Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been spearheading his party’s campaign for Wednesday’s elections in Maharashtra State, knowing that victory in the home of India’s financial hub of Mumbai would make it easier to push through economic reforms.
The smaller northern state of Haryana also votes on Wednesday, but it is the western state of Maharashtra that is to provide the best test of how well Modi’s appeal is holding up, five months after he stormed to power in a general election with promises to mend a country battered by corruption scandals, high inflation and sharply slowing growth.
Modi has campaigned personally in Maharashtra, betting he can help his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win big in a state with a population of 110 million spread across an area the size of Italy.
Photo: EPA
Local polls predict the Hindu nationalist party will win, but perhaps only with a narrow margin. Newspaper Mail Today’s survey showed the party is close to gaining the 145 seats needed to clinch a majority in the 288-member state assembly. Maharashtra, along with Haryana, is due to announce the results on Sunday.
The BJP surprised analysts by breaking off a decades-old alliance with Shiv Sena, a right-wing regional party popular among the region’s Marathi people that is now expected to provide formidable competition.
The opposition India National Congress Party, which has ruled Maharashtra with an ally for 15 years, faces defeat on the same anti-incumbency wave that toppled it from power in the general election, although it retains pockets of support in the state.
Modi is making two dozen campaign stops across the state and his gift for working a crowd was on full display at a rally in Mumbai on Thursday.
“Unless Mumbai and Maharashtra progresses, the country won’t move forward. You have wasted 15 years — please don’t waste any more time,” he said as the crowd chanted his name.
Hopes that Modi would revive an economy that for two consecutive years has grown at less than 5 percent — a rate too slow for a country with India’s demographics — have spurred a record-setting rally in shares and attracted US$34 billion worth of foreign funds in markets this year.
Yet Modi has so far unveiled none of the “big bang” reforms needed to revive the stagnating economy, focusing instead on small initiatives to reform governance.
Some of the major expected reforms, especially a reduction of price controls in diesel, could prove unpopular. Others such as changes in goods and services taxes, or the government’s right to acquire land faces strong opposition from some states.
A big win in Maharashtra could make it easier to forge ahead with reforms in the run-up to the annual budget in February next year.
“Modi will have more space to undertake bolder reforms if his party receives a strong political mandate at state level,” said Rupa Rege Nitsure, chief economist of Bank of Baroda in Mumbai.
Maharashtra will also provide the BJP a testing ground for its go-it-alone strategy for future state elections, given the need to narrow the lead held by Congress and its allies in the upper house of parliament.
State elections allot seats to the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP and its allies control 56 seats, behind the opposition Congress alliance’s 90 seats. Although less powerful than the lower house, the Lok Sabha, the body still plays a critical role in passing legislation.
“This is a carefully thought-out strategy,” said Girish Kuber, editor of Marathi daily Loksatta and a political analyst.
“Earlier, they didn’t have the legs to make it on their own in states where regional allies are strong, but given Modi’s pan-Indian appeal, it seems that they will succeed,” Kuber said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS