Final tally for Madhya Pradesh — Congress wins 114 seats
The Election Commission on Wednesday released the final tally of seats for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections after a marathon counting session that went on all night.
The Congress won 114 seats, with the BJP coming in a close second with 109, said Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer V.L. Kantha Rao.
BJP loses in Hindi heartland
Tuesday’s counting of votes for the three States of the so-called “Hindi heartland” saw the Congress winning big in Chhattisgarh, forming the government in Rajasthan and staking claim to form the government in Madhya Pradesh as it inches ahead of the BJP (counting was still on at the time of writing), and a reversal of fortunes for the BJP that will have ramifications for national politics.
The three States account for 65 seats in the Lok Sabha and went overwhelmingly with the BJP in the 2014 election.
TRS in power again after sweeping polls
Riding on a slew of welfare schemes, mega irrigation projects and the charismatic leadership of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) retained power by securing a landslide victory in the election to the Assembly held on December 7.
The results indicated that schemes like Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bhima, Kalyana Lakshmi, Shaadi Mubarak, old-age pensions and various caste-based welfare measures, introduced by the TRS government, were received well by the people and created a vote bank for the ruling party.
Congress to rule Chhattisgarh after 15 years
The Congress has swept the Assembly elections in Chattisgarh , grabbing 68 seats in an Assembly of 90 members and cornering 43.2% vote share, the highest it has ever got in last four Assembly polls in this 18-year-old State.
The BJP was left with measly 16 seats, with at least six ministers of the Raman Singh cabinet losing the contest.
MNF is back in power in Mizoram
The Mizo National Front (MNF) wrested power from the Congress after 10 years, by registering its best-ever performance.
The MNF won 26 of Mizoram’s 40 Assembly seats after the results were declared on Tuesday.
The Congress won five seats to lose the party’s last outpost in the eight-State northeast.
New RBI Governor named
A day after the sudden resignation of Governor Urjit Patel, the Modi administration on Tuesday appointed former bureaucrat Shaktikanta Das as the 25th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at a time when the government and the central bank are apparently locked in a tussle over several important issues.
Opinion | Signs of a revival for the Congress
Of the few States where the Congress confronts the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) face to face, three will likely have Congress Chief Ministers now. Last year, the party gave the BJP a scare in the fourth, Gujarat. Where the Congress squares off with regional parties, it is at a disadvantage, as Telangana and Mizoram show. That is the summary of Rahul Gandhi’s first year as president of the party.
The varying magnitude of the Congress victories in the three States can be explained as the result of the varying degrees by which this strategy and tactics fell in place.
Shaktikanta Das’ appointment: No cakewalk for the new governor
With the appointment of Shaktikanta Das, the bureaucracy has wrested back the post of RBI Governor after a five-year hiatus that saw two economists occupy the post.
It is easy to dismiss Mr. Das’s appointment as reward for a loyalist-bureaucrat who manned the war room in the Finance Ministry during the difficult days post-demonetisation. But that would be grossly unfair to Mr. Das, who brings to the post rich experience from his days spent in the finance and industry ministries in his home state of Tamil Nadu, and in North Block.
After Adelaide, India has to face the test of Perth
Sweaty, happy men attired in whites, relishing a triumph, and huddling together with their captain. Virat Kohli tweets this image from the climax of the first Test that concluded at the Adelaide Oval on Monday. He writes: “Good win. Onto the next one.”
Celebrate, but move on, is his credo. Kohli is aware that a hard-fought victory's delirium can trigger complacence.
Five dead in shooting at Brazil church
A gunman entered a Catholic cathedral in the Brazilian city of Campinas on December 11 and shot dead four people before killing himself, the GloboNews TV channel has reported.
At least three people were wounded and taken to the hospital in Campinas, an industrial city 100 km northwest of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest metropolis. Firemen at the scene said they had not identified the gunman who shot down people as they prayed.
Former Canadian diplomat detained in China
A former Canadian diplomat has been detained in China, two sources said on Tuesday, and his current employer, the International Crisis Group, said it was seeking his prompt release.
Michael Kovrig’s detention comes after police in Canada arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd on December 1 at the request of U.S. authorities, a move that infuriated Beijing.
