1. India Gets the Last Word, Counting of Votes Begins at 8AM
By end of day today, perhaps even earlier, India will have its say on who will administer the country for the next five years.
All exit polls have predicted that the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will return to power. If that happens, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the face of the BJP’s campaign, will win a second term in office.
Although exit polls have been right, if only directionally, in four of the five parliamentary elections prior to 2019, they have been wrong before — most significantly, in 2004.
Either way, six weeks after the election process kicked off, Indian citizens will finally know which leader will represent their constituencies in the 17th Lok Sabha; which political party or formation is best positioned to form the next government; and, in case of a clear outcome, who will be the country’s Prime Minister for the next five years.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
2. In BJP’s 2nd Term Bid, UP & Gains in Bengal & Odisha Crucial
With exit polls predicting the BJP’s return to power, the mood in the party has been upbeat. But the real test for the party will be Thursday, 23 May when counting of votes for the next Lok Sabha is taken up. Because that will decide whether the party has retained its 2014 support base in the Hindi heartland while making inroads in states where it didn’t really have much to show in the last election when it won 282 seats.
There are great expectations from the BJP’s new frontiers of West Bengal and Odisha where, by its own assessment, party candidates have done well. The party is keeping its fingers crossed in the key state of Uttar Pradesh where, even during the campaign, leaders assessed that there’s a fierce contest with the Mahagathbandhan of SP, BSP and RLD. Its UP count in the last election was a staggering 71 of the 80 seats in the fray.
(Source: The Indian Express)
3. Citing SC Order, EC Rejects Oppn Demand to Count VVPATs First
The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday, 22 May, rejected the Opposition’s demand for verification of VVPAT slips before counting begins. Mandatory tallying of paper slips with EVM count in five polling stations in each Assembly segment will take place at the end as per existing guidelines.
“The Supreme Court order of 8 April, which directed the Commission to increase compulsorily verification of VVPAT slips from one polling station to five in each Assembly segment, clearly states that tallying will be done as per the guidelines in force. We are honouring the apex court’s verdict in letter and spirit,” said an EC official on the condition of anonymity.
On Tuesday, 22 Opposition parties approached EC drawing its attention to reports of what they called suspicious EVM movements and demanded that matching of VVPAT slips should take place before the EVM count begins and, in case of any discrepancy, tallying should be extended to all polling stations of the Assembly segment.
(Source: The Indian Express)
4. If NDA Falls Short, Congress Ready With a Three-Step Oppn Plan
Believing that the BJP-led NDA will fall well short of the halfway mark of 272, the Congress, in consultation with many Opposition parties, has devised a three-stage plan which will be put into action for staking claim to government formation if the trends Thursday signal a shift in favour of the Opposition.
Sources in Congress said three letters have been drafted by the legal team of the Congress, headed by Abhishek Manu Singhvi, to operationalise the plan. If the NDA appears to be falling well short of the simple majority mark, the Opposition plans to announce formation of a new alliance with a new name. It will be UPA plus since there will be many new constituents.
(Source: The Indian Express)
5. SC Reaches Full Strength of 31 for First Time in 11 Years
For the first time since 2008 when Parliament increased the Supreme Court’s strength to 31 judges, the apex court will function at its full strength as President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday appointed four new judges — Justices Aniruddha Bose, A S Bopanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
Parliament had increased SC’s sanctioned strength from 26 to 31 in 2008. The collegium headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi on May 8 reiterated its April 12 recommendation for appointment of Jharkhand HC Chief Justice Bose and Gauhati HC CJ Bopanna as SC judges, brushing aside the Centre’s objections on the ground of seniority and equal representation to states.
On 8 May, the collegium of CJI Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde, N V Ramana, Arun Mishra and R F Nariman had also recommended the names of Bombay HC’s Justice Gavai and Himachal Pradesh CJ Kant for appointment as SC judges. With this, the CJI Gogoi-headed collegium has succeeded in appointing 10 SC judges in seven months. The other six are Justices Hemant Gupta, R Subhash Reddy, M R Shah and Ajay Rastogi on November 2 and Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna on 18 January.
(Source: The Times of India)
6. IAF Gets its 1st ‘Fully Ops by Day’ Woman Fighter Pilot
Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth can now go to battle in her MiG-21 ‘Bison’ supersonic jet. She is IAF’s first woman fighter pilot to become “fully ops (operational) by day”.
Though Bhawana, who hails from Bihar’s Darbhanga, can be deployed for day-time missions, her gruelling training regime in handling the highly demanding and aging MiG-21s, which have virtually the highest landing and take-off speed in the world at 340 kmph, is not yet over.
She will have to now learn night flying during the “moon” and “dark phases” to become a fully operational fighter pilot.
(Source: The Times of India)
7. Only Electric 2-Wheelers May be Sold in Country After 2025
Signalling a faster transition towards electric vehicles, the government is expected to mandate the sale of only electric three-wheelers from April 2023, while all new two-wheelers with engine capacity up to 150cc driving out of showrooms may have to be powered by electricity from April 2025.
The radical recommendations of a high-level government panel are aimed at reducing vehicular pollution as these two segments, with annual sales of over 2 crore units, account for more than threequarters of the traffic on Indian roads. The move will not impact vehicles registered up to the cut-off date as they will continue to ply. The four-six year transition window has been provided to ensure that the auto industry, which is pumping in large amounts of money to manufacture BS-VI compliant vehicles from April next year, gets enough time to recover its investment, sources told TOI.
The inter-ministerial steering committee led by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant is likely to propose similar deadlines for delivery vehicles and school and city buses, though the suggestion may not be palatable to the auto industry, which has been pitching for doles.
(Source: The Times of India)
8. Break-In at IAF’s Office Managing Rafale Deal in Paris
Paris police have begun an investigation into a break-in at the office of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Rafale project management team in the suburb of Saint-Cloud in the French capital, two people familiar with the development said on condition of anonymity.
Unidentified persons may have attempted to steal data relating to the fighter jet project on Sunday night, said one of the officials cited above. News agency AFP quoted an unnamed source in a local French prosecutor’s office as saying that “documents and money” had been taken. HT could not verify the statement.
French plane-maker Dassault Aviation has an office complex in Saint-Cloud and the five-member Indian project management team, headed by a group captain, operates from the same premises. Defence ministry spokesperson, Colonel Aman Anand, declined to comment on the incident. IAF and the French embassy in Delhi also declined comments.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
9. Centre Cautions States Over Possible Results Day Violence
Political parties dispatched senior leaders to the states, candidates camped in local hotels and workers spent sleepless nights guarding strongrooms storing Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) as the Election Commission threw a three-tier security cordon around counting centres ahead of the start of vote counting in the Lok Sabha polls on Thursday.
Above: Security personnel arrive to guard at a counting centre for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, on the eve of the counting of votes, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday. (Right) Security officials stand guard at a counting centre in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
In Delhi, the Union home ministry alerted all states and Union Territories (UTs) on the possibility of violence flaring up in different parts of the country, saying calls had been given in various quarters for inciting violence. In a statement, the ministry also said it asked the states and UTs to maintain law and order, peace and tranquillity.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
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