Poll bugle sounded and the gloves are off

The poll bugle has been sounded and the gloves are off. The campaign has begun with political rhetoric taking over every other move.

Minutes after the Election Commission announced the General Election dates, the Congress and the BJP got into a war of words.

BJP prime ministerial candidate LK Advani said that Congress had ensured the defeat of BR Ambedkar in the post-Independence polls.

So, here was the Congress response: “If one does not know history even then the charges are disgusting,” UPA Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.

But the BJP was unperturbed.

• CNN-IBN-CSDS Survey

• Sonia, Advani locked in a close fight for PM's post

• AIADMK ahead in TN, Cong leads in Andhra

• Left bastions in danger; Cong, TMC surge ahead

• Alliance needed, suitors contact UPA, NDA

• UPA ahead but no one is winning 2009 elections

“The country will get a new government on May 16 and we will have a new Prime Minister in the form of LK Advani,” NDA Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The politicians have already moved into second gear. Now as they begin to intensify their campaign in the coming weeks, expect allegations and counter-allegations to be traded almost on a daily basis.

“Everyday, the UPA alliance is gaining and the NDA is eroding,” AICC chief spokesman M Veerappa Moily said.

But rhetoric apart, it was time to stitch up pre-poll alliances. Within hours of Trinamool Congress tying up with the UPA, Ajit Singh returned to the NDA fold. His coming over will strengthen the BJP in western Uttar Pradesh.

For the BJP, isolated in UP, this is an opportunity which they have grabbed with both hands. “Ajit Singh has supported us in increasing the alliance index,” Advani said.

But a lot still remains to be done like the seat-sharing arrangements, which are yet to be worked out.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was in Tamil Nadu on Monday to discuss the formula. The SP-Congress and Congress-NCP discussions are also on. BJP is holding talks with JD(U) and BJD.

So, the 2009 polls are more about alliances than the two national parties.

Sonia, Advani locked in a close fight for PM's post

Even before the 2009 General Election campaign has taken off, Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi have squared off publicly. But a CNN-IBN CSDS poll suggests that it is not Rahul versus Modi, but Sonia Gandhi versus L K Advani that remains the real leadership battle of the coming General Elections.

The nationwide poll across 23 states asked BJP and Congress voters who their preferred prime ministerial choices were.

Among the Congress voters

• Rahul Gandhi ranked third with 13 per cent of voters supporting him as the prime minister.

• The incumbent, Dr Manmohan Singh ranked second with 23 per cent of the vote.

• Sonia Gandhi was way out in front with 46 per cent of the vote among Congress supporters.

Though Sonia Gandhi shunned the prime ministership once, she is still seen as the face of her party.

Manmohan Singh emerged ahead of Rahul Gandhi is also perhaps an evidence that five years in office have given him a strong public image, especially among the urban middle class.

Among the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) voters

There still seems to be a preference for the original big two who have guided the party for almost half a century.

• With 10 per cent of support among the BJP voters, Narendra Modi ranked third.

• With 27 per cent of support, Atal Behari Vajpayee was second.

• L K Advani ranked first with 31 per cent of the BJP voters wanting him as their party's prime minister.

Interestingly, this is perhaps the first time that Advani has emerged ahead of Vajpayee in a poll of this nature. This suggests that the BJP's core supporters have now finally recognised that Vajpayee era is coming to an end.

For Modi and Rahul though, there is reason to look positively to the future. They are clearly ahead of any other contenders at this stage within their respective parties. Perhaps, their war of words is only a trailer to the battle that may lie ahead in the 2014 General Elections.

AIADMK ahead in TN, Cong leads in Andhra

Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are two southern states that had turned the tide against an over-confident National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2004 Lok Sabha Elections. A neck-and-neck fight between United Progressive Allinace (UPA) and third parties looks like the most possible scenario in the 2009 elections.

A Billion Votes focuses on the CNN-IBN-CSDS poll that explains how the two states will decide the fate of the 15th Lok Sabha.

