Tag: poll

A New Poll on the Trump Indictments Has a Surprising Result

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POLITICO Magazine commissioned this poll because we thought, despite some initial polling shortly after Trump’s federal indictment, that we could dig deeper into the public’s sentiment. How much do people really understand about the charges facing Trump and do they believe he’s guilty? What kind of punishments do they think fit the crimes if he is convicted? And, of course, what impact could all of this have on Trump’s presidential candidacy?
The poll was conducted from June 27 to June 28, roughly three weeks after Trump’s federal indictment and nearly three months after Trump was criminally charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The poll had a sample of 1,005 adults age 18 or older, who were interviewed online; it has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points for all respondents.
At this point, roughly half of the country believes that Trump committed the crimes alleged against him.
Forty-nine percent of respondents — including 25 percent of Republicans — said that they believe Trump is guilty in the pending federal prosecution, which alleges that he willfully retained sensitive government documents after leaving office and obstructed a subsequent federal investigation. A nearly identical 48 percent of respondents — including 24 percent of Republicans — believe that Trump is guilty in the Manhattan DA’s pending prosecution, which alleges that Trump falsified business records in connection with a payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election in order to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual relationship between the two.

On the question of timing, however, there was more unity.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (62 percent) said that the trial in the pending federal prosecution should take place before the presidential election next November — a figure that includes nearly half of Republican respondents (46 percent). A lower number, but a still-solid majority, said that the trial should take place before the Republican primaries begin early next year (57 percent of all respondents, including 42 percent of Republican respondents).
The findings could bolster the position of federal prosecutors, who have been pushing for a trial date as early as this December. Trump is expected to try to drag out the proceedings for as long as possible, particularly because he would likely be able to shut the prosecution down if reelected. But the federal statute that governs the setting of trial dates requires judges to account for not only the defendant’s interest but “the best interest of the public” as well.

What should happen to Trump if he gets convicted? Forty three percent said he should go to prison, but most were willing to spare him jail time. Nearly a quarter of respondents said that Trump should incur no punishment at all (22 percent), while 18 percent said he should receive probation and another 17 percent said he should face only a financial penalty.

The results were roughly similar when respondents were asked what the punishment should be if Trump is convicted in Manhattan. Most respondents said that Trump should not go to prison and that he should instead receive either no term of imprisonment, probation, or a financial penalty only (21 percent, 17 percent and 22 percent, respectively).
In both instances, a clear partisan breakdown was evident. For the DOJ case, 73 percent of Democrats thought Trump should go to prison if convicted, compared to 16 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents. For the Manhattan DA’s case, 65 percent of Democrats backed prison time, compared to 14 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of independents.

The results also complicate the post-indictment narrative that the charges have improved Trump’s chances of winning his party’s presidential nomination. It’s true that he’s gained support in the polls since the indictments, but our survey suggests that they haven’t fundamentally changed Republicans’ opinion of his campaign. While 21 percent of GOP respondents said the federal indictment on mishandling classified documents made them more likely to support Trump, 23 percent said it made them less likely; fully 50 percent said it had no impact and 6 percent said they didn’t know. The results were similar for the Manhattan DA’s indictment over the hush money payment.
Among the broader public, a conviction in either case would be damaging to Trump’s electoral chances. An identical number — 41 percent of all respondents — said that a conviction in either the federal case or the Manhattan DA’s case would make them less likely to support the former president. Despite all the commentary that he’s Teflon Don, it’s clear that some of his missteps can cost him.

