My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

Gujarat Elections 2017 Key Constituency: Rajkot West It is Jain Vaniya CM versus a rich Brahmin in the Patel heartland By Deepak Parvatiyar* Considered a Bharatiya Janata Party bastion, Rajkot West is the biggest constituency within the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Having given three chief ministers to the state – Keshubhai Patel, Narendra Modi and the present CM Vijay Rupani, this wealthy urban seat is now better known as the BJP’s “CM seat”. Rupani had won the by elections here in 2014 when Vajubhai Vala, the incumbent speaker of Gujarat Legislative Assembly, resigned as the MLA from Rajkot West as he was appointed as the governor of Karnataka. Rupani had then won by a comfortable margin of 23,740 votes, securing 81,092 votes as against his nearest Congress Party rival Jayanti Kalaria’s 57,352 votes. This time though, he faces some anxious time here in face of the almost two-year old Patidar (Patel) agitation over reservation. The challenge before him is to win...

Battle-lines are drawn for the first phase in Gujarat By Deepak Parvatiyar* Article courtesy Marathi Daily Pudhari where it was published in two parts in Marathi. Ahmedabad:   With respective political parties finalizing their lists of candidates, battle-lines are drawn for the first phase of elections in Gujarat. As many as 977 candidates are in fray for the 89 seats in 19 districts that goes for polling in the first phase on 9th December, 2017. Gujarat House has total 182 seats. It is a direct fight between the traditional rivals, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress Party in all 89 seats in the first phase even though there are fringe players such as Shankersinh Vaghela’s Jan Vikalp Morcha, the Aam Aadmi Party as well as the Nationalist Congress Party might influence certain pockets. In 2012, the NCP had won two seats in Gujarat. The caste-war in Gujarat But more than these parties, the most significant players though are the three rising star...

The High Stake Game In Gujarat  By Deepak Parvatiyar* Ahmedabad: All eyes are on Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah, where elections are to be held in two phases on  December 9 and 14. Eversince the Bharatiya Janata Party formed its first ever majority government in Gujarat in 1995, it has comfortably won all state assembly elections since then – its lowest tally in the 182-member Gujarat House has never gone below 115 (in 2012). However, even then it became 117 after the Gujarat Parivartan Party (which had 2 MLAs) merged with the BJP. In comparison, the Congress Party crossed the 60 figure only once, (61 in 2012), during this period since 1995. Its downslide continued to an unprecedented level when in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it could not win a single seat while the BJP made history by winning all the 26 Parliament seats from the state. Moreover, in August this year, 13 of its...

होम National ब्लॉग : बालेकिल्ला सुरक्षित ठेवण्याची भाजपची रणनिती Published On: Nov 16 2017 6:42PM | Last Updated: Nov 16 2017 6:42PM Published in Marathi Daily Newspaper, Pudhari http://www.pudhari.news/news/National/article-about-Gujrat-elections-BJP-Congress/m/ - दीपक पर्वतियार,  ज्येष्ठ पत्रकार, गुजरात  पंतप्रधान नरेंद्र मोदी आणि भाजपचे राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष अमित शहा यांचा बालेकिल्ला असणार्‍या गुजरातवर सध्या सर्वांच्या नजरा लागून आहेत. गुजरातमध्ये 9 आणि 14 डिसेंबर रोजी दोन टप्प्यांत मतदान होणार आहे. भाजप पक्ष स्थापन झाल्यापासून गुजरातमध्ये 1995 मध्ये पक्षाने पूर्ण बहुमताने सत्ता स्थापन केली. तेव्हापासून प्रत्येक विधानसभा निवडणुकीत भाजपने यश मिळविले आहे. 2012 च्या निवडणुकीत भाजपने 182 पैकी 115 जागांवर विजय मिळविला. या पेक्षा कमी जागा कधी पक्षाने मिळविल्या नाहीत. उलट याच निवडणुकीत गुजरात परिवर्तन पक्षाचे 2 उमेदवार विजयी झाले होते. या पक्षाने भाजपला पाठिंबा दिल्याने सरकारमधील संख्याबळ 117 वर गेले.  याउलट काँग्रेसचा विचार करता काँगे्रसला 2012 च्या न...

