Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has announced more than a dozen sops in the past one year with an eye on the Assembly elections. He's announced everything from laptops, shoes and umbrellas to free mobile phones for over 15,000 farmers.
With laptops, mobiles, shoes, umbrellas, blankets, cycles and Re 1 per kg of rice, Patnaik is on a distribution spree in Odisha. Since the aborted coup by his former political advisor Pyari Mohan Mahapatra, a paranoid Patnaik is leaving nothing to chance. To attract voters, he has announced sops for almost every section of the society. On Tuesday, 20,000 farmers were given free mobile phones.
75-year-old Sudhir Majhi is one such beneficiary. The tribal farmer came all the way from the Mayurbhanj district to collect his free mobile. He said he already has one mobile, this one, he said will go to his grandchildren. "Since the government is providing free, I have come to take the mobile. But this will not influence my vote."
In the past 6 months, the Naveen Patnaik government has given the following sops: ...
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09:30 AM, Jun 19, 2013
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday called on Congress President Sonia Gandhi and discussed issues relating to preparation for upcoming assembly election, in which Congress will seek to retain power for fourth consecutive terms. Dikshit's meeting with Gandhi came before AICC announced a major organisational reshuffle, in which Shakeel Ahmed has been made AICC in-charge of Delhi. Another prominent Congress leader from Delhi Ajay Maken has been...
01:12 AM, Jun 17, 2013
Mumbai: Bhaskar Jadhav was on Saturday named as the new Maharashtra Nationalist Congress Party President. NCP legislator from Thane Jitendra Awhad has been made working president of NCP in Maharashtra. In the recent party's reshuffle, State Urban Development Minister Jadhav was dropped from the Cabinet. The minister was publicaly ticked off by party Chief Sharad Pawar for hosting a lavish wedding reception in drought hit Maharashtra early this year. The...
01:21 PM, Jun 15, 2013
New Delhi: Slamming BJP for politicising the power tariff issue, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday said consumers are receiving higher electricity bills due to round the clock power supply in the city. Justifying the current tariff structure, she said the cost of power production has increased significantly in the last few years due to which electricity tariff in the city has also gone up. "The BJP is politicising...
10:23 PM, Jun 09, 2013
New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Monday will join auto drivers in their protest against the Delhi government's plan to ban advertisements on three-wheelers. The protest will be held at Jantar Mantar. An AAP spokesperson said Kejriwal would join the protest of the auto drivers as their demands were "genuine". Last week, Arvind Kejriwal had announced his decision to take on Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the...
06:40 PM, Jun 09, 2013
New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday issued its second list of 44 probable candidates including party leader Gopal Rai and a daily wager for 10 more constituencies in Delhi Assembly Elections scheduled later this year. A total of 84 candidates had applied for 10 constituencies, namely Babarpur, Bawana, Chhatarpur, Gokulpur, Krishna Nagar, Laxmi Nagar, Mustafabad, Rajouri Garden, Shalimar Bagh and Vishwas Nagar. The Screening Committee comprising seven people went...
10:20 PM, Jun 08, 2013
New Delhi: Names of around 13 lakh non-existent voters were struck down from city's electoral roll by the Election Commission following a detailed survey. Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said the names of the voters were removed after conducting due verifications. "We had conducted a house-to-house survey in 2012 in which around 15 lakh voters were identified in the categories of 'shifted, expired and duplicate' voters. After conducting due...
10:40 PM, Jun 07, 2013
Kejriwal has been taking on Dikshit in the recent past over inflated electricity bills in Delhi and has also accused her government of corruption. Now he has decided to contest against her in the Delhi Assembly elections. If he can defeat the Delhi CM in an election, it may be the biggest coup in India's electoral history. But how realistic are his chances of emerging as the winner? CNN-IBN's national...
06:00 PM, Jun 03, 2013
New Delhi: It is being billed as the David vs Goliath battle. After taking on Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on the streets, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal has finally declared that he would be taking her on in the upcoming Assembly elections in the national capital. Kejriwal is known for targeting and taking on people right at the top, be it Robert Vadra, Nitin Gadkari, Narendra Modi or...
