As Pakistani Rangers continued shelling on the international border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the security forces have a free hand to respond as they deem fit if the neighbouring country continued the offensive.

Speaking at the Border Security Force’s (BSF) 16th investiture ceremony function here, Singh said “We have a neighbour that does not want to correct itself.

“Yet, we must not fire the first bullet at our neighbour. But if it opens fire, you (security forces) have to decide what action to take. Then no one will ask why you did so.”

New Delhi had on May 16, announced a ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, asking security forces to halt their operations during Ramadan to help “peace loving Muslims” observe the holy month in a peaceful environment.

The Minister also said that perhaps the neighbouring nation “did not want peace for some unknown reasons”.

According to the police, the Pakistani Rangers have been carrying out indiscriminate shelling and firing in Arnia, R.S.Pura and Ramgarh sectors in the Jammu and Samba districts since Monday. At least 30 BSF outposts and some two dozen border villages have been targeted.

Proving third time unlucky as Karnataka’s Chief Minister, the BJP’s Lingayat strongman, B.S. Yeddyurappa, stares at an uncertain future although his party bets on his return to power again.

“Yeddyurappa will continue to be the party’s state unit president till we return to power again. He will become chief minister again before his political career ends,” Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Vamanacharya told IANS here.

Yeddyurappa, 75, resigned on Saturday before the crucial trust vote as he did not have the majority in a hung House, falling seven short of the 111-halfway mark in the 225-member Legislative Assembly, whose current strength is 222.

Of the 222 assembly segments where the election was held on May 12, BJP won 104, the Congress 78, the Janata Dal-Secular, 37 and one each by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party (KPJP) and an Independent, leading to an inconclusive election.

Election in one assembly segment in Bengaluru has been deferred to May 28 due to electoral malpractice and countermanded in another constituency due to the death of BJP contestant B.N. Vijaya Kumar. One member of the Anglo-Indian community is nominated to the House.

Mauled at the hustings, a bruised Congress and a wounded Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) came together after the poll results threw up a hung House and formed a post-poll alliance to upstage the BJP in the numbers game and also staked claimed to power.

When Governor Vajubhai R. Vala invited Yeddurappa to form a BJP government and take oath as Chief Minister after he too staked claim to power, a defiant Congress and its JD-S ally petitioned the Supreme Court to stall his swearing-in and advance the floor test from the 15 days laid down.

Though the alliance partners did not succeed in preventing Yeddyurappa taking oath on May 17, they prevailed upon the apex court to advance the floor test to May 19, which he did not take in the absence of even the simple majority.

Admitting that the BJP has in the Congress-JD-S a common foe than two rival parties, Vamanacharya said the combined alliance would be their target to beat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

“We are setting our sight on the 2019 general elections as Yeddyurappa vowed to win in all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the southern state during his emotional speech on the floor of the House before bowing out of office gracefully,” said Vamanacharya.

With the focus henceforth on the parliamentary elections, the BJP will not worry much on what will happen in the hung assembly or how long the Congress-JD-S coalition government will last, currently with a combined strength of 115 seats.

Political analyst Sandeep Shastri, however, feels Yedddyurappa’s prospects of becoming Chief Minister again are bleak for various reasons.

“Yeddyurappa’s speech in the Assembly before calling quits sounded as a farewell address. Three-four years later, he may not be eligible to become chief minister again if we go by the BJP’s yardstick of not having leaders above 75 years in power. This election possibly was his last chance at the power,” Shastri told IANS.

BJP’s veteran leaders like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha have sidelined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they were above 75 years in age.

“But the party is certain to bank on Yeddyurappa’s popularity as a Lingayat leader for the general elections,” Shastri added.

Observing that the BJP may not tinker with its state leadership for the time being, Shastri said Yeddyurappa would continue to be the party’s chief campaigner for the Lok Sabha elections as the tallest Lingayat leader across the state.

Vamanacharya, however, contended that age was no bar for the party, as there was no other leader to rival Yeddyurappa in seniority and stature at the state level.

“Age is no bar for us as there is no competition to him (Yeddyurappa). As he has been declared a leader, creating parallels will not be a good sign of a national party,” Vamanacharya added.

The party’s hunch is that the Congress-JD-S alliance may fall apart sooner than later, giving Yeddyurappa another chance to become Chief Minister for the fourth time.

“Let the Congress and JD-S fight, then the anti-incumbency, which exists against the former will escalate, as some of its re-elected legislators will be back in power in their coalition government,” noted the spokesman.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao will give the swearing-in ceremony of HD Kumaraswamy in Karnataka a miss on Wednesday, choosing to meet the JD(S) leader a day before instead.

