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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Narendra Modi’s ‘No’ votes and Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity
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Narendra Modi’s ‘No’ votes and Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity

Election Round-up brings to you daily commentary on what the world is saying about the Lok Sabha polls

Photo: PTIPremium
Photo: PTI

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) continues to be the only key party in this election that’s transparently releasing data on campaign donations. FirstBiz analysed the data and no surprises for guessing who cornered the lion’s share of the donations: party chief Arvind Kejriwal with 52 lakh. In second place are Kumar Vishwas and former police officer Suresh Khopade with a little over 20 lakh each. Though Khopade’s donations include four transactions of 5 lakh from…err…a certain Khopade.

Kejriwal, it appears, is also leading Narendra Modi in the online poll for Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people alive today. What is worse for Modi, Zee News informs, is that he also has several more “No" votes than Justin Bieber. Another spanner in the works when it comes to post-poll India-US relations, undoubtedly.

“Narendra Modi fails first step in Varanasi Lok Sabha elections tussle," screams the headline at The Financial Express. It appears that Modi’s attempt to rope in the family of the late shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan as a proposer for his nomination has failed. “We politely told him that we cannot be Narendra Modi ji’s proposer as neither Bismillah was involved with any political party nor do we wish to. Bismillah used to say that you can talk to me for hours about music but keep me away from politics," the paper quotes Khan’s grandson as saying.

Meanwhile, at Livemint.com, Vinati Dev wonders what Brand BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) stands for. “In a three-part series, Vinati Dev uses a mash of Machiavelli and marketing to understand what’s happening to our polity. The first part is, obviously, devoted to the BJP and Narendra Modi." Read on.

At Azamgarh, The Hindustan Times reports that many Muslim men who have migrated to the Gulf are now returning home. Why? “Many have returned to the town on a vacation to campaign and vote in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. They are not affiliated to any political outfit, but swear allegiance to the Samajwadi Party (SP). They are now carrying out door-to-door drives for Mulayam Singh Yadav, the SP candidate from Azamgarh."

“Amethi’s loyalty to Rahul Gandhi and family intact," writes Parsa Ventakeshwar Rao Jr. at DNA newspaper. “He said the people of Amethi are aware that Amethi has got a national profile because it is the constituency of the Nehru-Gandhis, and that if someone else were to take over it will be reduced to like any other constituency in Uttar Pradesh," the piece quotes a BJP functionary as saying.

Political parties across the board have denounced or distanced themselves from comments that Pravin Togadia is alleged to have made in Bhavnagar, Gujarat. An FIR has been registered against Togadia for “inciting communal passions", reports Livemint.com.

Meanwhile, Nitin Gadre, chief electoral officer for Maharashtra, has responded to complaints that the electoral rolls are infested with errors and omissions. “We agree it is not foolproof because about 60,000 people were in the exercise to scrutinize electoral roll of 80 million. A person might not be found in the residence during one or two visits of the officials, neighbours might not know and the person may turn up after two months," he said, according to Jagran.com. There was simply no foolproof method to avoid these problems, he admitted.

News website Oneindia.in informs that “TMC (Trinamool Congress party) workers prepare helipad for Mamata with cow dung." But in a good way. “The local TMC leaders were worried that Banerjee could get annoyed or fall sick because of the heavy dust after her helicopter lands at the venue in Murshidabad and decided to make a helipad after addressing the dusty soil with cow dung. Each party worker was asked to bring 10 sacks of cow dung from his or her respective village."

And finally at Scroll.in, Mridula Chari profiles one of South Mumbai’s more unlikely candidates, Gaurav Chari, alias Spiderman. “His campaigning technique is simple: he scales buildings, pokes his head into windows and delivers a brief message: “Hello everyone, this is Gaurav Sharma, the Spiderman. Do vote for the Spiderman in the coming general election. Love you. Thank you so much."

Nailed it.

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Published: 22 Apr 2014, 03:30 PM IST
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