In what would lift the morale of the Congress ahead of the elections to five states, being seen as a weather vane to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, an opinion poll by C-Voter has projected that the party would win polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. The opinion poll, however, did not give a clear majority to any party in Mizoram or Chhattisgarh.

In Rajasthan, which has the tradition of electing an alternative government in every election, the survey has predicted a thumping majority for the Congress with 145 seats, with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje struggling against a strong anti-incumbency factor. The opinion poll gave BJP only 45 seats with 39.7 per cent vote share, against 47.9 per cent of the opposition Congress.

The survey has predicted that the Congress may return to power in Madhya Pradesh after a gap of 15 years on the back of 42.3 per cent vote share. The projections gave BJP 107 seats, down from 166, and a simple majority of 116 seats to the Congress.

Polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana will be held between November 12 and December 7. Counting of votes will be taken up together in all the five states on December 11.

The survey has also projected a clear majority of 64 seats to the Congress-TDP combine in Telangana. The Congress has decided to contest 94 seats in Telangana, sources in Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee said on Thursday. The TDP (Telangana) will contest on 14 seats, while the Telangana Jana Samiti has been offered eight seats and CPI three seats.

The opinion poll did not give a clear majority to any party in Mizoram, with the Mizo National Front projected to lead with 17 seats, followed by the Congress with 12 seats and Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) with nine seats.

Predicting a close contest in Chhattisgarh, C-Voter poll survey gave 41 seats to the Congress with a 42.2 per cent vote share, while BJP is projected to get a slightly lower 41.6 per cent vote share and 43 seats.

Saying that the survey results were “heartening and interesting”, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party was going to win in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and also in Telangana in a resounding manner. “We hope to cross the two-thirds mark in Rajasthan and hope to get close to 140 seats in Madhya Pradesh and over 50-mark in Chhattisgarh. The coalition of Congress will romp home confidently, trouncing the BJP stooge TRS in Telangana. Congress will also retain Mizoram,” he said.

BJP spokesperson Bizay Sonkar Shastri, however, rejected the opinion polls. He said the BJP was heading for a “big victory” in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and that the campaign by “our magic man”, a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, would give a further boost to the party’s prospects.

PTI

Leaders and workers from the Karnataka unit of Congress on Friday slammed the Narendra Modi government’s demonetisation of high value currency notes two years ago, calling it the worst attack in comparison to the 26/11 and the 9/11 attacks on Mumbai and in the US.

Joining party cadres across the country as Congress held protests against the 2016 note ban, Congress state unit chief Dinesh Gundu Rao told the protesters at the city centre that compared to the Mumbai and World Trade Centre attacks by the terrorists demonetisation was worse as “it was an attack made by the country’s Prime Minister himself”.

At least 200 of Congress supporters joined the protests marking the second anniversary of the ban on 500 and 1,000 rupee bills as a “black day”.

The Prime Minister had on November 8 in 2016 banned the currency notes in a sweeping and sudden decision that caused common man to suffer for months, Rao said.

“Ever since not only citizens but even our national banks have been suffering huge loses due to problems in cash flow,” Rao added.

“Whatever reasons were given for the ban, it did not yield any benefits to our economy. The value of rupee also depreciated over the past few months,” Rao said.

Even though the price of crude oil in the international market has been cheaper during the NDA regime compared to what it was during the previous UPA rule, the Modi government failed to pass on the benefits to people, he said.

“The petrol and diesel prices have only been rising even though the crude oil prices have been cheaper globally. The central government is making profits even from fuel,” he said.

The country’s top institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) were also being “attacked” by the union government, he said.

“Modi has not responded to any of the issues raised by our President Rahul Gandhi,” Rao added.

He said it was now only up to the Congress to save the country from the “fascist” rule unleashed by the Modi regime.

“We are the party that worked towards bringing Independence to our nation. It is also our responsibility to save our democracy when it’s under threat,” he added.

A recent survey by India Today has showed that Telangana ,Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is all set to sweep the state elections to be held on the December 7.

According to a mock poll conducted by Political Stock Exchange (PSE), an estimated 75% of respondents voted in favour of TRS.The PSE is an innovative election analysis and keeps weekly track of the political pulse conducted in states that are going to polls in India.

