G_B_ Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 @SG they gave prithviraj full authority for BMC elections in 2012. It was disastrous for the congress. The man is clean. He is a good administrator. There is just no doubt about it. But he has the political savy of a cucumber. Back in 2012 the Sena were on the mat in the BMC elections. MNS was a big force with which to cut their votes. Prithviraj mucked it up. Some incredibly poor tactics in terms of candidate selections. The truth is if you give him free reign half the congress tier 2 leader and district heads will jump ship to every other political party. Less said about Nagpur municipal polls the better. By the time Prithviraj Chavan was done Congress was left only with Solapur as the only major urban area they controlled. Even the NCP had/have Pimpri Pune and Kohlapur in terms of mayors. Ashok Chavan has won the Congress and NCP combine a victory in 2009 Assembly elections. People in rural maharashtra dont give a **** about what happened in some posh part of mumbai. Your not talking about an irrigation scam. For one NCP will play ball with him. You give Prithviraj the reigns and NCP will aim to bury the congress. They just dont like the man. Its sad for Maharashtra that nobody within Maharashtra Congress like Prithivraj. I was glad he won his Karad seat.
G_B_ Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 And just to give you an example, my cousins were telling me about this. Back in 2012 BMC elections Chavan was given a free reign. Narayan Rane was sulking at the time and sidelined. I think Kripashanker Singh's (ex mumbai unit chief) son has been caught in a 2g scam so the party did not want him to front the elections. Now Kalina is a traditional congress stronghold (its now with the Sena thanks to votes from MIM splitting core Congress votes, Kripashanker came third in 2014). That area is made up probably 50% marathi people, 30% muslims of tamil nadu who came to the city long time ago and like 20% others with north Indians mostly. For the BMC elections for one of the wards which the Congress always won PC chose a guy who could neither speak Marathi nor speak tamil. This guy was an executive in some bank in Bandra Kurla Complex. He overlooked grass-root leaders who were close to Kripashankar Singh. Granted they are somewhat tainted. They guy he selected barely knew the area and could not even communicate with the voter. You had him talking about fully floating the rupee to people who lives in slums. No matter how clean a person is, how exactly can you expect to win? The result was the Congress were reduced to their worst position in Mumbai ever!. In some ways MIM aside the rot in Mumbai congress started when Kripashanker Singh was removed. He was courrupt like no tomorrow, but he knew what it took to win. Today the Mumbai congress probably 20% have defected to the Sena, 20% have defected to the BJP. The Sena and the BJP can fight the BMC elections alone and still manage more than the congress. They have collapsed.
Malcolm Merlyn Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 According to Times Now,quoting Reuters,Rahul Gandhi had in writing asked to travel without SPG guards.The govt. approved the request and then Rahul Gandhi vanished arond 8 or 10 february.
Sachin=GOD Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 According to Times Now' date='quoting Reuters,Rahul Gandhi had in writing asked to travel without SPG guards.The govt. approved the request and then Rahul Gandhi vanished arond 8 or 10 february.[/quote'] If this was the case then definitely there was something fishy about his holiday. Might have been something to do with all the black money of the family or maybe a girlfriend...
Malcolm Merlyn Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 If this was the case then definitely there was something fishy about his holiday. Might have been something to do with all the black money of the family or maybe a girlfriend... Its definately not for introspection or something like that.Something definately isnt right.
Sachin=GOD Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 Its definately not for introspection or something like that.Something definately isnt right. I would have believed in the introspection excuse because Cong really has taken a historic beating under his leadership and he is quite an awkward leader so he might have gone for some thinking about the way forward and his future in politics. But this SPG thing means something fishy, especially since his family members have been assassinated in the past so if he really did go without protection then it's got to be a really serious reason.
Sachin=GOD Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 @GB - if Prithviraj isn't working then they can maybe bring Shinde or give the leadership to someone young and let him build the organization. Going to Ashok Chavan says that "we were in trouble and couldn't find an honest leader so we went back to a corrupt, tainted guy. But do trust us and vote for us next time".
G_B_ Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 @GB - if Prithviraj isn't working then they can maybe bring Shinde or give the leadership to someone young and let him build the organization. Going to Ashok Chavan says that "we were in trouble and couldn't find an honest leader so we went back to a corrupt' date=' tainted guy. But do trust us and vote for us next time".[/quote'] Shinde is old. Chavan is young by congress standards..... Going to Ashok Chavan is going back to somebody who has proven his political bones time and time again.
Sachin=GOD Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 Shinde is old. Chavan is young by congress standards..... Going to Ashok Chavan is going back to somebody who has proven his political bones time and time again. Going to Ashok Chavan is going back to somebody who has proven himself to be corrupt and irresponsible with power. I don't know about others, especially about people in Maharashtra, but I would not trust a party which deliberately makes a corrupt guy their leader when the honest guy is not working out.
G_B_ Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 Going to Ashok Chavan is going back to somebody who has proven himself to be corrupt and irresponsible with power. I don't know about others' date=' especially about people in Maharashtra, but I would not trust a party which deliberately makes a corrupt guy their leader when the honest guy is not working out.[/quote'] Lets put the Adarsh scam in context. Basically a building which was at max supposed to be some 5-6 stories tall (due to coastal and military sensitivities) and meant for widows of decreased service personnel was raised to 12 floors with politicians bureaucrats and top end military officials taking up apartments at below market rates in the extra unsanctioned 6 stories. (i may have the exact numbers wrong). If you apply building restrictions strictly some 80% of mumbai structures will have to be razed to the ground That works out to corruption of 10-15 crore by Ashok Chavan. Lets be frank the people of maharashtra are not stupid. The Maharashtra irrigation scam is worth 40,000 crore and involved another supposed mass leader Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tarkare. That scam really hurt the farmers on the ground. The Thakarey clan has made thousands of crores via real estate deals. Gopinath Munde was heavily involved in corruption with Pramod Mahajan, when was alive via getting corporate kickbacks. Just like Karnataka your talking about a state with a strong tolerance for corruption. It is a sad state of affairs but purely from a political POV Maharashtra Congress and high command have made the right call.
