Paswan vows to make Modi Prime Minister

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LJP’s shift towards BJP was not sudden; it happened over a few months

Paswan vows to make Modi Prime Minister

VARGHESE K. GEORGE | NEW DELHI | March 1, 2014:: As he finalised an alliance with BJP president Rajnath Singh on Thursday night, Lok Jan Shakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan phoned Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi at Gujarat Bhawan in the national capital.

“I am with you and will work to make you the Prime Minister,” Mr. Paswan told Mr. Modi. The LJP chief wanted to meet Mr. Modi, but the latter was busy.

Mr. Paswan’s somersault — from being a staunch critic of Mr. Modi to a follower — was not sudden; it happened over the past few months, sources said. His disagreement with the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal over sharing of seats was insignificant.

“He was clear where he wanted to be,” a BJP source said.

In December, Mr. Paswan’s brother Pashupati Nath Paras approached leaders of the BJP Bihar unit for an alliance.

The BJP leaders were wary in the beginning, as they feared that Mr. Paswan was trying to use the party as a bargaining chip with the Congress.

But Mr. Modi let the party president keep the conversation going, aided by Bihar leaders Sushil Modi, Ravishankar Prasad and Shahnawaz Hussain.

To test Mr. Paswan’s seriousness, the BJP asked him to state publicly his revised position on Mr. Modi.

Early this week, the LJP chief’s son Chirag Paswan said, “The courts had given a clean chit to Mr. Modi,” and the Gujarat riots were no longer relevant.

“We cannot be without power for another five years. The only choice to make is whether to join the BJP before or after the elections,” an LJP insider quoted Mr. Chirag Paswan as saying at an internal meeting.

Seat share

While the Congress offered the LJP three of Bihar’s six reserved constituencies, where Mr Paswan, his son and brother would have contested, the BJP gave him seven.

The seventh, Nalanda, is not a stronghold of either party.

Courtesy: The Hindu.

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Narendra Modi's 'Saffron' run for unity has its notes on huge success.

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Modi and BJP ramp up election race with ‘Run for Unity’

Series of events to drum up support for Sardar Patel statue in Gujarat

Darshan Desai | The Hindu | Vadodara | Dec 16, 2013:: Seeking by all accounts to boost his prospects in the next general elections, Narendra Modi on Sunday launched a ‘Run for Unity’ here in central Gujarat, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party simultaneously sought to replicate it in hundreds of other venues across the country.

In doing so, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate gave a new dimension to his efforts to link the legacy of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to his own campaign in the run-up to 2014.

The run is aimed to drum up support for the Gujarat Chief Minister’s mega-project for the Statue of Unity, a monument of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel billed as the largest statue in the world, to come up at Sadhubet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam. The run marked the 63rd death anniversary of Sardar Patel. 

 According to State government sources, more than 40 lakh people participated in events at 1,100 places across India.

Flagging off the run here, Mr. Modi claimed India would come up as a superpower on the strong pillars of unity, good governance and people’s participation. “This is not a mere run; it is a public movement that certainly would lead India to reach the destination of a superpower,” he said.

The Chief Minister, who has been talking of inclusive development and been reaching out to the minority communities, on Sunday said India’s diversity is not its weakness but its distinguishing characteristic.

“Our diversity is not something that exists only on paper but it is our unique identity and a source of our tremendous strength,” Mr. Modi said. “It is the responsibility of our present and future generations strengthening India’s unity in her diversity.  Run for Unity is a drive towards patriotism and that it should not be seen as a part of politics,” he added.

Following the path of Sardar Patel’s message of unity, Gujarat had emerged as a model of development and like the State, India could also be a super power by uniting people, said Mr. Modi.

“This run is being organised with a determination to unite the people, unite the villages and unite the nation,” Mr. Modi said, claiming it was all about “patriotism”.

In Delhi, Ahmedabad

BJP president Rajnath Singh and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley flagged off the ‘Run for Unity’ from the party headquarters in Delhi. Senior party leader L.K. Advani participated in the programme in Ahmedabad. [Courtesy: The Hindu]. 

'Saffron' run for unity

Jaideep Deogharia | TNN | Ranchi/Jamshedpur |Dec 16, 2013:: In the run up to 2014 general elections, BJP managed to gather a huge crowd to support 'Run for Unity' on the occasion of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel's death anniversary on Sunday. In Jharkhand, hundreds of BJP supporters and public came together at 33 different points including all 24 district headquarters under the leadership of local BJP leaders and demonstrated their commitment towards the nation.

