AAP rules out tie up with Cong in Delhi
NEWDELHI: A day after declaring its candidate for the seventh Lok Sabha seat, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday made it clear that there would be neither any alliance with the Congress nor a rollback of any of its candidates in Delhi.
Asserting that “enough is enough”, senior AAP leader Gopal Rai said these are the final seven candidates of the party and there is no question of “any roll back”.
The ruling AAP had earlier on March 2, announced the names of its candidates for the six Lok Sabha seats.
On Sunday, the party declared its last candidate in Delhi, with a s e ni o r l e a d e r s a y i ng t he announcement was made seeing the Congress’s “irresponsible and indecisive” attitude towards an alliance.
“Despite facing stiff opposition from its workers, the AAP was open to an alliance with the Congress in Delhi but after waiting for so long and constantly hearing conflicting statements from the party, we have decided that enough is enough and now even if Congress approaches us with a proposal there would be no alliance in Delhi,” he said.
He said there has been no communication from the Congress which shows that the grand old party is “not serious” about elections in Delhi. The BJP and Con- CHANDIGARH: The ruling Congress in Punjab is confident of winning all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state as it faces a “faction-ridden” and “divided” Opposition in the hustings.
“We are seeing the opposition the way it is. Akali Dal has disintegrated and AAP has also broken into groups. BJP has a lot of infighting,” said Asha Kumari, Congress Punjab affairs in-charge. She exuded confidence that Congress will win all 13 seats in the state.
gress have not yet declared their candidates for elections in Delhi.
There were rumours of a Congress-aap alliance when the Congress decided to seek feedback from its workers on a tie-up. “There are many leaders in Delhi Congress who are in favour of alliance with AAP. But a final call in this regard will be taken by Rahul Gandhi,” PC Chacko, a senior Congress leader, had said. NEW DELHI: The success of the “Gujarat Model” of economic development was one of the biggest talking points of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaign in the 2014 elections. The pitch was simple, yet powerful: Gujarat outperformed India under the leadership of chief minister Narendra Modi, and if Modi was to be elected as the Prime Minister, he would replicate the same model to enhance the economic performance of the country. As the BJP seeks a second term under Modi’s leadership in the 2019 elections, there is hardly any talk of the Gujarat model now.
Has Modi been able to replicate his Gujarat model at the Centre?
The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in Gujarat was 29% more than the CAGR of GDP in India between 2002-03 and 2013-14. This is the period when Modi was the chief minister of the state. Gujarat also fared better than India by 22% in terms of manufacturing growth during this period. Manufacturing is the most critical sector for mass generation of quality non-farm employment in India.
Latest GSDP figures for Gujarat are available till 2016-17. A comparison of economic performance of Gujarat and India, after Modi became Prime Minister (2014-15 to 2016-17), shows that India still lags behind Gujarat in overall and manufacturing growth. What is also interesting is that Gujarat performed better t han I ndia on t hese parameters even before Modi became the chief minister of the state (see chart 1).
The short point is that Gujarat’s economic performance had been better than India’s before Modi was the chief minister, when he was the chief minister, and even after he left the state.
“These statistics clearly show that Gujarat’s economic performance had little to do with Narendra Modi”, said Himanshu, an associate professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University. “Even during the 2014 elections, a lot of economists pointed to problems vis-à-vis the economic governance of Gujarat under Modi. The 2017 assembly elections in the state further underlined the deepening rural distress in Gujarat’s economy,” he added.
“The Gujarat model has long been exposed and even the Prime Minister himself has stopped mentioning it”, said Rajeev