AP Elections 2019 - Jagan trounces Naidu

In AP, Assembly seats won: YSRCP 151, TDP 23, Janasena 1
In AP, Lok Sabha seats won: YSRCP 22, TDP 3, Janasena 0.
In AP, Popular Assembly vote share: YSRCP 49.9%, TDP 39.2% and Janasena 6.8%.

Why Chandrababu Naidu (TDP) lost and how Jagan Mohan Reddy (YSRCP) won?

• Chandrababu Naidu had promised virtually the moon but delivered little, during 2014-19. 
• Massive anti-incumbency vote caused by Chandrababu Naidu’s falling credibility and his several political missteps.
• Chandrababu Naidu’s running battle with the BJP-Modi government for the past two years and his U-turns on the critical question of getting special category status had badly dented his credibility.
• Government employees turned hostile because of the use of modern tools such as biometric attendance etc.
• Chandrababu Naidu chose to ignore the corruption and misdeeds of his party legislators who had become unpopular. They had turned into mini-Chief Ministers in their constituencies, bullying officials and extending patronage to land mafias, sand mafias and illegal liquor networks. Chandrababu Naidu refused to drop the majority of siting MLAs.
• The incomplete flyover near the Kanaka Durga temple, Vijayawada, stuck out like a sore thumb. 
• Jagan's 3648 km padayatra. “Why not give him one chance” was the common refrain. Jagan’s direct contact with the people helped him to counter Chandrababu Naidu’s powerful outreach to the media or his media management.
• Jagan outsmarted Chandrababu Naidu by keeping up sustained pressure on the government for failing to get special category status and accusing Chandrababu Naidu that he had murdered democracy by luring 24 YSRCP MLAs into the TDP’s fold.
• Jagan's campaign and his slogans such as “nenu vinna” (I heard your woes) and “nenu vunna” (I am there) resonated with the people.
• Jagan's distasteful personal remarks about Pawan Kalyan, and accusing him of becoming a puppet in Chandrababu Naidu’s hands was unwise & untimely but was lucky at Pawan Kalyan's failure to garner Kapu’s (15.2% of AP population) support with his blurred agenda and the absence of a cohesive election strategy.
• Condescending attitude. Ridiculing Jagan at every  any opportunity on “having so many criminal cases”.
• Over projecting capital Amaravati's land pooling and construction with graphics.
• Chandrababu Naidu’s claims of having pushed the state to the top in the number one position in ease of doing business etc cut no ice with voters. Their anger went much deeper as the party drew a blank in Vizianagaram or the defeat of Nara Lokesh in Mangalagiri, the core capital area?
• Jagan managed to buck the negative image created by the CBI cases against him, often cited by Naidu. Naidu conveniently forgot that Jagan came very close to capturing power in 2014 Assembly elections losing by just 1.6% vote margin. 
• Failure to forge alliance with Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena Party and Left parties. Naidu's last minute welfare schemes failed translate into vote bank.
• People’s expectations have gone up phenomenally. Prashant Kishore sharpened Jagan's style of campaigning and strategy. 

Jagan owes credit for his victory to Prashant Kishor, who have stayed with the YSRCP for nearly two years, guiding its strategy, conducting campaigns, training the cadres, handling social media and press releases etc. YSRCP's Ummareddy Venkateswarlu candidly said: “Naidu’s downfall began the day he brought his son into politics.”

The present model of politics and elections is very expensive and is heavily dependent on unlawful methods, mafia, liquor and yet attracts many people because of power and corruption money with return to investment exceeding 1,000% p.a. for next 5 years in return for compromising ethics and morals. The campaigning is so vulgar the people of character mutes their TV sets. Naidu's failure is due to over confidence, extravaganza in spending state money, over projecting small achievements, inability to avoid fight with Modi-BJP, failure to forge alliance with JSP, Left parties, impress upon other castes to stay put with TDP, failure to garner woman votes and above all state government employees feeling uneasy in his administration and so on. He virtually committed the identical mistakes as in 2004. If at least Naidu had roped in Pawan Kalyan in alliance with TDP, TDP+ would have got about respectable 70-80 seats or even a surprise victory with 90+ seats. Fighting with all in all fronts (Jagan, Pawan, KCR, Modi etc), there is hardly any way for Chandrababu Naidu led TDP to win these  elections. Hence the TDP's defeat is not a surprise at all but crushing defeat of 23 of 175 is totally unexpected and was easily avoidable.

General election 2019 blues

This is a waveless election (2019) wherein the preference or dismissal of a leader and issues seem to be pre-determined by the social background (caste and community) of voters. 