The Telangana PSE poll was conducted with a sample size of 6,877 in 17 parliamentary constituencies in the state through telephonic interviews. Many of them said that the early dissolution of the state Assembly to advance elections was indeed a “masterstroke” that the Chief Minister’s supporters claimed it was.

Social Welfare Schemes scores
The results also showed that there was a strong pro-incumbency wave helping KCR making TRS lead among all segments of society. This is believed to be predominantly due to social welfare schemes like loan waivers for farmers, pension schemes, housing for the poor and other initiatives by the Chief Minister which have not only addressed the problems but also proven to be popular by all the communities and segments in the state.

TRS in the lead
The Telangana Chief Minister has consistently maintained a lead for the past several weeks as per the PSE survey.

Grand Alliance Won’t Work
According to the poll results, the Congress-TD alliance doesn’t seem to be delivering results, and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM is expected to mar the Congress’s fortunes in Hyderabad by eating into its vote bank.

Opposition mind games boost to TRS cadre
The PSE survey added to the mood of the TRS cadres, who said that it had given them a boost in view of the criticism of the government by the Opposition and the targeting of party star campaigners, particularly caretaker minister T. Harish Rao, with “mind games”.

KCR, who had announced the dissolution of the Assembly on September 6 is confident that TRS would sweep the elections by winning hundred seats and come to power with a thumping majority and also said that most of the poll surveys predicted the same.

The BJP Thursday released its third list of 32 candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election slated for November 28, fielding Akash Vijayvargiya, the son of the party’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, from Indore-3 seat and former minister Rakesh Choudhry from Bhind.

With this list, the party has so far released the names for 226 seats in the 230-member MP House. The party has fielded former Bhopal Mayor Krishna Gaur from Govindpura seat of Bhopal in place of former chief minister and her father-in-law, Babu Lal Gaur.

It has denied a ticket to minister of state Surya Prakash Meena from Shamshabad seat in Vidisha district. Akash Vijayvargiya is contesting his maiden election, and has been fielded from the tough Indore-3 seat which has a sizable population of the minority community.

The party’s fiery leader, Usha Thakur, who had wrested the Indore-3 seat from the Congress in 2013 Assembly polls has been shifted to Mhow seat, also in Indore district. Mhow seat is currently held by Kailash Vijayvargiya. Mhow is the birth place of Dalit icon B R Ambedkar. Choudhry Rakesh Singh has been nominated from Bhind.

Ajit Borasi, the son of former Congress MP Premchand Guddu who joined the BJP recently, has been fielded from Ghattiya (SC) seat in Ujjain district in place of Ashok Malviya who was given the party ticket in the first list announced on November 2, party sources said.

Ghattiya seat at present is represented by Satish Malviya of the BJP who has been denied a ticket this time. From Rajpur seat in Barwani district, the BJP has fielded Antar Patel in place of his father Devi Singh Patel, who was declared as the party candidate in the first list but died recently.

Among the 32 names announced Thursday, the BJP has dropped its sitting MLAs Narendra Singh Kushwah from Bhind, Babulal Gaur from Govindpura, Mukesh Choudhry from Mehgaon, Kailash Vijaywargiya from Mhow, Satish Malviya from Ghattiya, Ghanshyam Pironiya from Bhander (SC) and Sanjay Sharma from Tendukheda. Sanjay Sharma had joined Congress recently.

The other sitting MLAs who have been dropped are Govind Singh Patel from Gadarwara, Suryaprakash Meena from Shamshabad, Inder Singh Parmar from Kalapipal and Shantilal Bilwal from Jhabua. “Now only six seats are left for which the BJP has to declare candidates. These are Panna, Lakhnadoun, Seoni Malwa, Bhopal North, Mahidpur and Garoth,” state BJP spokesperson Sarvesh Tiwari said.

The party has reposed faith in 11 sitting MLAs by renominating them from the respective seats they won in 2013. These include Anil Jain from Niwadi, Lakhan Patel from Patharia, Moti Kashyap from Badwara, Arun Bhimawat from Shajapur and Rajendra Verma from Sonkutch.