By Deepak Parvatiyar Around 8 pm on Saturday 14th October 2017. My wife gets down of rickshaw and is taking out some cash to pay the fare to  the rickshawpuller. Suddenly two men on motorbike come from the opposite side and halt near her. One of them gets down, snatches her purse, then rides the pillion and both flee the place. My wife raises the alarm and the guards of my apartments rush and so do the security guards of neighboring establishments. But by that time the snatchers had fled. My wife dialled 100 and a PCR (Police) van came soon enough. So far they could not make  much headway. Hope they crack the case.  Now some moot points for consideration: 1. The miscreants wore no helmets. Implies they were not bothered about concealing their identity. Is this daredevilry or foolhardiness, I cannot decide. But one possibility seems a surity that they must be well equipped to defend themselves.  2. The place where I reside (Kaushambi) is considered a VIP a...

Shareholder farmers from the state of Tamil Nadu during their nearly two months protest action in India's capital, New Delhi. Here they show skulls from local farmers who have committed suicide. Photo: Deepak Parvatiyar India's desperate peasants - they wear their colleagues' skulls* By Deepak Parvatiyar** (Published in Bistandsaktuelt on 27 th September 2017 -- https://www.bistandsaktuelt.no/nyheter/2017/indias-desperate-bonder/ ) Extensive drought and economic crisis affects agricultural areas in a number of Indian states. In two years, around 24,000 farmers have taken their own lives W hen driving the 200 kilometers from Hubli to the "water city" Vijayapur in the Indian state of Karnataka, it is like driving through the rugged landscape of TS Eliot's book "The Wasteland". Undisturbed land on both sides, without vegetation or civilization, as far as the eye reaches! As Elliot said in his poem: ...

When journalism overlaps activism, objectivity goes for a toss By Deepak Parvatiyar Following the gruesome murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017 questions are being asked about whether a journalist can also be an activist? This is in the light of reports that the slain journalist, editor of a Kannada language tabloid, was also an activist with definitive political views and pro-ultra left wing leanings. Apparently there is a very thin line that divides a journalist from an activist and at times that line gets blurred. This raises questions about a journalist's objectivity. As someone asked following Gauri's murder: "Can a journalist hold partisan political views? If so isn't he/she already prejudiced? So what happens to objectivity?"   Obviously objectivity of a journalist or reporter is a very pertinent issue. But my question is whether there is any such thing as objectivity?  As I try to analyse it, I realise that ...

Social media is abuzz with journalist's murder. I knew Gauri Lankesh as a colleague in Eenadu. Of late she has become the editor of a Kannada language tabloid started by her late father. Read she was convicted in a defamation case involving two politicians including a member of Parliament of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and faced jail sentence. She was on bail and about to file an appeal againat the verdict in the higher court. Scribes in their zeal to call spade a spade do often overdo it and a few end up inviting defamation cases against them. I haven't though gone into the details of Gauri's case but I know she wasn't pronounced death sentence. There are political ramifications of her gruesome murder. Whoever benefits from her murder is not the question. The question is about the late surge of kangaroo courts. Much is already being written about the lynch mob. This is not a trait of a healthy society. These are disruptions...not healthy disruptions. ...

Expedient Politics:  Why Bihar Is Important? Published on  July 28, 2017 http://www.jagritbihar.com/2017/07/28/expedient-politics-bihar-important/ By Deepak Parvatiyar Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United party was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance for 17 years.  Nitish wanted to grow and nurtured Prime ministerial ambitions. So his party deserted NDA hoping he could position himself well against Narendra Modi in the 2014 elections.  After all, like Modi he had won successive elections and returned to power in Bihar on development plank! He experimented with others and of late realised he can't compete with Narendra Modi in today's situation.  So, as they say, if you can't defeat your enemy then join him! He needed some convenient excuse and when found one (Tejashwi), now he has done so. He is back as the number one leader of Bihar...a position that he had ceded to the Rashtriya Janata Dal ...