The results also suggest that the numbers could get worse as Americans learn more about the pending charges. Roughly one-third of respondents said that they are not particularly familiar with the allegations in either case.
That number could decrease as media coverage continues, particularly in the run-up to potential trials. A trial date in the Manhattan DA’s case is currently set to begin on March 25, though it is conceivable that, as a practical matter, Trump could have the nomination locked up by then if dynamics in the GOP primary do not change. So far, most of his opponents have struggled to articulate a message that distinguishes themselves from Trump while appealing to a voter base that is largely sticking with him despite his mounting legal problems.
The public’s preference for a relatively speedy trial date in the federal prosecution against Trump could prove tricky to accommodate. Many legal observers are skeptical that a trial is possible next year, particularly given the complexities of a case that involves classified documents and a defendant who has historically proven adept at mounting aggressive delay strategies.
Indeed, according to the most recent statistics available, the median time from filing to disposition in felony cases in the Southern District of Florida, where the federal case against Trump is pending, is nine months. But that figure is almost surely dragged down by the fact that the significant majority of federal criminal cases are resolved by guilty pleas and that very few trials in the district, if any, have posed the sort of complexities that the first-ever criminal prosecution against a former U.S. president will pose, particularly involving classified information.
Still, if prosecutors and the presiding judge want to look to the law and satisfy the public’s interest, they can point to the results from this poll.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

July 6, 2023
Nitish meets Patnaik, both claim no talks held on alliance for 2024 poll

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Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar met here for more than an hour on Tuesday but later claimed that there was no discussion on politics or any alliance for the 2024 general election.
Kumar, also the JD(U) supremo, callled on Patnaik, who is the BJD president, at his residence ‘Navin Niwas’ here amid speculation that the two non-BJP and non-Congress leaders will discuss the proposed partnership among the non-BJP parties ahead of the 2024 general election.
The speculation on an emerging alliance at the national level ahead of the poll had its roots in Nitish Kumar’s earlier meetings with AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party leader Akilesh Yadav and others. Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is now likely to call on Maharashtra stalwarts Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray later this week, sources in the JD(U) said in Patna.
The Bihar chief minister also had his lunch with Patnaik at his home.
However, both the leaders after the hour-long meeting said that being old friends they talked of matters other than politics fuelling curiosity.
The meeting between the two took place ahead of Patnaik’s proposed three-day trip to Delhi from Wednesday, while the JD(U) in a tweet later claimed that Nitish Kumar has become the leader of the united-Opposition against the BJP-led NDA.
“Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has become the leader of opposition unity, went to Odisha and met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik uniting opposition parties without personal ambition,” the JD(U) tweeted in Hindi.

Patnaik, however, refuted speculations about any political understanding between the two leaders. “No discussion was held on any alliance today. I am delighted that Nitish ji came to Bhubaneswar. We are old friends and colleagues ever since we served in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet,” he told reporters.
He said the Odisha will provide 1.5 acres to Bihar government free of cost in Puri for building facilities for tourists coming for darshan of Lord Jagannath.
He shared some photographs from the meeting and tweeted, “Glad to meet #Bihar Chief Minister Shri @NitishKumar in #Bhubaneswar. #Odisha shares a special bond with Bihar and the people of the neighbouring state. Hope he had a pleasant and fruitful stay in Odisha”.
Kumar said, “Our relation with his (Naveen) father Biju Babu (Patnaik) and Naveen ji is a very old one. We could not meet due to the pandemic. No political discussions were held (during the meeting). We have good relations and there is no need to discuss any politics.”
Earlier in the day, Kumar was welcomed at the Biju Patnaik International Airport by state minister Ashok Chandra Panda and BJD vice-president Debi Prasad Mishra.
Both Kumar and Patnaik lead their respective parties and it was expected that they would discuss politics ahead of the 2024 polls and work towards unity among regional parties.
Kumar is opposed to BJP, with which his party broke its alliance in August 2022, and has claimed that the JD(U) maintains an equal distance the saffron party and Congress.
Banerjee had met Patnaik in March in Bhubaneswar.
Odisha BJP general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan said the meeting between Patnaik and Kumar will not have any impact on the party.
“Naveen Patnaik always does whatever is in his interest. If he thinks that joining the third front will help him, he might do so and if he thinks it won’t, he will not join it,” he said.
BJD MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik said, “Kumar wants a reformative and alternative front in the country. He may discuss the matter with Naveen Patnaik. But Patnaik has already made it cleared that BJD will maintain equidistance from both Congress and the BJP.”
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 9, 2023
Karnataka Muslim quota: Supreme Court frowns at poll statements

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday voiced displeasure over political statements being made about withdrawal of four per cent quota for Muslims in poll bound Karnataka, after it was told Union Home Minister Amit Shah was making public statements about the hugely contentious issue at the hustings.
Terming as “inappropriate” the political statements about the matter which is sub-judice, the apex court asserted “Some sanctity needs to be maintained”.
The withdrawal of four per cent reservation for Muslims and its reallocation between the politically influential Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities just before the assembly elections has become a hot button issue in the southern state.

