'For the past few years, countries like the United States and Britain have been gripped by allegations that Russia interfered in their elections. Even as that controversy is yet to die down, a new and rather unlikely candidate for election interference has emerged: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In the United Kingdom, the President of the Overseas Friends of the BJP, Kuldeep Singh Shekhawat has made it clear that his organisation will be playing an active part in the upcoming General Election by supporting the Conservatives over the left-leaning Labour Party...'
'...In their book ‘Ideology and Identity: The Changing Party Systems of India’ published in 2018, political scientists Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma demonstrated that Indian political parties and voters are strongly and consistently ideological. As part of the book’s quantitative work, they constructed an index of “the politics of recognition”, which looked at voter responses to questions relating to key issues of identity in successive rounds of post-election National Election Studies conducted by the Lokniti programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).
'The news of pro-BJP groups in the United Kingdom (UK) campaigning for Conservative Party candidates ahead of the country’s general elections, scheduled for 12 December, has sparked fears of “foreign interference” in the poll process. Groups such as the Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) UK and an umbrella religious charity group, the National Council of Hindu Temples (NCHT), are actively campaigning for the Conservatives in 48 seats that are expected to witness tight contests.
'On November 4, Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi accused Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar of “cancelling” three meetings regarding “prevention, control and mitigation of air pollution” in the National Capital Region with the environment ministers of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The meetings had been scheduled in September and October. Javadekar’s Bharatiya Janata Party denied the claim.
'The Narendra Modi government has revoked the Overseas Citizen of India card status held by journalist and author Aatish Taseer, in what can be held as the direct fallout of his election-time cover story on the prime minister for TIME magazine. This could mean that Taseer can be banned from visiting India in the future, reported PTI... His father’s identity as a liberal politician in Pakistan has not only been an enduring subject for Taseer’s essays and novels, it also finds mention in the writings of his mother Tavleen, who is often vocal in support of the Modi regime.
'The Indian government wrote to 11 public sector undertakings asking them to verify their records to check if Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa had exercised “undue influence” during his tenure as special secretary in the Ministry of Power between 2009 and 2013, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday... Lavasa made headlines in May when he disagreed with the Election Commission’s decisions with regard to violations of the Model Code of Conduct during the Lok Sabha elections.
'As many as 12,313 electoral bonds worth Rs 6,128 crore were sold by the State Bank of India, the only entity authorised to sell them in the country, between March 2018 and October 2019, an analysis by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) has revealed. ADR is a non-partisan NGO that works in the field of electoral and political reforms... Electoral bonds have been widely criticised for their opacity and are available in denominations varying from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore. Any Indian citizen can buy them and deposit it in the account of any political party...
'The government may have decided to hold block development council polls in Jammu and Kashmir, but the election euphoria was missing completely. The only visible sign of voting were the heavily guarded polling booths. For the first time in its history, J&K witnessed elections for the constitution of block development councils (BDC) on Thursday. The electoral college for the polls comprised elected panches and sarpanches. According to the state election office, there was a 98% voter turnout.
'A video of the ruling BJP candidate from Assandh purportedly making controversial remarks about EVMs emerged on social media on the eve of Haryana Assembly polls, following which the Election Commission issued him a show-cause notice and appointed a special observer to the constituency to take “corrective action”.
'On October 8, Amit Shah addressed a large gathering at Savargaon Ghat in Beed and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the dilution of Article 370. He said with the move, Modi had succeeded in integrating Jammu and Kashmir with India. The visual and aural symbolism at the rally was also all about Article 370. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader was welcomed with 370 cannon shots being fired in the air. At the same time, 370 flags were waved. While Marathwada is facing a severe drought, Shah chose not to speak about it.
