Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday filed his nomination papers from Amethi. He is also contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Wayanad in Kerala. 

Before filing the nomination, Gandhi embarked on a roadshow in Amethi. Amethi goes to polls in the fifth phase on May 6.

The three-term MP will take on Union minister and BJP candidate Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha election in a virtually direct contest as the SP-BSP-RLD alliance has decided not to put up any candidate here.

(With PTI inputs)

On the campaign trail in Odisha, BJP’s Sambit Patra uttered a couple of words that should make any democracy-loving Indian’s heart stop.

Patra is the party’s candidate for Puri and contesting against BJD’s Pinaki Mishra, a three-time MP. 

On Patra’s candidacy, Mishra quoted a pretty solid burn from Twitter, “BJP promised Narendra Modi, delivered Sambit Patra, typical of BJP governance.”

🔥🔥🔥

Except, Patra then responded with this: “Each (BJP) candidate contesting across India represents a miniature version of Modi. We are fighting not with our name. We are fighting with the name of our Supreme Leader, Narendra Modi.”

Patra may have mistaken Odisha for North Korea, but the phrase ‘Supreme Leader’ instantly put Indians on edge.

Many started tweeting dire warnings of what the use of the phrase meant.

It also prompted comparisons to North Korea and 1940s Germany, both not exactly known for their commitment to democracy. 👀

The ease with which Patra, a national spokesperson of the ruling party, called the prime minister a ‘supreme leader’ is unnerving.

The BJP is not known for its ability to receive criticism gracefully or engage in dialogue with critics. The prime minister has famously not held a single press conference since he took over. The government and its ministers have also been shooting down any questions raised by opposition leaders on its policy and national security decisions, decrying them as “anti-national” or “anti-India”.

Many of the comments politicians make during election season can get drowned out in the sheer mass of coverage. But comments like these should make us sit up and take notice since, even if Patra chooses to air his hallucinations, we are still a democracy.

It’s going to be a long two months. Let’s stay sharp, guys.

You can watch the full exchange below:

NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the bail plea of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav in multi-crore fodder scam cases.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Rajan Gogoi said it is not inclined to enlarge Yadav on bail in the cases.

The bench rejected Yadav’s arguments that he has been in jail for 24 months, saying in comparison to the 14-year sentence awarded to him 24 months was nothing.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Yadav, said there were no recoveries and no demand and the only major offence under which he was convicted was conspiracy.

The bench said merits of the case will be decided by the high court.

“At present, we are only hearing the bail appeal,” it said.

The CBI had on Monday vehemently opposed in the apex court the bail plea of Yadav, saying the ailing leader suddenly claimed to be “fully fit” to undertake political activities in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Yadav, who has been in hospital instead of jail for last eight months, had sought bail on medical grounds and for leading his party simultaneously, the CBI had said while arguing that granting of bail to him would set “very wrong precedent” in cases involving “serious corruption in high offices”.

Accusing Yadav of undertaking political activities from a hospital in Ranchi, the probe agency had said: “Simultaneous raising of pleas for bail on medical grounds and bail to guide the party and to carry out all essential responsibilities as a party president in ensuing Lok Sabha election are mutually contradictory and manifests that in the garb of bail on medical ground the petitioner in essence wants to pursue his political activities which is impermissible in law.”

The agency, in its response filed to Yadav’s bail plea, had referred to the high-profile political leaders who have visited him in hospital in last few months including Ahmed Patel, D Raja, Derek O’ Brien, Sharad Yadav and Hemant Soren.

The convicted person occupied the constitutional office of the Chief Minister of one of the largest states in the country and has been held guilty of “misappropriation of Rs 75.48 crores in four fodder scam cases” and is still undergoing trial in two cases for misappropriation of Rs 139.45 crore, it had said, adding Yadav may influence the trial in the two pending cases.

The RJD chief, lodged in the Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi, had challenged the January 10 verdict of the Jharkhand High Court dismissing his bail plea.

The three cases in which Prasad has been convicted are related to the over-Rs 900-crore fodder scam, which pertains to fraudulent withdrawal of money from the treasuries in the Animal Husbandry department in the early 1990s, when Jharkhand was part of Bihar.

The RJD was in power in Bihar with Prasad as the chief minister when the scam had allegedly taken place.

In the high court, the RJD supremo cited old age and poor health for grant of bail. Yadav (71) said he was suffering from diabetes, blood pressure and other ailments and that he had already obtained bail in one of the fodder scam cases.

He has been convicted for fraudulent withdrawal of money from the Deoghar, Dumka and two Chaibasa treasuries situated in Jharkhand.

He is currently facing trial in another fodder scam case pertaining to the Doranda treasury and has been undergoing treatment at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) at Ranchi for the last few months.