Member of national executive committee of the party for collection of iron tools, which will be used in constructing Patel's statue, Saryu Rai told journalists that the process of collecting iron tools would begin all over the country with Sunday's 'Run for Unity'. "Jharkhand is all set to collect maximum iron which will be used to build the world's tallest statue because the state is not just agrarian but has also showed its commitment towards nation building time and again," he said.

The run in Ranchi was flagged off by Rai along with former CM Arjun Munda, BJP state president Ravindra Rai and former Ranchi MP Ram Tahal Choudhary. Around 500 people including students, members of non-governmental organizations, professionals and party workers joined the run that started from Sainik Market and concluded at Albert Ekka Chowk on the Main Road covering a distance of 1km.

Addressing the gathering, Munda said India comprises people from different religions, castes and languages but when it comes to the nation's unity and integrity all are ready to stand in the same queue. "Run for Unity despite being anchored by BJP was aimed at showing the strength of unity to the world," he said explaining that the statue of unity would symbolize India's emergence as a global power.

Read the rest here. Courtesy: TOI.

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Exit poll shows that 'Hindu nationalist BJP' gaining Four States as an effect of Modi Boost.

India Opposition Seen Winning Four State Elections in Modi Boost

Bloomberg | Andrew MacAskill & Bibhudatta Pradhan | Dec 4, 2013:: India’s main opposition party is set to take control of two states from the Congress party and keep control in two others, boosting its campaign to end the ruling party’s 10-year hold on power in national voting next year, exit polls showed.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which picked Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate in September, will win elections in states that account for almost a sixth of India’s population, including two currently held by the ruling Congress party, according to an exit poll conducted by C-Voter and broadcast on the Times Now television channel. Vote counting and official results will occur on Dec. 8.

The elections, held in recent weeks, are the final test for India’s two major national parties before elections that must be held by May 2014. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party has seen corruption scandals, elevated consumer inflation and the weakest economic growth in a decade erode its popularity.

BJP victories in the four states may boost Indian stocks, according to Deven Choksey, managing director of Mumbai-based K.R. Choksey Shares & Securities Pvt. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, which has climbed 6.6 percent this year, fell 0.7 percent in Mumbai today.

“These results are good news for the stock market,” Choksey said. “The turnout in Delhi means a big victory margin for the BJP. A victory in Delhi will be the trump card for the BJP in the 2014 national elections.”

Delhi Poll

In a setback for Congress, the exit poll shows the Hindu nationalist BJP gaining its highest seat tally since 1993 in New Delhi while falling short of a majority. The BJP will have 29 of the capital’s 70 seats, with the incumbent Congress taking 21. The Aam Aadmi Party, which campaigned against corruption while contesting its first election, is poised to win 16 seats to hold the balance of power, the poll showed.

The BJP will also wrest control of Rajasthan from Congress by winning 130 out of 200 seats, up from its current total of 78, according to the poll.

While Modi’s party will retain power in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Congress is poised to gain seats from its current tallies, the poll showed. In Mizoram, a small state in India’s northeast ruled by Congress that also held elections, no exit polls were conducted.

No margin of error or details of the poll methodology were given.

All the state elections had record voter turnout, the Hindustan Times reported, without saying where it got the information.

Modi Record

Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state in western India, is projecting his record of governance and stronger-than-average economic growth in the state he has ruled since 2001 in an attempt to propel his party to national power. Congress has been deploying Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi, the party’s president, both members of a political dynasty that has ruled the country for more than half of the 66 years since independence.

The price of onions, a key ingredient in Indian cooking, has climbed 278 percent in the last year. Higher food prices eat into consumers’ disposable incomes and disproportionately impact the poor who make up about two thirds of India’s population.

India’s final full session of parliament before the general election begins tomorrow. The government has listed 38 bills for passage including one that would give a third of the seats in parliament to women. Singh said yesterday the government is committed to passing legislation to create a new state in southern India. [Courtesy: Bloomberg].

Congressi joker Veni Verma madly compares Majestic Modi with a Rat Rahul. Batting for Rahul, Hitting Modi.

Joke of the year. Rahul Gandy will hoist Tri Colour in Red Fort on 15 August 2014, not Modi.