On the panel of experts to discuss the survey were political columnist Kalyani Shankar, Bureau Chief of Vaartha R Rajagopalan, political commentator Dr V Krishna Ananth and political analyst Dr K Nageshwar.

Tamil Nadu: All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has the momentum

Massive swing in favour of AIADMK
Party	2006	2007	2009
DMK	26	26	28
AIADMK	16	18	28
Others	48	56	44
Note: All figures in per cent.

• A Billion Votes: How Andhra, TN will vote in '09

Rajagopalan began the debate by saying, "DMK (Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam) will lose because of not handling the Sri Lankan issue properly. Secondly, there is no governance in Tamil Nadu. And that is reflecting in your poll too."

Compared to 2006 AIADMK is gaining…………
Caste/community-wise swings for…
Upper caste	+35
Nadars	+17
Vanniyars	+33
Women	+13
Muslims	+10
Note: All figures in per cent.

Traditionally, Tamil Nadu is all about alliances. The poll shows that while there is a dead heat between the DMK and the AIADMK, 13 per cent are with the Congress. There is also the PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi) which is as of now with the DMK alliance. So Chief Minister M Karunanidhi maybe down, but he is not out.

Alliance crucial in a fragmented scenerio
Party	Vote share
DMK	28
AIADMK	28
Congress	13
DMDK	9
BJP	6
PMK	4
Left	3
MDMK	1
Others	8
Note: All figures in per cent.

"I agree but at the same time arithmetic matters more in elections. This has been proved in Tamil Nadu for the past two or three times. When Jayalalithaa got the number of allies, she got the maximum number of seats," Shankar said.

The panelists agreed that whoever gets the bigger alliance will have the advantage even now in Tamil Nadu, particularly the party which is with the Congress. Traditionally, a Dravida party plus Congress has been the beneficiary in Tamil Nadu.

Complete schedule of Lok Sabha elections

The Election Commission has staggered voting in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh over five phases while Bihar will have a four-phase election.

Maharashtra and West Bengal will vote over three days and eight states - Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Prdesh, Manipur, Orissa and Punjab - will see two-day elections.

The remaining 15 states and seven Union Territories will hold vote on a single day.

Election dates and states:

Phase One April16: Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshwadeep. March 23: Issue of notification. March 30: Last date of filing nominations. March 31: Scrutiny of nomination. April 2: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase Two (A) April 22: Manipur. March 28: Issue of notification. April 4: Last date of filing of nomination. April 6: Scrutiny of nomination. April 8: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase Two (B) April 23: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand. March 28: Issue of notification. April 4: Last date of filing of nomination. April 6: Scrutiny of nomination. April 8: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase Three April 30: Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, Sikkim, Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu.

Phase three (A): April 2: Issue of notification. April 9: Last date of nomination. April 11: Scrutiny of nomination. April 13: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase three (B): April 2: Issue of notification. April 9: Last date of nominations. April 10: Scrutiny of nomination. April 15: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase three (C): April 2: Issue of notification. April 9: Last date of nominations. April 10: Scrutiny of nomination. April 13: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase Four May 7: Bihar, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi. April 11: Issue of notification. April 18: Last date of filing of nomination. April 20: Scrutiny of nomination. April 22: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Phase Five May 13: Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh.

Phase Five (A): April 17: Issue of notification. April 24: Last date of filing of nomination. April 25: Scrutiny of nomination. April 27: Last date of withdrawal of nomination

Phase Five (B): April 17: Issue of notification. April 24: Last date of filing of nomination. April 25: Scrutiny of nomination. April 28: Last date of withdrawal of nomination.

Break up of seats: Phase One: 124. Phase Two: 141. Phase three: 107. Phase Four: 85. Phase Five: 86. Counting: May 16.

All election related procedures are to be completed before May 28.

Third Front confident of forming government

This groups calls itself the Third Front and believes that the next government may not be formed if all of them come together. Eight parties including the Left and three southern parties on Monday announced that they wouldn’t go with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

From H D Dewe Gowda to Chandrababu Naidu to Jayalalithaa to Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and the Left; it is a group which has done business either with the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the past. But, it is now rallying around an anti Congress and anti BJP stand.