“When the matter is pending before the court and there is court order on Karnataka Muslim quota, then there should not be any political statements on the issue. It is not appropriate. Some sanctity needs to be maintained,” a bench of Justices KM Joseph, BV Nagarathna and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the petitioners who have challenged the scrapping of the Muslim quota by the state’s BJP government, said, “Every day the home minister is making statements in Karnataka that they have withdrawn the four per cent Muslim quota. Why should such statements be made?”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Karnataka government, said he is not aware of any such remarks being made. He, however, contended those criticising religion-based quota are not wrong.
“Solicitor General making a statement in the court is not a problem but someone saying anything on a sub-judice matter outside the court is not appropriate. In 1971, a West Bengal political leader was hauled up for contempt for holding a press conference defending a rationing order which was pending before the court,” Justice Joseph said.
“We understand and respect the sentiment of the court,” said Mehta but added as a counsel, “I am saying that any religion-based reservation is unconstitutional”.

Justice Nagarathna also expressed displeasure over statements being made outside the court on the quota issue.
The arguments turned bitter when Dave said statements proudly claiming credit for the withdrawal of Muslim quota were being made every day. An agitated Mehta urged the court to restrain the senior lawyer from making such statements without a context.
“This is the Supreme Court bench and don’t let it be turned into a fish market. This court has to restrain him (Dave) from making such statements. What they (Dave and others) are saying is without any context. They need to show what is the context, what is the content, and tenor of the statements. Let them file an application to this effect, we will file our reply,” he said.
Dave told the court he will file an application and bring it on record what kind of statements are being made.
Mehta said without any application nobody would know what statement has been attributed to him (the Union home minister).
“Please see this statement. The Union home minister said that four per cent reservation for Muslims was unconstitutional and BJP removed it. This amounts to contempt of court,” an angry Dave told the court.
As decibels rose, Justice Joseph asked Dave to not shout or make political statements in the court.
“We will not allow this court to become a political forum. We are not party to it. We cannot allow the issue to be politicised in this manner. We will adjourn the matter,” the bench asserted.
At this juncture, a lawyer appearing for the petitioners told the bench that the BJP has stated in its election manifesto it will do away with four per cent Muslim reservation if voted to power.
The enforcement of the government order on scrapping of the Muslim quota has been kept in abeyance by the Supreme Court.
Replying to the submission, Mehta insisted there is nothing wrong in such a manifesto and, in fact, every political party should include in their manifesto the promise that they will abolish religion-based reservation.
Advocate Ravi Kumar Varma, appearing for Central Muslim Association, made a prayer to restrain the press from publishing such speeches, a contention Mehta opposed, saying media cannot be censored like this.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 9, 2023
Trust the Media? Don’t Believe the Latest Poll