A teaser trailer for “The Addams Family” animated movie scares up laughs in the frightfully funny old franchise.

Morticia (Charlize Theron) and Gomez (Oscar Isaac) behold their blood-curdling digs in the early peek, posted Tuesday. “It’s hideous,” she says. “It’s horrible,” he says. “It’s home,” they sigh in unison.

Torture and mayhem ensue. And there’s even a Pennywise joke.

Welcome back, fam!

“The Addams Family” is scheduled for an Oct. 11 release.

Watch the trailer above.

A day before the biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to hit theatres, the Election Commission has stepped in and stopped the release.  

An EC official said on condition of anonymity that the body has “powers under Article 324” to take the decision. The commission said that the film won’t release till the Model Code of Conduct is in place. 

The biopic, starring Vivek Oberoi, had received a ‘U’ certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on Tuesday.

The film, whose release would have coincided with the first phase of the voting, had been criticised by the opposition parties, who claim that the biopic could give undue advantage to the BJP in the polls.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had dismissed a petition filed by a Congress activist seeking stay on the film’s release, saying the Election Commission would be an “appropriate” place to seek the redressal.

(With PTI inputs)

It has been a couple of months sinceGully Boy brought rap back into the mainstream, but it looks like Indian politicians still haven’t got over it. This week, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a new rap video for first-time voters. 

In the video, people in shiny, oversized clothes are trying really hard to give out gangster vibes, while rapping about “the one, one and only one”.

Imagine blue, green, yellow and red thrown at you all at once. But when you do get past visuals of the dancers dressed like rainbows or unicorn dust (take your pick), the lyrics seem to be telling the youth about all the wonderful things Modi has done for the country—cheaper home loans, toor dal (yes, there is a jar of toor dal in there), many many jobs and cheap mobile data. Judging by the number of things crammed in there, it looks like the people who wrote the lyrics weren’t very sure what first-time voters want. 

Also, is this really rap or just random words strung together and recorded along with a random sound track? Listen for yourself. 

This isn’t the first rap video though. Last month, Congress and BJP had a rap battle on Twitter. Thankfully, that wasn’t an original rap like this one. Both the parties decided that it would be okay to take the Azaadi song from Gully Boy to serve their political agenda. 

HuffPost India’s Piyasree Dasgupta had pointed out that even the Azaadi song in Gully Boy was a watered-down version of the one from 2016, which asked for freedom from caste structures and patriarchy. But oh, the sweet irony of mainstream political parties, and especially the BJP, using the song associated with Kanhaiya Kumar and JNU students in their campaigns!  

Naezy and Divine (whose lives Gully Boy is based on) came to the limelight by rapping about their struggles in the slums of Mumbai. They used their powerful lyrics to speak of their struggles, to question the establishment and as a form of protest. But this election season, irony is dying many deaths as the establishment appropriates the form to churn out cringeworthy rap videos for their own benefit. 

Lok Sabha elections 2019 begin tomorrow with 91 constituencies in 18 states and two Union Territories going to polls in the first phase on 11 April. 

The Indian general elections will be held in seven-phases for 543 seats across the country on 11 April, 18 April, 23 April, 29 April, 6 May, 12 May and 19 May. Counting will be on 23 May.

Some of the seats going to polls in this phase are Arunachal Pradesh West, Jamui, Bastar, Nagpur, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad. 

In Arunachal Pradesh West, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju is facing a tough fight from Congress candidate Nabam Tuki. 

In Jamui, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Chirag Paswan will take on Bhudeo Chaudhary, who is running on a ticket from the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party. 

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari is seeking re-election from Nagpur, but it will be a tough fight for him because Nana Patole, a former BJP MP who joined the Congress a year ago, has also thrown his hat in the ring.

BJP has fielded Union minister VK Singh in Ghaziabad, who will take on Congress’ Dolly Sharma and Samajwadi Party’s Suresh Bansal. 

Bastar is the only constituency in Chhattisgarh where polling will be held in the first phase of elections. BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi and four security personnel were on Tuesday killed when their convoy was attacked by naxalites in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district.

Election Commission officials quoted state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Subrat Sahu as saying that the polling will be held as per schedule despite the attack. 

The BJP denied ticket to its sitting MP Dinesh Kashyap in Bastar and fielded its Bastar district chief Baiduram Kashyap. Congress has pinned its hopes on Dipak Baij.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi is confident of retaining the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat for the fourth time. 

The BJP has fielded J Bhagwant Rao, while Congress’s Feroz Khan is also in the fray from the constituency.

Here are the constituencies which are going to polls tomorrow:

(With PTI inputs)

When you accomplish something amazing ― like earning a promotion, finishing a yearslong passion project or finally paying off your credit card ― you’d think a burst of happiness would be followed by relief. Maybe even a dash of relaxation. Right?