The other sitting MLAs to be have been renominated are Manoj Patel from Depalpur, Sudarshan Gupta from Indore-1, Ramesh Mendola from Indore-2, Indore Mayor Malini Gaud from Indore-4, Mahendra Hardia from Indore-5 and Rajesh Sonkar from Sanver.

IANS

 Moderate voting was registered for the by-polls to three Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats in Karnataka on Saturday, an Election Commission official said.

“Moderate voting of around 35 per cent has been registered across the five constituencies till 1 p.m. Polling has been going on in a peaceful manner barring few Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) glitches which were rectified soon,” the official told IANS.

The by-polls were being held in Bellary (reserved), Mandya and Shimoga parliamentary constituencies and Ramanagara and Jamkhandi Assembly segments since 7 a.m.

While Jamkhandi registered a high voting percentage of 43.50 as of 1 p.m., Mandya stood at the lowest with 26.8 per cent, the official added.

Shimoga saw 30.2 per cent, Bellary 35.7 per cent and Ramanagara 39.8 per cent of voting.

Voting will take place till 6 p.m. in the 6,543 polling booths across the five constituencies.

A total of 54.5 lakh electorate, 27.2 lakh men and 27.3 lakh women, are eligible to cast their ballots.

As 51,131 voters are physically challenged, the poll panel has arranged vehicles to ferry them for voting from their homes and drop them back.

In all, 31 candidates are in the fray, including five from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), three from the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and two from the Congress and 21 others as Independents or from regional outfits.

BJP’s state unit President B.S. Yeddyurappa’s son B.Y. Raghavendra, who is contesting from Shimoga Lok Sabha seat, was among the early voters in the constituency along with his father.

JD-S candidate for Ramanagara Anitha Kumaraswamy, the wife of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, was seen visiting polling booths in the constituency to ensure polling was taking place smoothly.

Vote counting of all the five constituencies will take place on November 6.

IANS

More than 200 journalists, most of them retired or semi-retired, accused US President Donald Trump of a “sustained pattern” of attacking media in an open letter published a day after a spate of suspected pipe bombs were sent to CNN and several prominent Trump critics.

“Trump’s condoning of political violence is part of a sustained pattern of attack on a free press – which includes labeling any reportage he doesn’t like as ‘fake news’ and barring reporters and news organisations whom he wishes to punish from press briefings and events,” stated the letter, which was published on Thursday morning.

Lambasting Trump’s recent praise for a violent assault on a Guardian journalist, the letter went on to accuse Trump of undermining media freedoms and inciting violence against the press.

Among the signatories were former press workers for CNN, ABC and Los Angeles Times.

In Texas, Trump speech takes far-right turn: ‘I’m a nationalist.’
Starting with a suspected explosive device sent to the home of liberal billionaire philanthropist and financier George Soros, at least 10 packages containing pipe bombs have been mailed to prominent critics of Trump this week.

Other packages were addressed to former US President Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, actor Robert Deniro and former CIA director John Brennan in care of CNN, among others.

The incident comes just two weeks before midterm elections, which are expected to be a referendum on Trump’s performance.

Blaming the press
On Thursday morning, Trump renewed his attacks on the press, taking to Twitter in an apparent attempt to blame the media for the spate of suspected bombs.

“A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News,” he tweeted.

“It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

His comments were met with derision from CNN President Jeff Zucker, who charged the Trump administration with “a total and complete lack of understanding … about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media”.

Bill de Blasio, New York City’s mayor, described the string of packages as an “act of terror”.

“Don’t encourage violence, don’t encourage hatred, don’t encourage attacks on media,” he added without naming Trump.

“Unfortunately this atmosphere of hatred is contributing to the choices people are making to turn to violence.”

But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump’s comments on Thursday morning. “Day in, day out, there is a negative tone,” Sanders told press outside the White House.

“You guys continue to focus only on the negative and there is a role to play.”

Since coming to office, Trump has been widely criticised by rights groups and press freedom organisations for his frequent criticism of the media.

After five press workers were killed by a shotgun-wielding man in Maryland in June, the US became the second most dangerous country for journalists during the first half of 2018, according to the International News Safety Institute.