“Next government will be a Third Front government,” says Chandrababu Naidu.

But who is going to be the leader of this group. Without a powerful player like Mayawati, the Third Front would resemble a still born child.

Just before last years trust vote on the nuclear deal the same players had come together in an unsuccessful bid to dislodge the UPA government. Then Mayawati was the prime ministerial candidate but this time she wants to go alone.

“We are all united in our attempts to provide a good government,” says Dewe Gowda.

This is the leader who is actually playing the Third Front card to its maximum advantage. Almost on a daily basis Sharad Pawar is threatening the Congress to fall in line and treat his party like an equal partner. He has one line open with the Shiv Sena and the other with Comrade Karat.

So for the time being the Third Front is looking like one bus with too many potential drivers.

BJP selects its poll issue: terrorism, Afzal Guru

The BJP on Saturday accused the Government of failing to secure the nation and alleged it was soft on terrorism.

LK Advani, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, indirectly accused the Congress-led government of endangering national security at the cost of vote bank politics.

Advani claimed the UPA Government was delaying hanging Afzal Guru, a terrorist awarded capital punishment for his role in the Parliament attack case, because he was a Muslim.

The terrorist has not been hanged because "his name happens to be Afzal Guru. Had he been some Anand Singh or Anand Mohan he would have been hanged," he said in Bangalore.

Advani claimed the common man’s security was a more important issue than unemployment and inflation and wanted India to follow a “zero-tolerance” policy against terrorism.

"Al-qaeda has not been able to carry out any terror attack in the US and Israel post-9/11 strikes as the governments of both the countries adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism," said Advani at an awareness campaign against terrorism conducted by Karnataka’s higher education department.

He claimed the UPA government had taken a "U-turn on all issues relating to terrorism", citing its decision to scrap POTA, the security law enacted by the previous NDA administration.

Earlier in the day, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley, had accused the government of making India a soft state.

"UPA has made India into a soft state. India from a booming economy is now in a disarray as far as economy is concerned. India as a nation is an insecure nation. It is a naive foreign policy where in you seriously think Pakistan is giving you information. Pakistan's best front... non-state actors are doing it and we cannot help it. And our Prime Minister has already given Pakistan a certificate saying like us poor Pakistan is also a victiom of terrorism," he said in Mumbai.

Diptosh Majumdar, CNN-IBN’s National Affairs Editor, says the BJP’s emphasis on terrorism is a planned move. The party emphasised on terrorism during the five-state elections last year but it didn’t bring it results.

The Congress returned to power in Delhi though elections in the city were held just after the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November. The BJP tried to speak of the economy and inflation for a while but now has returned to its core issue.

Pak Navy chief eats his words on 26/11, Kasab

Pakistan’s navy chief on Saturday tried to calm the controversy created by his statement on the Mumbai terrorist attacks and said his intention was not to contradict his government.

Admiral Noman Bashir told at a press conference in Islamabad on Friday that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured for the Mumbai attacks, didn't take the sea route to the Indian city.

On Saturday, he clarified his statement and said the Pakistan Navy didn’t have the authority to speak about the investigation into the Mumbai attacks.

"We have not been directly involved in the investigation, which is under the domain of the Interior Ministry. Therefore they are better equipped, they have better knowledge and information," said Bashir.

"We have no contradictory opinion on the report prepared by them. Whatever evidence they have is correct. I won't contradict it," Admiral Bashir said.

The Admiral admitted that Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, which is investigating the attacks, may have evidence that Kasab used the sea to reach Mumbai.

India on Saturday dismissed Bashir’s contention that the terrorists did not use the sea to enter Mumbai, saying "thorough investigations" had proved that the men did take that route.

Speaking at a function at the Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL), Defence Minister A K Antony said: "After the 26/11 incident, our agencies have done thorough investigations and come to the conclusion that the attackers had come through the sea route."

Indian Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta reiterated the point at the same function: "We all know our investigating agencies are competent and have provided excellent documents that this (the arrival of the attackers) has happened over the sea route."