From Pakistan and Bangla Desh, might as well touch on the latest happening in Indian politics. It should be on Malaysia's watchlist for many reasons beyond Anwar recently reestablish relation after cold relation between Mahathir and Modi.
India is a member of BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), IPEF, Northern Sea Route. etc. Increasingly, India is a regional power with a millitary cooperation with Indonesia.
The ruling Bharatija Janata Party of India won the general election conducted from April to June 2024, but Modi only returned as Prime Minister for the third time with 293 seats of the 543 seats Parliament as a coalition government with the Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh and Janata Dal (United) of Bihar as two main allies.
The grand old Congress Party of India seemed to regain a foothold back in Indian politics. According to Wikipedia, "The INDIA coalition outperformed expectations, securing 234 seats, 99 of which were won by the Congress, garnering the party the official opposition status for the first time in 10 years."
The Malay Mail Online reported two days ago below:
Modi’s BJP projected to lose two crucial state elections in India to opposition Congress
Sunday, 06 Oct 2024 3:13 PM MYT
NEW DELHI, Oct 6 — India’s ruling party is projected to have lost two key provincial elections to the main opposition Congress party and its allies, exit polls showed, suggesting another setback after the party fared poorly in national elections.
Local media reported that Congress had a clear advantage in exit polls in the northern state of Haryana, indicating an end to a decade of rule by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. The opposition also held an edge in the Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The two elections were held in phases that ended on Saturday. Votes will be counted on Tuesday and results will be announced the same day. The exit poll results were released late yesterday.
Exit polls, conducted by private polling firms including TV broadcasters, have a patchy record in India, which analysts say poses a particular challenge due to its large and diverse voting population.
The exit polls had projected Modi’s BJP would win a large majority in the general election in June, but it fell short and had to depend on regional parties to secure a majority and form a coalition government.
The two Indian territories are the first to go to the polls since the national elections.
India’s industrial hub of Maharashtra and the mineral-rich eastern state of Jharkhand, next up in provincial elections, are awaiting the announcement of poll dates that are expected to be in November.
The Jammu and Kashmir election was the first in a decade in the Himalayan region, which has endured years of militant violence. It is India’s only Muslim-majority territory and has been at the centre of a dispute with neighbouring Pakistan since 1947.
Its status as a special semi-autonomous entity was revoked in 2019 by Modi’s government, which says the move has helped to restore normalcy in the area and boosted development. — Reuters
The latest headline from NDTV minutes ago seemed confusing. It seemed the Congress Party is already celebrating but BJP beat them to it in a close fight.
BJP Heads For Big Win In Haryana Thriller, Leaders Meet For 3rd Term Preps
Haryana Assembly Election Results: An aggregate of seven exit polls predicted that the Congress will win 55 of Haryana's 90 Assembly constituencies while the BJP will emerge victorious in 26.
India News ! Edited by Rohit Paul ! Updated: October 08, 2024 ! 1:18 pm IST
New Delhi: After pointing to a comfortable victory for the Congress, leads for Haryana are now showing that the BJP is set for a hat-trick in the state. As of 12.55 pm, the BJP is ahead in 49 of the state's 90 Assembly constituencies while the Congress is leading in 34.
An aggregate of seven exit polls predicted that the Congress will win 55 seats, 10 more than the halfway mark of 45, while the BJP will emerge victorious in 26.
While celebrations began outside the Congress headquarters in New Delhi even before the counting started, with party supporters dancing as dhols were being played, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini expressed confidence that the BJP will form the government in Haryana for the third straight time.
"We have done a lot of development work in the past 10 years. The kind of system set up by former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will continue to bring benefits for Haryana for a long time. It is our responsibility to take this good work forward," Mr Saini, who took over as the chief minister from Mr Khattar in March, told reporters this morning.
After leads pointed to the BJP forming a government in the state again, Congress supporters toned down the celebrations but said they were still confident that the party would win.
Senior BJP leaders have also gathered at Mr Khattar's residence in New Delhi to discuss government formation, sources said, The attendees include the party's Haryana elections in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan.
Congress Letter
The Congress has, meanwhile, written a letter to the Election Commission, complaining of an "unexplained slowdown" in updating results for the Haryana election.
"As you can imagine, this allows bad-faith actors to spin narratives that undermine the process. You can see examples of it already playing out on social media. Our fear is also that such narratives can then be used by these mala fide actors to influence processes where counting is still underway i.e. in most of the counting centres," senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote in the letter.
2019 Result
In the last Assembly elections in Haryana in 2019, the BJP had won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) 10. The BJP formed the government with the support of the JJP and Dushyant Chautala became the deputy chief minister. The post-poll alliance ended when Mr Saini became the chief minister.
The BJP won only five of the state's 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana after sweeping all of them in 2019 and the Assembly elections in the state as well as Jammu and Kashmir are an opportunity for the party to prove that it remains popular with voters after failing - for the first time in 10 years - to achieve a majority on its own in the general elections.
For the Congress, the stakes are arguably even higher because the party had been nearly written off after its massive defeats in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Congress leaders have been citing the party's haul of 99 seats in this year's general elections and the performance of the INDIA alliance to talk of a resurgence, and the results in both Haryana and J&K are being seen as a test of that theory.
Will the loss dampened the resurgence of the nationalist party vis-a-vis the right wing?
And interesting trend and mixed fortunes of the grand ole nationalist parties of Asia behind the establishment of the then newly independent countries such as the Awami if Bangla Desh, Kuomintang in Taiwan, LDP in Japan, Golkar in Indonesia and perhaps UMNO in Malaysia attempt to re-establish themselves after temporarily or permanently ousted in general elections?
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