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What’s lacking here is any assurance that those being surveyed are familiar enough to accurately rate the outlets they’ve been asked to judge. Almost nobody — not even press critics — keeps a close enough tab on 56 outlets, at least a dozen of which are paywalled or require a cable subscription, to render a fair appraisal of all of them. We all consume media in our own bubbles. And even though the survey, to its credit, has removed from its calculations responses who say an outlet is neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy, or answer that they don’t know, we have no way of knowing how many of the 1,500 respondents took wild, uninformed stabs at rating the outlets.
In times like these, there’s value in measuring trust, but this poll, which is destined to become the talk of cable news and op-ed pages, does a poor job of putting a yardstick to how outlets are perceived. Allowing respondents to judge the trustworthiness of outlets without determining how often they consume them is like asking a kid to rate the flavors from the Baskin-Robbins library he’s never tasted.
For instance, PBS and the BBC rank at the top of the trust chart, just under the Weather Channel. But the survey gives us no way of knowing whether the poll respondents ever watch PBS news or sip from the BBC faucet. Maybe they’ve expressed “trust” in the BBC because its prestige hangs like vapor in the cultural air we all breathe, and they reflexively say they trust the BBC even though they rarely read BBC News or tune their TVs to it.
Scrolling down the chart, another flaw emerges: Legacy outlets like Forbes, Time, the New York Times, the three broadcast networks and Reuters collected higher ratings than relative newcomers like the Hill, Axios, Slate, Yahoo News and the Washington Examiner. It’s fair to ask, as with the BBC example, what question respondents are answering.
Are low-sophistication news consumers merely expressing name recognition, not an assessment of trustworthiness? A perfect example of this would be Newsweek’s rating, which is higher than that of Bloomberg News. Newsweek was a storied news brand when owned by the Graham family, but its reputation has rightly suffered under its new owners. (See Daniel Tovrov’s piece in the Columbia Journalism Review and Alex Shepard’s in the New Republic.) No impartial, informed judge of news would ever rank today’s Newsweek over the data-rich pages of Bloomberg News. But there it is.
How much trust is locked up in how the outlets’ names sound? The Economist calls to mind a place where business experts working in an ivory tower measure supply-demand curves with a micrometer. POLITICO, which rates lower than the Economist, might have gotten docked a couple of points because it sounds to the naïve ear like a trade association magazine for invidious politicians (which it isn’t, trust me!). A different impression would surely result if a new reader were exposed to several months’ worth of each.
The survey does produce some results that seem self-evident. Democrats trust MSNBC more than Republicans, and Republicans trust Fox News more than Democrats. But does it make sense that Democrats trust Infowars more than Republicans do CNN? What exactly is being measured here? Please send an explanation to the email address below.
Another unsurprising result is that, in general, Democrats appear to trust news media more than do Republicans. This might reflect the fact that so many of the 56 outlets under examination are liberal or relatively centrist in their orientation.

But then there are weird outliers, such as Democrats giving the conservative Daily Caller a higher trust score than their Republican kin do. Likewise, what does it mean that Democrats give trust scores to conservative outlets like the Federalist, Infowars, the National Review and the New York Post that are within shouting distance of Republican scores? Maybe it’s a function of Fox News’ decades-long coaching of its audience not to “trust the media,” and therefore that outside of the established TV brands of Fox News, Newsmax and OAN, Republicans refuse to automatically bestow trust on any media, even outlets that appeal to their prejudices.
As this column has expressed before, the general decline of trust in media is somewhat paradoxical. News reporting has never been more precise, easier to check and criticize, or more timely. What has changed since the early 1960s, when trust peaked in the polls, is that the press covers many topics today that went left unassigned back then: stories about race, gender, sex, equity, foreign intervention and religion, just to give a few examples.
To be sure, recent decades are chockablock with media misfires that actively damaged trust, as scholar Michael Socolow recently wrote. “Measured skepticism can be healthy and media criticism comprises an essential component of media literacy — and a vibrant democracy,” is how he puts it. So some of this distrust is well-deserved. But in other cases, expressions of “distrust” in media polls are just another way for people to say the contemporary subject matter in the news makes them uncomfortable.
That the Weather Channel rarely broadcasts anything more controversial than flood, blizzard, hurricane, fire and tornado coverage and forecasts goes a long way in explaining its high trust quotient. But as the channel’s bosses deliver on their promise to produce more climate change coverage, expect the usual dark clouds of distrust to gather there, too.
******
Send your news weather reports to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed is a low-pressure zone. My Mastodon and Post accounts have gone all foggy. My Substack Notes account needs a rainmaker. My RSS feed is a fast-moving storm front.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 9, 2023
Surprised over PM Modi giving ‘religious’ slogans during Karnataka poll campaigning: Pawar

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Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar has said he is surprised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given “religious” slogans during election campaigning in Karnataka, which votes on May 10.
When one takes up a religion or religious issue in an election, it creates a different type of environment and it is not a good thing, Pawar told a regional news channel.
Speaking to reporters in Pandharpur temple town earlier on Sunday, the NCP chief claimed the Congress will come to power in Karnataka.