The Chief Minister’s Office has said that Rao will skip Kumaraswamy’s oath-taking ceremony because of “important engagements”. Speculation, however, is rife that he doesn’t want to share the stage with leaders of the Congress, the regional rival of his party Telangana Rashtra Samiti.

Rao was the first among opposition leaders to moot the idea of a federal front ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but the JD(S) decision to enter into post-poll alliance with the Congress has put the TRS chief in a spot.

Not wanting to be seen sharing the same space as Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi months before General and Assembly elections, KCR will thus skip the first big show of opposition unity, that too in a southern state.

Besides the Gandhis, Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in ceremony is likely to be attended by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu.

Kumaraswamy was among the regional leaders KCR had met to gather support for his ‘federal front’ idea and had even urged Telugu voters in Karnataka to back the JD(S).

Reacting to KCR’s move, the Telangana BJP said the ‘federal front’ idea was “nothing but parties uniting against the BJP”.

“KCR supported JD(S) and now they are going with the Congress. The JD(S) and the Congress even chose Hyderabad to shelter their MLAs in a bid to prevent poaching, with TRS support. The TRS hidden agenda is exposed. The federal front is nothing but parties uniting against the BJP. The TRS will become like the JD(S) here and help Congress,” said Telangana BJP president K Laxman.

For Chandrababu Naidu, the swearing-in ceremony is an opportunity to place itself among opposition parties, having quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) earlier this year.

With a declared income of Rs 82.76 crore, the Samajwadi Party is the richest of the 32 regional parties in India, a report by Association for Democratic Reforms said on Tuesday.

The SP was closely followed by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) with an income of Rs 72.92 crore and AIADMK with Rs 48.88 crore.

The total income of the 32 regional parties for 2016-17 fiscal was Rs 321.03 crore.

Out of these, 14 parties claimed decline in income and 13 others an increase in income.

Five regional parties did not submitted their income tax return to the Election Commission. These are Indian National Lok Dal, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party, All India United Democratic Front, and Kerala Congress-Mani.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and Janata Dal-Secular declared that more than 87 per cent of their total respective incomes remaining unspent, while the TDP said 67 per cent of its income remaining unspent.

The DMK declared spending Rs 81.88 crore more than its income while the Samajwadi Party and AIADMK declared spending Rs 64.34 crore and Rs 37.89 crore more than their total incomes respectively.

Apart from these 32, audit reports of 16 regional parties were unavailable. These include Aam Aadmi Party, National Conference, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday seized assets worth Rs 20.87 crore belonging to the director of Dabur India Limited under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for holding assets abroad.

The seizure order has been issued pursuant to an investigation which prima facie revealed that the company’s Director Pradip Burman had deposited $3.21 million in his account with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in Zurich, according to ED officials.

Burman declared before the Income Tax Department that he had earned the amount, but had not shown it in the IT returns, filed in India for the period 2007-08.

After the investigation, the IT Department filed a prosecution complaint against him in the court of metropolitan magistrate, which is pending trial.

Actor-playwright and BJP leader Sve Shekhar Venkataraman, who forwarded a misogynistic post about woman journalists, got some relief from the Supreme Court today.

Sve Shekhar was facing arrest after his Facebook post infuriated people on social media. The post, which he later deleted, abused women journalists, saying they are illiterate, stupid and ugly, and accused them of getting ahead in their profession by granting sexual favours.

It contained equally derogatory comments about the young woman journalist who had objected after she was patted on the cheek by Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit at an official programme. The woman journalist, the post said, only intended to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Governor “should wash his hands with phenyl” for touching her.

The leader’s defence – that he had forwarded the post without reading its contents – failed to placate the state’s women activists and politicians like DMK’s Kanimozhi, who demanded his immediate arrest. A case was lodged against him following a complaint by the Tamil Nadu Journalist Protection Welfare Association.

The Madras High Court, where he appealed for anticipatory bail, refused to grant it. In its order, the court said forwarding a message on social media, be it read or not, amounted to accepting and endorsing it. Justice S Ramathilagam said a post like that would “send a wrong message to the society at a time when we are talking about women empowerment” since a celebrity has a huge following.

The top court today warded off the possibility of any immediate arrest and issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu police after Sve Shekhar’s lawyer argued that his client just forwarded the message, and later deleted it and apologised.

The drama revolving around the Karnataka state elections refuses to fade away. The assembly election results were not able to provide a clear mandate to any party. The BJP emerged as the single largest party but popular rivals Congress and JD-S forged an alliance within hours of the announcement of the result after realising that the coalition will have the numbers to form the government.