10:35 PM, Jun 02, 2013
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday attacked Lokayuta Manmohan Sarin, saying the ombudsman had gone beyond his legal boundaries and norms by indicting her for something that happened in 2008. "Whatever the Lokayukta has done is beyond his legal boundaries and norms. Something happened in 2008, why are they remembering it now?" She was referring to Sarin's report indicting her for misusing public funds for "political purpose"...
07:31 PM, May 29, 2013
Aam Aadmi Party released the first shortlist of 44 probable candidates for 12 seats in the forthcoming Delhi Assembly elections. Names that leap out of the list are those of Manish Sisodia from Patpartganj, Sazia Ilmi from RK Puram and Somnath Bharti from Malaviya Nagar. AAP's list of probables also has former Congress and BJP workers such as Bheem Singh and Kishori Lal Dhanak who haven't contested an election yet....
12:44 PM, May 25, 2013
At a meeting with party workers in Delhi ahead of state elections this year, Rahul Gandhi admonished them. Rahul said that he will not shy away from disciplining them, unlike Congress President Sonia Gandhi. ...
10:24 AM, May 24, 2013
New Delhi: With Assembly election just months away, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday asked party leaders in Delhi to work unitedly to ensure a fourth successive victory for the party in the polls and sent out a clear message that indiscipline will not be tolerated by him. At around five-hour long interaction with separate groups of Congress workers at DPCC office in Central Delhi, Rahul underlined the need...
08:38 AM, May 24, 2013
Rajnandgaon: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said only BJP had challenged the prevailing vote-bank politics in the country. At a rally in Rajnandgaon, the Assembly constituency of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, Modi said before BJP came to power in December 2003, there was no growth in this mineral-rich state. "The country has witnessed vote-bank politics for fifty years. After gaining power through vote-bank politics, leaders subsequently promoted...
10:24 PM, May 18, 2013
Jaipur: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi met party workers and office bearers here on Thursday while continuing his task of collecting feedback over the party's prospects in the upcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, party sources said. Rahul arrived in Rajasthan's Bikaner district on Wednesday to hold "feedback meetings" with the party's workers. He left for Jaipur in the evening. Assembly polls are scheduled in Congress-ruled Rajasthan at the year-end....
07:33 PM, May 16, 2013
After being forced to put up with a government for the last five years which saw politicians indulging in acts ranging from widespread corruption to watching porn in the Assembly, which saw three chief ministers at work and one of them deserting a national party to form his own regional outfit, what do the people of Karnataka expect from their new chief minister? Does he have it in him to...
04:42 PM, May 14, 2013
Siddaramaiah, sworn in today as the new Karnataka chief minister, has the twin responsibilities of delivering a clean government and cementing the Congress party's fortunes in the next general elections. With both the UPA-2 and the last Karnataka government being badgered by vever-ending scams and scandals, he surely has his task cut out. Sachidananda Murthy, resident editor, Malayala Manorama and The Week, joined IBNLive readers for an interaction on the...
07:13 PM, May 13, 2013
Bangalore: The BJP on Sunday dared the Congress to hold Lok Sabha elections along with Assembly polls due in five states later in 2013 if it was confident after its triumph in Karnataka. Capitalising on anti-incumbency, Congress unseated the BJP in the May 8 elections to the Karnataka Assembly winning 121 seats in the 224-member House. "If the Congress is confident after winning assembly elections in Karnataka, it should conduct...
06:03 PM, May 12, 2013
Is the people's verdict in Karnataka an anti-BJP one? Or is it a product of a pro-Congress wave? How is it significant in light of the general elections which are not very far away? Senior journalist Imran Qureshi joined IBNLive readers for an interaction on the matter. Q. Isn't it true that, in India voting happens mainly on Caste/religion basis. This would be the case, unless there is a very...
06:31 PM, May 09, 2013
New Delhi: A day after its landmark victory in Karnataka, the Congress is yet to take a call on who will be the Chief Minister. Several aspirants are already making a pitch for the top post. Frontrunner Siddaramaiah has sought an appointment with UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and is expected to meet her in Delhi on Thursday evening. Siddaramiah on Wednesday said, "I'm a frontrunner in the race for the...
11:16 AM, May 09, 2013