“We take oath for democratic values and secularism at the time of contesting an election,” Pawar told TV9 Marathi.
“I am surprised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given religious slogans during campaigning for the Karnataka Assembly elections. We have accepted the concept of secularism. When you take up a religion or religious issue in an election, it creates a different type of environment and it is not a good thing,” he said.
Asked about the ongoing agitation at Barsu village in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district where a section of locals are opposing a mega oil refinery project, the NCP leader said he was keen on visiting the place, but it will be decided when and how he finds the time.
“I had a meeting with representatives of Barsu villagers. I will hold another meeting with experts. I feel the issue should be taken forward by taking the villagers into confidence,” he said.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 8, 2023
Cong may emerge as single largest party in Karnataka, but not get majority: Opinion poll

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New Delhi: With just few days left for the crucial Assembly polls in Karnataka, a new opinion poll predicted that the Congress may emerge as the single largest party in the southern state but may fall eight seats short of a clear majority.
According to the India TV-CNX opinion poll, telecast on the news channel on Sunday, the Congress may win 105 seats in the 224-seat Assembly, while the ruling BJP may win 85 seats, followed by Janata Dal-Secular which may win 32 seats.
The opinion poll predicted that ‘others’ may win two seats.

In the 2018 elections, the BJP had won 104, the Congress 80, the JD-S 37, and ‘Others’ had won three seats.
As per the vote share projections, Congress may get 40.32 per cent, the BJP may get 35.5 per cent, the JD-S 17.81 per cent, and ‘others’ may get 6.37 per cent.
In the 2018 elections, the Congress had got 38.04 per cent, the BJP had got 36.22 per cent, the JD-S 18.36 per cent and ‘Others’ had got 7.38 per cent votes.
The opinion poll also predicted that caste and community wise projections show, the Congress may get 75.3 per cent of Kuruba votes, 15.11 per cent Lingayat votes, 17.57 per cent Vokkaliga votes, 40.56 per cent of SC votes, 34.58 per cent of OBC votes, 42.35 per cent of ST votes, and a whopping 78 per cent of Muslim votes.
On the other hand, the BJP may get 15.14 per cent Kuruba votes, a whopping 75.8 per cent Lingayat votes, 17.39 per cent Vokkaliga votes, 39.6 per cent SC votes, 51.7 per cent OBC votes, 32.18 per cent ST votes and only 2.07 per cent Muslim votes.

The projection show the JD-S may get 56 per cent Vokkaliga votes.
The India TV-CNX poll projections region-wise show also predicted that the BJP and the Congress may share 15 seats each in Greater Bengaluru area (32 seats total), while the JD-S) may get two.
In Central Karnataka’s 21 seats, the BJP may win 13 and Congress eight seats.
The Congress may sweep the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, winning 32 of the 40 seats, while the BJP may win six and the JD-S two.
In Old Mysore’s 62 seats, the Congress may win 26 seats, the JD-S may win 28, and the BJP only seven seats. ‘Others’ may win the remaining one seat.
In coastal Karnataka having 19 seats, the BJP may win 15 and the Congress 4.
In the Bombay Karnataka region having 50 seats, the BJP may win 29, the Congress may win 20 and ‘Others’ may win one seat.A
The opinion poll survey findings also showed that Congress leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah still remains the first choice for the top post, leading the list with 32.2 per cent votes, while 26.83 per cent favouring incumbent Basavaraj Bommai as Chief Minister.
Meanwhile, 16.37 per cent opted for JD-S leader and former CM H.D. Kumaraswamy, while 10.97 per cent favoured BJP leader and former CM B.S. Yeddyurappa and only seven per cent preferred Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar for the Chief Ministerial post.
The opinion poll survey was carried out by CNX among 11,200 respondents (5,620 males and 5,580 females) in 112 out of a total of 224 seats. The respondents were selected randomly keeping in view demographic, professional and migration dimensions.
Polling for the Karnataka Assembly is scheduled on May 10 and counting of votes will take place on May 13.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 7, 2023
Congress Karnataka poll manifesto a document of appeasement politics: Assam CM