"A Congressi Maroon and Indian Union Steel Minister Veni Prasad Verma got mad. Tries to compare a Majestic Modi with a Rat Rahul.

Actually Veni Prasad Verma got frightened seeing a future-scope that Narendra Modi hoisting Tri Colour in Red Fort on 15 August 2014. Modi is inevitable. Rahul may flee from India." ~ Editor, Modi Times.  

Narendra Modi will get tired of making speeches from fake Red Forts, Rahul Gandhi will be PM: Beni Prasad Verma.

New Delhi | NDTV | Reported by Anant Zanane, Edited by Diana George |  03 Dec 2013::  Congressman Beni Prasad Verma, known for his controversial comments, has predicted that Rahul Gandhi will hoist the national flag at Delhi's Red Fort on Independence Day next year as Prime Minister.

Mr Verma said, while taking yet another swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, that, "Modi will get tired making speeches from fake Red Forts. Then, Rahul will hoist the flag on August 15, 2014."

The Congress has not officially projected Mr Gandhi, who is the party's number 2, as its presumptive prime minister for the general elections due by May. Senior party men have often hinted that the 43-year-old is the natural choice for the top job if the Congress gets a third straight mandate to rule, while also insisting that the party does not announce a prime ministerial candidate before elections.

But Mr Verma, who is the Union Steel Minister, will not resort to circumspection. "Our Prime Minister himself has said that Rahul Gandhi is the next prime minister," he said.

He had last year declared that the 2014 general elections would be a Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi contest, though the Congress has repeatedly made it clear that it finds such a comparison odious.

Read the full report. Click Here>> Courtesy: NDTV.

Bogus Veni goes on...

2014 polls will be a contest between Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi: Beni Prasad Verma.

New Delhi | IBN Live | 03 Dec 2013:: Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma has put his party in a spot again by saying that the next Lok Sabha elections in 2014 could be a direct fight between Congress general secretary and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi.

Verma hit out at Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav over his prime ministerial ambitions, saying the next Prime Minister will be either a Congress leader or Narendra Modi, and not Mulayam.

"The next government at the Centre will be of either Congress or (Narendra) Modi and not SP or Third Front," said the Congress leader.He further said, "The 2014 Lok Sabha elections will be a direct fight between Modi and Rahul Gandhi."

Reacting to the attack on the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the Samajwadi Party has sought his ouster from the Cabinet.

"He (Beni Prasad Verma) has no right to remain as a Cabinet minister. If the government does not remove him, we will rethink on giving our support to the UPA. We will not support this government on the cost of our dignity," said Samajwadi Party leader Mohan Singh.

However, the Congress appeared to downplay the comments of Prasad, with Union Minister Harish Rawat saying there was no comparison between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi.

Read the full report. Click Here>> Courtesy: IBN Live.

Rural poor eye Narendra Modi's promise. Modi storm everywhere including Congress bastion.

In the Gandhi political bastion, rural poor eye Narendra Modi's promise

Friday, Nov 29, 2013, 8:22 IST | Agency: Reuters:: If Sonia Gandhi and her Congress party need evidence that their policies of subsidies and safety nets for India's poor may no longer be enough to keep their support, they need look no further than her own constituency of Rai Bareli.

In the family borough in the northern heartland, which has been loyal to India's most powerful dynasty from the days of first Prime Minister Jawaharal Nehru, voters want electricity, hospitals and roads, more than the cheap food on offer. Such a change of heart threatens to upend the Congress party's central calculation to win next year's election: that poor rural voters who make up the backbone of support will stay loyal because of the big welfare programmes it promotes, including a flagship $21 billion food subsidy scheme. Instead, even in such a bastion of Congress support as Rai Bareli district, opposition leader Narendra Modi's message of growth and investment is gaining ground, despite critics' misgivings about his hardline Hindu nationalist roots and a perceived bias against the nation's minority Muslims.

"We don't need subsidised food ... It's a donation and we don't want that charity," said Arjun Rewal, a farmer in the Rai Bareli hamlet of Shivgarh in the centre of India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. "We need hospitals with doctors, we need roads, we need electricity supply and we need someone who can tackle inflation," the 52-year-old said, emphasising his point with a stab of his earth-brown finger. Rewal and the farmers with him, who meet one evening a week in the grounds of an old palace, see Modi as the person who can deliver. "In this area, for the first time, people are talking about another political leader and that is Narendra Modi," he said. Modi has promised quick reforms and an end to a prolonged period of policy paralysis, pointing to the double-digit pace of expansion in the western state of Gujarat that he has governed for three terms.

