BJP BEATS SENA IN PALGHAR, BUT LOSES GONDIYA SEAT TO NCP

MUMBAI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Lok Sabha bypoll at Palghar in Thane district, but lost in Bhandara-gondiya, a constituency in the party’s stronghold of Vidarbha. While the results were a mixedbag for BJP, the Shiv Sena suffered a loss of face after it went head-to-head against its ally in Palghar but could not manage a win.

The outcome at Palghar, however, is unlikely to have a direct impact on the ruling alliance in the state government, with both Sena and BJP cautious about commenting on the tie-up. While Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray refused to speak about the alliance, instead slamming the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the bypoll result, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said there should be introspection on whether the allies in power should contest elections against each other.

For the Opposition, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a win in Vidarbha (Bhandara-gondiya constituency) signals better electoral fortunes in 2019, if the parties can manage to stay together.

CONTINUED ON P 7 ››RELATED REPORTS, P2 NEWDELHI: India’s economy accelerated to 7.7% in the three months ended March 31, the fastest pace in seven quarters, signalling a turnaround that could augur well for the Narendra Modi government facing re-election next year.

The latest data indicates that the economy is also clawing back to its trend growth prior to the invalidation of high-value currencies in November 2016 that led to gross domestic product (GDP) growth slumping to a three-year low of 5.7% in the June quarter of 2017.

GDP growth for the year ended 31 March at 6.7% was a tad higher than previously estimated by the Central Statistics Office but still slower than the 7.1% growth recorded in the previous year. The turnaround in the economy was led by robust agriculture (4.5%) and manufacturing growth (9.1%) as well as double-digit growth in construction activities (11.5%) in the March quarter.

However, services sectors such as trade, hotels, transport (6.8%) and financial services (5%) decelerated from their levels in the third quarter, signalling a lingering impact from disruptions caused by hasty implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) as well as the state of the banking sector. The economy, however, got a boost from higher government