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Mangaluru: The Congress manifesto for the May 10 assembly elections in Karnataka has exposed the party’s mindset and its hatred for the majority community, culture and dharma of the country, BJP leader and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday.
Addressing reporters here, Sarma said the manifesto is a document of appeasement politics. The party had always followed the policy of appeasement and the previous Siddaramaiah government in the State had withdrawn several cases registered against activists of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI).
He said the PFI ban has been a success in Assam, where numerous activists of the anti-national movement were arrested.

The Congress is now equating PFI with Bajrang Dal which should be deplored, he said. The Bajrang Dal cannot in any way described as an anti-national or extremist outfit, he said.
Sarma said the people of Karnataka who are leaders in IT, biotechnology and agriculture do not need a guarantee from the Congress. “How can Rahul Gandhi, who himself has no guarantee in politics, provide guarantee to the people of Karnataka,” he asked.
The Assam Chief Minister said the BJP is extending welfare schemes to all sections of people irrespective of caste, creed and religion. Even B R Ambedkar had opposed reservation on religious lines, he said.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 7, 2023
Opinion poll shows Modi remains charismatic and popular in poll-bound Karnataka

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New Delhi: The final round of an exclusive opinion poll on the Karnataka Assembly elections conducted across the state conducted by C-Voter for ABP News reveals that Prime Minister Narendra Modi retains his charisma and popularity among the voters of the southern state.
While the poll still puts the Congress in the pole position, hectic and energetic campaigning by Modi during the last leg of vote seeking has improved the fortunes of the BJP.
In the opinion polls for the Assembly elections conducted during March and April, the BJP appeared quite far behind the Congress, both in terms of vote share and number of seats. But an intense last leg of campaigning by the Prime Minister has now ensured that the projected vote share of the BJP doesn’t drop below 36 per cent, the same it had garnered in the 2018 Assembly elections.

Even BJP’s projected seat tally is now better than the numbers thrown up in March and April. In fact, in the Greater Bengaluru region, which elects 32 MLAs, the improvement is dramatic. From trailing behind the Congress earlier, the BJP seems to have turned the tables somewhat and is now projected to inch ahead of its rival in the projected seat tally.
While this last-minute effort by Modi may not be enough to help the BJP retain the state (Karnataka has a long history of changing governments), it augurs well for the party ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, while the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 104 seats, it was nine short of a simple majority and a post-poll arrangement between the Congress and the JD(S) saw them form the government.
In the Lok Sabha elections a year after that, the BJP and candidates won 26 of the 28 seats in the state. A similar pattern was seen in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan about five years ago. The BJP lost the Assembly elections in all the three states in 2018, but swept all three in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The 224-member Karnataka Assembly will go to the polls on May 10, and the results will be declared on May 13.

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#Opinion #poll #shows #Modi #remains #charismatic #popular #pollbound #Karnataka
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 6, 2023
11 opposition parties submit memorandum to poll panel against delimitation in Assam

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Guwahati: Eleven opposition parties in Assam, including the Congress, submitted a memorandum to the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Saturday against the delimitation process of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies.
They claimed that the issues over which the delimitation exercise was deferred in the state earlier have remained unresolved.
The memorandum stated that the process was undertaken in the country under the Delimitation Act, 2002, on the basis of 2001 census, but it was met with such widespread opposition in Assam that the exercise was deferred.