• The BJP  won 31% of the vote with 282 seats nationally in 2014. This is the highest vote to seat conversion indicating heaviest fragmentation of the anti-BJP votes. Plain arithmetic suggests that if all major non-BJP forces come together, the Modi machine will halt.
• Today BJP today rules 17 of 29 states (a year ago 21/29 states), either directly or with its allies. Despite BJP's countrywide presence, it is also true that the opposition has been winning most of the Lok Sabha by-elections which is a sign of defeat for the Modi-Shah combine in these elections.
• Anti Modi factors are: Demonetisation, GST, cow vigilante  lynchings, agrarian crisis, unemployment, inflation, cattle trade ban, etc.
• Pro Modi factors: Good governance, divided opposition, Balakot airstrike, surgical strikes, absence of major scams, etc. Factors such as welfare schemes like the PM Awas Yojana, Ujjwala Yojana (free LPG cylinder connection to BPL families), Rs 2,000 to the farmers, are secondary reasons for BJP.
• BJP which won in UP (71/80 seats), Rajasthan (25/25), Gujarat (26/26), Bihar (31/40), MP (27/29), Chattisgarh (10/11), Maharashtra (22/48) and Karnataka (17/28), in 2014, may lose most of these seats in 2019. 
• There is no perceptible Modi “wave” this time and the muscular nationalism plank that the BJP banks on fails to evoke the required response in the face of widespread agrarian crisis.
• The public resentment against the BJP governments is glaringly evident even though some believe that Modi has no alternative. It is also clear the BJP is not adding any new constituency of voters. The trends point to a clear reduction of the BJP’s tally from its commanding position of 2014. 
• Stung by the failure of the campaign based on muscular nationalism in the early phases of voting, the BJP desperately looks for new strategies and altered roadmaps, with emphasis on Hindutva. The candidature of the Malegaon blast accused, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, in Bhopal against Digvijaya singh is a major step towards Hindutva consolidation.
• Modi's election campaign is increasingly looking like his style of governance over the last five years, particularly the manner in which demonetization and GST were pursued. A new narrative every day, with new reasoning and strategies along with altered road maps to attain a proclaimed objective. This could also lead to results as chaotic as demonetization and GST produced.
• Congress party has scored some vital points in terms of ideation of new policy initiatives and programmes, but has failed to follow this up with solid organisational initiatives and electoral strategies.
• In Uttar Pradesh, multiple narratives are impacting the election in different ways. BJP's candidate's weaker profile as compared to BSP-SP-RLD alliance is widely acknowledged.
• People are not interested in communal issues but have economic concerns. The BJP had impar­ted a larger-than-life cult image to Modi. Even now they are projecting him as a lone lion in the jungle versus the rest. This is not going to work now.
• Had even a single person been killed in Pakistan by our our strikes, would they have returned Wing Commander Abhinandan in one single piece within days? Is Imran Khan not answerable to the people of Pakistan? So how did Amit Shah claim we killed 250 Pakistanis!” -- Raj Thackeray 
• EVM's are neither easy to tamper with and at the same time not tamper proof. Its non-transparent mechanism gives scope for losing candidate to think that EVM has been tampered with. Unless public confidence is earned, EVM will remain a contentious issue. EC telling that EVMs are perfect without explaining how they are perfect is nonsense.
• This election is not about who wins but to ensure that the BJP loses so that the nation survives. “We will take on each other later.”  -- Raj Thackeray 
• Mukesh Ambani had recently extended his support to Congress candidate Milind Deora in South Mumbai constituency. Raj Thackeray called this shift in Ambani’s loyalty from BJP to Congress is a big message to the country. Ambani is Uddhav Thackeray’s close friend but decided to side with a Congress candidate is a clear indication that Modi is heading towards defeat.

As things stand today, a weak opposition is Modi’s biggest strength and he is likely to benefit from the TINA (there is no alternative) factor the most, with other positives contributing towards making him virtually unassailable. Reactions from the echelons of the Sangh Parivar after the first two rounds of polling point towards a sense of unease. Many leaders admit that there is a possibility that the BJP would only win half the seats it had in 2014. 

Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik’s act of dissolving the Assembly when three non-BJP political parties in the State were on the verge of forming a coalition government is of a piece with the systematic undermining of democratic polity. Modi unleashing CBI, ED, Income Tax etc on all anti-BJP parties terrorizing opposing candidates and immobilizing their associates is gross misuse of institutions which are supposed work autonomously. In order to safeguard democracy it is important that Modi & BJP must be defeated in this 2019 elections and be watchful that future governments don't follow the same path. 

Rupee hits historic low of ₹71 per USD

USD INR breaches life time low of  ₹71

The Indian rupee touched a historic low of ₹71 against the US dollar on Fri Aug 31, 2018, falling 26 paise today, 1.55% during the week and more than 11% year-to-date. It was trading at around ₹64 to the dollar on same day last year. 

The causes of supporting USD and INR weakening are:

• Consistent demand for the USD from oil importers.
• Fall in EM currencies.
• Rising crude oil prices.
• Inflationary pressures.
• Lingering Sino-US trade tensions.
• Looming US sanctions against Iran's oil exports.
• Shutdowns in Libya, debt crisis in Venezuela have led to crude oil supply constraints. 
• India's widening current account deficit.
• INR is under performing its emerging market (EM) counterparts.
• US economy reported best performance in last nearly 4 years, showing 4.2% growth. 
• As the US economy is growing and US Federal Reserve raising interest rates, the demand for dollar has also been increasing.

Rupee is still overvalued and healthy forex reserves may limit the downside of the rupee. RBI may crush speculative longs but it can do little to prevent INR opening weaker on gaps. RBI is unlikely to intervene as the rupee is still overvalued and currencies of EMs are also depreciating. 

Since the present situation that is strengthening USD and weakening INR is likely to continue for some more time, USD-INR rate could touch ₹80 by end of the year. Despite good monsoon, depreciating rupee and its consequences on domestic price rises etc could spell doom for Modi since general elections are just 8 months away and there is very little he could do to contain damages.