This paved the way for the controversy about who should first be invited by the Governor: the party with the largest number of seats or the post-election alliance with majority seats. The Governor sided with the BJP, and B.S. Yeddyurappa was sworn in as the Chief Minister. But this decision was challenged by the Congress and petitions were filed in the Supreme Court. The Court ordered a floor test but Yeddyurappa resigned before this could be conducted.

Amidst all this chaos and despite the final verdict, BJP has emerged as a clear winner. Its vote share increased from 19.9 percent to 36.2 percent, and the party was able to up its tally by almost 64 seats and gained the much-needed momentum for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. On the other hand, Congress and JD-S both have suffered losses in the number of seats — that of the Congress going down from 122 to 78 and the JD-S securing three less that the 37 seats it had in the outgoing house.

One of the biggest questions that emerges from these results is what went wrong for Congress or to put it in other words, how was the BJP able to swing public support in its favour? Was the electorate just living up to its reputation of not re-electing the ruling party since 1985 or was it the way parties conducted their election campaigns? The search for the answer leads us to the bigger question of what makes Indian voters tick.

An analysis of the electoral outcome provides the answer. The analysis predicted that Congress party has just 18 percent chance of coming back to power in Karnataka. It took into account a) average growth in per capita GSDP for the last three years, b) the average change in Social Progress scores for the last three years, c) consumer and business confidence and d) media presence to understand the voting dynamics of world’s largest democracy.

The growth in per capita GSDP and change in regional social progress reflect how the economic and social benefits accrued to the citizens due to the policies of the state government. Consumer confidence and business confidence captured the trust that people have in the central government. The last indicator captured the interest enjoyed by the political parties.

There are three things that shape up the voting behaviour in India.

First, social issues. The analysis brings out that while casting their vote, people keep in mind two major social issues – inclusion and wellbeing. Inclusion encompasses indicators that capture how acceptable a region is towards minorities and other socially backward groups, and how they treat women. An inclusive incumbent increases its chances of coming back to power by 3.6 percent. And if the voters feel that the party will work towards basic wellbeing such as healthcare and education, its chances move up by 2.1 percent.

The BJP was able to target both issues. The BJP rallies focussed on the pro-poor initiatives and welfare schemes. The issues included providing gas connections, electrifying rural India, Swachh Bharat Mission for an open defecation free country, health benefits, housing for the poor and financial inclusion et al.

Second, media interactions. Media is among the major factors that help voters form their opinion and affects voter’s perception about the leaders and political parties. According to the analysis, an incumbent’s chances of re-election increase by 28 percent if it enjoys more social media interest than the rival parties. The interactions on media are of high significance because it provides voters with the facts and figures that can help them to make informed choices.

Nowadays, apart from traditional sources of media, social media platforms are being leveraged by the political parties to interact with voters. Citizens also use social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to participate in political discussions and communicate with leaders. The right use of social media can help political parties swing public opinion in their favour. Although all the parties upped their social media game compared to the Gujarat elections, data shows that 51 percent of the tweets were in favour of BJP. The Google trends data also shows that the interest was in favour of BJP and not the incumbent.

Third, confidence in the party. The analysis predicted that if the citizens trust the central government and the same party rules the state then the chances of an incumbent getting re-elected increase by 9 percent. The BJP banked on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity to attract voters in Karnataka. Modi is known for connecting with the voters, and therefore he enjoys overwhelming support from the citizens. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has still not been able to build that trust in the minds of voters, and this drives down the confidence that party has in the party.

All these factors together worked in favour of BJP. The lesson in the run-up to other state elections is that parties should bank on the social issues that people face and leverage traditional and modern media platforms to garner interest in their favour.

The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President Dr.G Parameshwara made it clear that there won’t be any understanding between the Congress and the JD(S) in Jayanagara and Rajarajeshwari Nagar elections regardless of alliance f government in the state.

Addressing media people here on Sunday, he said that the Congress has finished the names of a contender for RR Nagar. The subject of coalition won’t raise as applicants of the two parties are in the field.

In the meantime, assigned CM and JD(S) State President H D Kumaraswamy said that nothing has been settled about the coalition in both the constituencies.

It is said that there would be an amicable battle between the applicants of these two parties in both the constituencies. In the meantime, for the Jayanagara constituencies which was cleared by the passing of present MLA and BJP applicant B N Vijayakumar, the BJP is truly considering handling his brother Prahlad Babu. The names of former chairman S K Nataraj, Tejaswi Soorya, and Union Minister Ananth Kumar’s wife Tejaswini Ananth Kumar are in the list.

BJP senior leaders have relegated the duty of RR Nagar election to Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda and Ananth Kumar will be the in-charge for Jayanagara constituency elections.