everyone, most callers are having more than a passing interest in India – they want to get expert opinion on the election trends in India, or to understand the economic policies of various political parties, or to evaluate the investment environment in India post elections, says a statement issued by US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), the organisers of the call.

Participants across 9 cities, which included leaders of the Indian American community, policy-makers at Capitol Hill, investment bankers and investors from the Wall Street along with technology entrepreneurs and academicians are connecting through the call.

The discussion points during the calls touch upon subjects such as possible outcomes of the elections, impact on trade and investments in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, energy, aviation, IT, status of civil liability bill, possible shift in India’s foreign policy.

This series of weekly conference calls include noted analysts from India providing their expert opinion to the American callers. The calls have so far featured Dr. Jagdeep S. Chhokar, the founder member of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-profit organization that’s working for government and electoral change in India; and Dr. Anupam Srivastava, Managing Director of Invest India.

“There is significant interest in the U.S. about the upcoming elections in India. Policy makers, businesses, and investors want to evaluate the developments. Major policy and business decisions would depend on the outcome of these elections. Through this initiative we aim to provide a better understanding of India to our U.S. members so that bilateral relations which are seeing a rocky present, have a cooperative future,“ said Sanjay Puri, the chairman of USINPAC.

USINPAC plans to conduct these calls May 16.

“In an age when we all live with information overload, key decision-makers want a quick, crisp, and high-quality analysis from the real situation on-ground. The financial community on Wall Street is long used to such analyst calls that help them to forecast or price company stocks. We are doing something similar, but with a big difference – our callers are interested in a country, not a company stock,” Puri further added.

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Rahul Gandhi’s interview draws funny reaction

Rahul Gandhi, vice-president of India’s Congress Party, has caused a lot of reaction following his interview to a leading television channel.

According to reports, the Congress had arranged the interview of the possible prime ministerial candidate with NDTV. However, the plans were later changed in favour of another television channel, Times Now, presumably for its higher viewership.

On hindsight, the reaction may have been less satirical if the Congress had stuck with the original plan.