Talking Politics with Nistula Hebbar | West Bengal and Assam Assembly elections
Updated:
Updated:
April 05, 2021 13:08 IST
The Hindu s Political Editor Nistula Hebbar speaks about the upcoming elections in West Bengal and Assam
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The Hindu s Political Editor Nistula Hebbar speaks about the upcoming elections in West Bengal and Assam
In today s episode of Talking Politics with Nistula Hebbar, we discuss the top political stories of the week: the fierce battle in Nandigram, the runaway EVM machine and the campaign gag on BJP s Himanta Biswa Sharma.
In Nandigram, a fierce battle is on between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her one-time close aide Shuvendu Adhikari who defected to the BJP.
Assam Election: Six polling officials have been suspended after the Election Commission found that 181 votes had been cast at a booth in Assam's Dima Hasao district that had only 90 registered voters
Assam votes in a three-phase Assembly election, with the third on Tuesday (Representational)
Guwahati:
Six polling officials have been suspended in Assam after the Election Commission found that 181 votes had been cast at a booth in Dima Hasao district that had only 90 registered voters.
The booth is in the Haflong constituency that voted in the second phase on April 1. Officially the constituency - won by the BJP s Bir Bhadra Hagjer in 2016 - recorded only 74 per cent polling.
Sources said the poll body plans to issue a re-poll order for this booth, which was an auxiliary polling station for the main centre. An official order to this effect has yet to be issued.
Assam elections: 171 votes cast in a booth with 90 eligible voters, five officials suspended scroll.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scroll.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Certain media outfits are calling the Bengal polls ‘historic’. Particularly, the contest in Nandigram.
Image: Amit Sengupta / SabrangIndia
Is it, truly so? How come?
So why was a sitting chief minister, elected for two-terms earlier, camping outside a polling booth in Nandigram in this suffocating heat, on a wheel chair, her one foot in plaster? What was the point in this public spectacle?
Some journalists and self-styled prophet psephologists using academic jargons (identity politics etc) seem to have they gauged the public mood with such meticulous and scientific precision that they are out to create a wave for the BJP in the media! How logical and rational is that, even while journalists on the ground are trying hard to objectively report trends and the pulse, not jumping to conclusions, even while most voters are too intelligent and measured, while they choose to be tight-lipped or go round and round in circles before opening their hearts out?