Uttar Pradesh sends 80 members of parliament to New Delhi, more than any other state. In the last election in 2009, Congress won 21 seats and Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 10. According to a recent opinion poll by AC Nielsen for the Economic Times, the BJP could win 27 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the next election, due by May, with Congress winning just 12. Rahul Gandi, Nehru's great grandson, looks likely to lead the Congress into the election, but he was generally seen as lacklustre at state election rallies in Uttar Pradesh in 2012.

Click Here>>Complete Reading Courtesy: DNA.

Out of frustration Congress baselessly attacks on Modi and Gujarat: Prakash Javadekar

Congress using wrong data to target Modi: BJP

TNN | NEW DELHI | 29 NOV 2013:: BJP on Thursday attacked the Centre for making "baseless allegations" against the Gujarat government, saying it was using wrong data to defame CM Narendra Modi. 

Sibal had described Gujarat as the most indebted state. 

"Sibal has failed to convince even himself with these figures. He did a lot of data mining but came up with wrong data. He is levelling baseless charges against Gujarat and its chief minister," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said. 

The law minister had sought to puncture Modi's development claims, saying his Gujarat model was not backed by facts. Sibal released a 32-page document carrying statistics about the state's performance on various paradigms and alleged that Gujarat was the "most indebted state of India".

Javadekar suggested that Sibal should do his "homework" well before levelling such charges. 

"We can understand the Congress frustration and that it is unsettled by the response Modi is getting across the country.  Click Here>>Complete Reading Courtesy: TOI.

In short: Narendra Modi. said, "If Congress had followed development agenda for 60 years then things would be different today!"

Gujarat's debt is only 14 per cent of GSDP figures. Unemployment figure in Gujarat is only seven in 1,000. Agriculture growth has been above 10 per cent for the last decade in the state. It is also the first among states in implementation of the 20-point programme in the last 10 years. Congress should not indulge in hollow criticism. Congress=Corruption=Concoction.

Mad Mama of Tarun Thaelka Tejpal and Central Minister Kapil Sibbal is levelling baseless charges against Gujarat and its chief minister and also the Prime Ministerial candidate Sri Narendra Bhai Modi.

Nationalist wave in Jammu. Now Time is set for Narendra Modi's Meeting.

Preparations in full swing for Narendra Modi's Jammu rally.

PTI | Jammu | 28 Nov 2013: :  Security has been beefed up in Jammu for the proposed rally of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, with the police sealing the venue and making it out of bounds for general public.

Checking of all vehicles coming to and leaving Jammu is being conducted at various security points across the city, police said.

DGP Ashok Prasad visited the venue to review security arrangements, and directed to ensure that the dais is built in the presence of policemen and the material used is properly checked.

M A M stadium has been sealed and made out of bounds for general public till the rally day.

Policemen with sniffer dogs and metal detectors have sanitised the stadium. Police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in and outside the stadium complex as the first tier of the security.

BJP is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that Mr Modi's rally is a grand success. Party has set up a control room and constituted 23 teams to ensure that the event is conducted smoothly, local BJP leaders said.

Click Here>>Complete Reading Courtesy: NDTV.

Modi, Vasundhara a winning combination for Rajasthan polls

Modi, Vasundhara a winning combination for Rajasthan polls: Jaitley.

New Delhi, Nov. 27 (ANI)::  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that Vasundhara Raje and Narendra Modi are a winning combination for the Rajasthan state assembly elections to be held on December 1.

"BJP has a winning combination in poll bound Rajasthan with the leadership of Vasundharaji and Modiji," Jaitley told media here.

The upcoming election in Rajasthan is being seen as a litmus test for both the BJP and the Congressahead of the 2014 general elections.

Rajasthan is currently governed by a Congress Government. The counting of votes will take place on December 8.

Modi had earlier said the development in Rajasthan has come to a standstill under the Ashok Gehlot-led regime.

Addressing a rally here recently, Modi criticised the Gehlot Government for ignoring the tourism sector of the state, which he said is a huge revenue generator.

"Due to the poor policies of the Gehlot Government, the number of tourists visiting the state is decreasing day by day. It is an issue of serious concern," he added.

Click Here>>Complete Reading Courtesy: Yahoo.