ELECTIONS

While the nation is still recovering from the unforeseen historic results of Delhi Assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is busy preparing to attack other cities and states. Next in the hit list seems to be Bengaluru. AAP’s Karnataka unit members who are flying high with the clean sweep of the party in the Delhi assembly election are now silently preparing for BBMP polls. The civic body poll is likely to be held this year—in 2015, as the term of the BBMP council ends this April. Though the party did not fetch any seats and underperformed in its political debut…

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) passed a resolution in its Council meeting on Wednesday, January 28th, 2015, demanding that the State government extend the term of the Council for six more months, if at all the Karnataka government has plans to postpone the BBMP election. BJP Councillor Padmanabha Reddy moved a private resolution in the Council expressing his displeasure over the state government trying to postpone the BBMP polls citing Palike restructuring as the reason. "The term of the present Council ends on April 22nd, 2015. As per the 74th amendment to the Constitution, election should be held to…

Bengaluru-based Citizen Action Forum (CAF) has suspected a possible delay of BBMP election due to Palike restructuring process, and said it should be opposed. Addressing media persons here on Thursday, January 23rd, 2015, CAF Secretary Mahalakshmi Parthasarathy said that the Forum fears that the State government would use restructuring as an excuse to delay the election. "The BBMP election has to happen in time. Inordinate delay would only hamper the process of forming functional Metropolitan Planning Council and ward committees. The government issued an order on November 19, 2014, mentioning that the restructuring committee report has to be submitted within…

  Despite several measures taken, as claimed by the Chief Electoral Officer - Karnataka, to avoid errors in the electoral rolls, it seems the attempts have not yielded in a foolproof result. Like every year, there are glaring errors found in the final electoral roll published on CEO-KA website in the first week of this month, and the error pattern is almost repetition of the previous years. Complaints, suggestions and requests by various forums and active citizens for the improved electoral rolls, perhaps, seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Though BBMP election is only a few months away, it…

Google search gives about 8,17,000 results for a ghar wapsi (home coming or re-conversion of religion). Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj says, ” [it] is no conversion but just a process to guide these people to the faith where they actually belong.” Budhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity and many other religions all grew by converting believers of other religions. Conversions from these religions would then be ghar wapsi. However, adding fuel to fire, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi, told in a public speech that every person is born a Muslim and later converted to other faiths. Thus…

Since they have been asked, let me put down my answers to these questions for the record: Why Modi? Why this self-inflicted - and, presumably, on others - two-month personal campaign? Why FB? How did it go? What next? But first, why me? I'm political. I'm consciously political while in conversation, staging a play, writing for the screen or my newspaper column, and even inside the classroom. This means my social life is completely boring to normal people, by normal standards. I keep meeting the same friends of a small personal group, which is often fragmented because even these friends…

Prakash Belawadi. Pic courtesy: Abhinaya Taranga Prakash Belawadi is an artiste and a multi-faceted person who has been working in the fields of arts, culture and media. He is active in the intellectual circles of Bengaluru. He was in the Lok Satta party and contested BBMP elections in 2010. In 2014 Parliamentary elections, he was seen supporting BJP through his Facebook posts. Citizen Matters spoke to Prakash Belawadi, to explore what he, as a supporter of the party in the power in the centre, would expect the government to do. Here are the excerpts: What should be the priority of…

  Elections are over, and every political leader is in an introspective mode. Citizen Matters spoke to Prithvi Reddy, leader of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from Karnataka, to understand his views on the results and the way forward for the party in Bengaluru. What is your take on the election results? I don’t think there is much to be said. It has been nothing short of a tidal wave or tsunami. It just washed away everything in sight, and that includes bad politics and good politics. And I think we need to recognise it and first congratulate the BJP-led NDA.…

Voters have given their verdict. BJP has once again made a clean sweep in Bengaluru, repeating the 2009 Parliamentary election pattern. However, there are some differences this time. We take a look at the numbers: Bangalore South Ananth Kumar won the seat for the sixth time comfortably, with a margin of over 2.2 lakhs (56.9% of total polled votes). Nandan Nilekani got a sizeable number of votes (36.4% of the total polled votes), but it wasn’t enough to propel him to victory. The takeaway is this: The competition was fierce and limited to BJP and Congress, with very few votes…

As the city gears up to welcome new Members of Parliament, we take a peek at the statistics and poll predictions to see how has Bangalore voted in the past, and who might win the race in Bangalore this time. Our focus is on the three urban constituencies - Bangalore South, North and Central. 2009 - the honeymoon effect In 2009, the state was being governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the scams hadn’t hit the government yet. Bangalore’s 28 constituencies had 18 BJP MLAs. The sense of euphoria and what the experts call “the honeymoon effect” swept…