Texan Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 ^^ Exactly. Small scale corruption as an issue is a bit overrated. It is fair to say that almost all our politicians irrespective of political affiliation have had some involvement in monetary gains (at least modest) that are strictly speaking illegal. Besides, many corrupt politicians despite scams being unearthed get re-elected. There is a strong tolerance towards corruption in our country. Jaya, Laloo, many others have got elected again despite big scams being unearthed against them. What happened with UPA-2 were scams of epic proportions. Add to that inflation and slowing growth and the people had had enough of the Congress.
Texan Posted April 16, 2015 Posted April 16, 2015 I think its a bit premature to write off Congress in Maharashtra. MH is different from the rest of the country in that they have always voted for Congress except for couple of elections. The big calculation people are making is that MIM is eating into Congress voteshare. That is true, but Congress can easily have an alliance with MIM and bridge this gap. Yes, it might affect their standing with voters from other religions, but MIM was already part of the UPA at one time and it didn't seem to affect Congress' electoral performance.
G_B_ Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 The truth is the Adarsh scam was bit of a victimless crime. Did the widows miss out? No cause they got the flats which would have been allocated anyways on the first few floors. Is the building structurally sound? Yes it is. Did the politicians and other people pay subsidised rates out of their own pockets? Yes they did. (its another question where they got that money from). What they should do is strip these people of their apartments and hand them over to the widows. Even the upper floors. Mumbai's coastal laws and FSI ratings are bit of a joke. All that military sensitivity BS was fine maybe in a bygone era. With todays technology is makes 0 sense. By all means it was right for Ashok Chavan to resign at the time. I am not condoning his behaviour. Laws no matter how dumb were broken. But that irrigation scam actually caused farmers to commit suicide in a big way. As Texan was saying it was a mega scam of epic proportions. It had real impact on real people's lives. Adarsh was like a peanut scam in comparison which got undue attention due to its location and mostly jealous press. Probably Adarsh like scams happen in every major city in India.
G_B_ Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 I think its a bit premature to write off Congress in Maharashtra. MH is different from the rest of the country in that they have always voted for Congress except for couple of elections. The big calculation people are making is that MIM is eating into Congress voteshare. That is true, but Congress can easily have an alliance with MIM and bridge this gap. Yes, it might affect their standing with voters from other religions, but MIM was already part of the UPA at one time and it didn't seem to affect Congress' electoral performance. The problem for the congress is their partner the NCP is sliding in a big way. You could have a situation whereby Congress gets 100 seats and the NCP gets 30 while BJP gets 80 and Sena gets 64. The alliance with MIM is not going to work in Maharashtra. Many Hindus will dump them if they go with MIM. It may have worked in Andhra *united. Cause MIM did have a base for a long time there. But as you said i feel the congress will improve their numbers next election. I feel they have already hit rock bottom.
G_B_ Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 Narayan Rane blames Congress for Maharashtra bypoll defeat, says party plotted against him An editorial in Rane's mouthpiece Prahar said that not only had Congress shown no support for Rane during the bypoll but had also plotted against him. "They (Congress leaders) felt threatened by his victory in state Congress," Indian Express quoted the editorial as saying. "Some leaders came for campaign, some didn’t even make their presence felt. Even those who came participated during the day. At night, they engaged in anti-Rane activities." The editorial, with the headline 'Rane won, Congress lost', also said Rane had agreed to take on the Shiv Sena in the constituency which is the home turf of founder late Bal Thackeray, and where party chief Uddhav Thackeray now resides at 'Matoshree' because Congress had nobody else to counter the party there. http://www.firstpost.com/politics/narayan-rane-blames-congress-maharashtra-bypoll-defeat-says-party-plotted-2200480.html
G_B_ Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 as i said there is an element of truth in this. Chavan wanted him out of his way. but the congress atm are better off dumping Rane. All he is going to do is cause major infighting. At max he will be able to bring in 3-4 MLA's with him. A far cry from the 15 he had at one point. At the very least he will form his own outfit based on Konkan and Mumbai which is bound to eat into the Sena/MNS vote equally as the Congress.
Sachin=GOD Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 @GauravCSawant Congress to send a party spokesperson on every @PMOIndia trip abroad. Cong claims this needs to be done to counter PM's claims when abroad Smart move. Though I'm not sure how many people will listen to a Cong spokesperson.
Raghav_12 Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 @GauravCSawant Congress to send a party spokesperson on every @PMOIndia trip abroad. Cong claims this needs to be done to counter PM's claims when abroad Smart move. Though I'm not sure how many people will listen to a Cong spokesperson. Yes. Not Many. However, it is very wrong on Modi's part that he openly speaks against Congress govt when travelling abroad. Not a good precedence he is setting.
Malcolm Merlyn Posted April 17, 2015 Posted April 17, 2015 Yes. Not Many. However, it is very wrong on Modi's part that he openly speaks against Congress govt when travelling abroad. Not a good precedence he is setting. He is doing it right.From next election NRIs will get to vote.
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