From the Editor : Anil Tyagi

The parliamentary election of 2019 isn’t about who will become the prime minister, or which political party will come to power. It isn’t about the economy, growth, development, or jobs. It isn’t about the future of the poor, farmers and middle class or the emergence of new social order. It isn’t about India emerging as a new global superpower in this century, or how this will become the Asian Century with India and China dictating to the world. And, it also isn’t about nationalism, secularism, regionalism, or similar isms. In essence, it is not about whatever you see, hear and read.

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CORRUPTION : From Raj to Rafale 8 – Conspiracy of complicity

In the eighth part of the series on corruption in modern India, Alam Srinivas looks at how corruption percolated down to the level of the chief ministers. Like the PMs, the CMs looted the nation, brazenly and openly, and some even announced publicly that they were pirates of the worst kind.

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ELECTION 2019 : DEMOGRAPHY & DEMOCRACY : The Numbers that count

As its bonhomie with markets ended, as it failed to get enough jobs, and as the State refused to dole out sops to it, the middle class’ backlash influenced politics from the outside. The younger generation, though fragmented in many ways, impacted elections, and emerged as the key ‘swing factor’. Today, no political party can win without its support.

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ELECTION 2019 : Advantage Congress

The ousted BJP in the assembly election barely four months ago and has good reason to believe that people’s political honeymoon with the party will last till at least the Lok Sabha polls. Also, tribals and scheduled castes have indicated growing disenchantment with the BJP across India and this could result in more seats for the Congress in the predominantly rural Madhya Pradesh. Rakesh Dixit reports from Bhopal.

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ELECTION 2019 : Endgame?

IF the stupendous victory of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was attributed to the wave of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then the 2019 Lok Sabha elections at least in Maharashtra appears to be a test for his blue-eyed boy, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

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ELECTION 2019 : Treading cautiously

IN the run up to the Lok Sabha polls 2019, for the main political parties, Congress, BJP and INLD, it is six degrees of desperation. It is probably a now or never-know-when situation for these political outfits. The breakaway of INLD—Jannayak Janta Party—and AAP are at a nascent stage.

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