A detailed order for deferring the exercise in Assam was issued by the president on February 8, 2008, noting a few reasons.
Among those was the likelihood of arousing “the sentiments of the people living in the state of Assam due to their apprehension that the ongoing delimitation in many electoral constituencies may result in breakup of affiliation between publics and its representatives, change of boundaries thereof, which may cause alienation of different groups of tribes”.
Representations seeking to defer the exercise until NRC is finalised, a large number of agitational programmes by ethnic organisations, and the likelihood of breach of public order were other reasons for deferring the delimitation process in the state, the memorandum said.
It noted that the president passed an order on February 28, 2020, rescinding the earlier order, and paving the way for the formation of a delimitation commission, which the opposition parties claimed was erroneously constituted.
This commission was challenged in the Supreme Court, which led the Centre to remove the reference of North Eastern states from this term in 2021, and the delimitation commission conducted the exercise only in Jammu and Kashmir, it said.

The opposition parties, in the memorandum, noted that the reasons for the objection to the exercise as raised earlier remained valid till date.
The exercise is being sought to be conducted on the basis of the 2001 census, which was the main point of objection for the people of the state, they maintained.
Noting that the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) is yet to be notified, the memorandum maintained that the government should have sought views from all parties before giving its support to the order of delimitation.
“But that has not been done and the present government and the party in power have acted unilaterally to support a process which has potential to create instability in the state,” the memorandum said.
“In the light of above, we the eleven political parties together raise our voice against the proposed delimitation exercise in the state of Assam,” said the document, signed by leaders of Congress, CPI(M), Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, Jatiya Dal Asom, CPI, NCP, CPI (ML), RJD, JD(U) and TMC.
The full bench of the Election Commission (EC) visited Guwahati in March, during which they held discussions with different stakeholders, including political parties, to take their views on the delimitation process. The Congress had, however, boycotted meeting.
The process for delimitation in the state started on January 1, 2023, as per a notification issued by the EC on December 27 last year.
On December 31, 2022, the Assam Cabinet decided to merge four districts with the ones from which they were carved out. Biswanath was merged with Sonitpur, Hojai with Nagaon, Tamulpur with Baksa and Bajali with Barpeta.
The decisions to merge the districts were taken just a day before the EC’s ban on creating new administrative units in the state came into force.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 6, 2023
PM holds massive road-show in Bengaluru as BJP raises poll pitch

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Bengaluru: With just four days left for Assembly polls in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held a massive road show in the city, waving at a large number of enthusiastic crowd, who had lined up on both sides of the route.
The 26 km roadshow from Someshwar Bhavan RBI Ground in Bengaluru South to Malleshwaram’s Sankey Tank, was covered in about three hours.
Modi’s roadshow traversed through parts of south and central Bengaluru, touching about a dozen Assembly segments.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by Bengaluru South MP, Tejasvi Surya and Bengaluru Central MP, P C Mohan.
Standing on the specially designed vehicle, Modi greeted the crowd gathered on the sides of the roads and on nearby buildings, many of whom were seen chanting ‘Modi, Modi’, ‘Jai Bajarangbali’, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ slogans and shouting loud cheers in what appeared to be a “festive atmosphere” in several places.
At many places, people showered flower petals as his cavalcade passed through the stretch slowly, amid sounds of drum beats. The Prime Minister too responded by showering the flower petals gathered on the vehicle, back at the crowd.
Massive arrangements had been made along the stretch, including erecting barricades, to ensure that the roadshow goes on smoothly. Tight security was put in place.
According to state BJP sources, tens of thousands of people had gathered along the roadside.

The entire distance was decked up with saffron hues as BJP flags were seen on either side of the road, and thousands of party workers and supporters too were wearing saffron shawls and caps. Saffron flag, which looked like the ‘Bhagwa flag’ with lord Hanuman’s face on it, was spotted at several places.
Cultural teams were also stationed at different places along the stretch to welcome Modi. A group of women ‘Pourakarmikas’ (civic workers) were seen gathered at a spot to greet Modi.
The much shorter roadshow, about 10 km, between Kempegowda statue at Thippasandra to Trinity circle, will be held on Sunday.
Keeping National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in mind, the BJP on Friday modified Modi’s two-day roadshow in Bengaluru, by scheduling the extensive event today and shorter one on May 7.
The roadshow, earlier scheduled to be held for eight hours on Saturday alone, was split into two parts on Saturday and Sunday to avoid inconvenience to the public.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

May 6, 2023