Aljazeera

he Modi government created a four-member Group of Ministers (GoM) Wednesday to battle sexual harassment at the workplace.

Rajnath Singh will chair the GoM, which also comprises Nirmala Sitharaman, Maneka Gandhi and Nitin Gadkari. They will recommend ways to effectively implement existing legal and institutional frameworks, and to strengthen them.

The #MeToo movement, a global movement against sexual misconduct, has exploded in India. Several high-profile public figures have been named. One of them, MJ Akbar, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women, resigned from his post as a cabinet minister.

He denies the charges against him, and has filed a defamation case against his first accuser, senior journalist Priya Ramani.

India has taken steps to crack down on sexual offences in recent weeks. Last month, the government launched a sex offender registry, as well as a second portal which citizens can use to complain anonymously about online content such as child porn.

It has also launched an electronic complaint box so women can complain about sexual harassment at the workplace.

India Today

Sandalwood actor Jaggesh and actress Harshika Poonacha openly questioned the motive behind #MeToo movement in the industry.

Jaggesh spoke in support of actor Arjun Sarja, while Harshika targeted actresses using their femininity as a tool for publicity on her Facebook wall by dubbing their effort “#metooforpublicity”.

Jaggesh told that Sarja is a simple man just like Dr Rajkumar and Dr Vishnuvardhan. He is very polite and well behaved actor.

Harshika Poonacha condemned the actors who are raising their voice against the issue after so many days.

In a Facebook post, Harshika wrote, “Most of these so called activist actresses do everything when they badly need a push in the initial stages of their careers (get cast in good films, make money, network, travel, luxurious life etc).

“By giving all the freedom to these men, they now accuse (them) for publicity. They start targeting the same men (with whom) they were smiling and walking hand in hand! I personally have seen these so called great activist actresses smoking ganja, having a great time in their song shoots in foreign countries, falling on famous men (actors from other industries, producers, real estate barons etc at big award functions in Malaysia, Dubai, Singapore etc) and doing things that I do not want to mention here.”

PTI

On the lines of #Metoo, a group of 15 people, including a former French diplomat acquitted in a sexual abuse case in 2017, has launched a #MenToo movement, asking men to come out and speak openly about the sexual harassment faced by them at the hands of women.
The campaign was launched here Saturday by NGO Children’s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (Crisp) to protest against the #Metoo movement, false cases aganist men among others.

Speaking on the occasion, National President of Crisp, Kumar V Jahgirdar said the group would fight for gender neutral laws and demand punishment for those filing false cases under #MeToo campaign.

Noting that #MeToo was a good movement, he however said it should not be misused to fix somebody by levelling false allegations.
“This movement has only resulted in bringing disrepute to men who have worked hard to earn respect in society,” he said.

Later, talking to reporters, Jahgirdar said unlike #MeToo victims, who bring about sexual abuse stories that happened a couple of decades ago, the #MenToo stories would be related to recent incidents.

On #MeToo movement, Jahgirdar further said if the affected women have genuine case of sexual misbehaviour, they should take legal recourse, instead of putting out stories on social media.
Former French diplomat Pascal Mazurier, who was accused of sexually abusing his daughter and later, acquitted by a city court in 2017 also took part in the protest.

He said #MenToo campaign was not at all a counter to #MeToo campaign, but to address the problems of men who do not speak up against women’s atrocities.
“There is real pain among men.. They are also suffering, but they are not coming out in the open against women and their misdemeanors,” he said.

The false allegation levelled on men in #MeToo campaign not only destroys children’s future, but also families, Pascal noted.
“We make laws to protect women. That is fine, but let us not forget half of humanity are men,” he added.

Pascal is facing a court battle after his wife had moved the Karnataka High Court challenging a city-based court’s verdict acquitting him.
Pascal’s wife has custody of their three children.

The #Me Too movement has gathered pace over the past few days with a number of women speaking out on sexual harassment at their workplace and support for them has been pouring in from various quarters.

Former Union Minister MJ Akbar, film personalities like Alok Nath, Subhash Ghai, Nana Patekar and Vairamuthu have been accused of sexual harassment by a number of women under the #MeToo movement.

PTI