Not for everyone. It’s actually not unusual to feel more anxious following good news or hard-earned success than you do when you’re putting out fires or working hard.

“Anxiety can be a bit tricky, as it’s a primitive response that’s hard-wired into the brain,” said Carla Marie Manly, a California-based clinical psychologist and author of “Joy From Fear.” “The brain’s fear circuit works very quickly, and it doesn’t always pause to differentiate between good anxiety and bad.”

So, when something good happens, the physical symptoms you feel are similar to those that you associate with panic or fear, Manly said.

But even when you are able to distinguish between feelings of excitement (good stress) and panic (bad stress) following a dose of success, the climb down from Mount Euphoria can be an anxiety trigger in itself. When your body becomes accustomed to a chronic state of anxiety, the positive physiological changes that happen after good news can, paradoxically, trigger the sense that something isn’t right ― simply because you’re not used to feeling good. As a result, your body never fully lets go of its hypervigilant state, Manly said.

This reaction may also be exacerbated by an underlying belief that the good event will probably be followed by something bad ― perhaps because in your past, bad things that have happened to you often transpired when you were doing well or things were relatively calm, said Jo Eckler, a Texas-based licensed clinical psychologist and author of “I Can’t Fix You — Because You’re Not Broken.” Instead of enjoying the moment, you spend that time waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Anxiety can increase when good things happen for many other reasons too, like growing up in a family where success was met with resentment, ongoing experiences of losing things soon after you got them or feeling like a target once you have something to lose.

“We learn so much as children that we don’t even realize at the time,” Eckler said.

Fortunately, this is a learned way of thinking that can be managed. If your anxiety doesn’t seem to understand that it can clock out when things are going well, here are some expert-recommended mental exercises that can help:

Acknowledge that your anxiety is getting triggered

The first step to managing or eliminating your anxiety around good outcomes is firmly acknowledging that it happens in the first place.

“Once you come to notice that you’re triggered by good things, the element of surprise or avoidance is diminished or replaced by an attitude of acceptance,” Manly said.

You can further diffuse the situation by reminding yourself that what you’re feeling isn’t the same as fear-based anxiety ― it’s a sign that something amazing is happening, and you deserve to enjoy it. Heads up, though: It might take some time for this mode of thinking to become a natural reaction.

“It’s natural for the psyche to want to go back to old thought patterns, so this new one will take time and patience to become hard-wired into the brain,” Manly said.

Allow yourself to feel your anxiety

Instead of fighting the feeling of impending doom, dive into it just long enough to map out exactly what you would do if the worst-case scenario were to happen. So, for example, if you just got a stellar promotion and you’re anxious that others won’t be receptive or happy for you, think about how you’d talk to them about it or how you’d handle that situation if it happens.

“When we allow anxiety to fuel solutions, it tends to go away,” said Alicia Clark, a Washington-based licensed clinical psychologist and author of “Hack Your Anxiety.” Quickly putting a strategy together can give your worries the outlet they need to subside.

Slow down for a moment

When your body’s alarm system is activated, slowing down can signal your nervous system to chill out, Eckler said. For example, letting your eyes slowly roam around and notice hyperspecific details about your surroundings ― think the color of the chair you’re sitting in and the sounds you hear outside ― counteracts the tendency for our gaze to freeze when you’re on high alert. Gentle, slow movements of the body and deep breathing can help with this as well.

Expect — and take in — the good

Being more open to positive outcomes can reduce the likelihood that good things will feel like a mistake to your brain and trigger anxiety, said Anna Kress, a New Jersey-based clinical psychologist.

To put this into practice, spend a few seconds at a time truly savoring a good experience when it happens. It doesn’t have to be something monumental; it can be the softness of your pillow after a long day, the warmth of a shower or the flavor of your favorite cocktail. Each time you do this, you train your brain to experience positive emotions more easily.

Talk to someone

If you struggle with worry or pessimism and find it difficult to expect good outcomes (or are immediately suspicious of them), therapy can be helpful, Kress said. A therapist can not only help you get to the core of why experiencing joy is such a grind for you but teach you strategies that increase your tolerance for all emotions.

Shawn Mendes is setting the record straight about his sexuality once again. 

For years, the pop superstar has routinely faced speculation that he identifies as gay from fans and media outlets. Speaking with The Guardian Sunday, Mendes called the rumors “hurtful,” taking into account his repeated attempts to shut them down on social media and in interviews. 

“I get mad when people assume things about me because I imagine the people who don’t have the support system I have and how that must affect them,” he said. 

The “In My Blood” singer recalled a 2016 Snapchat story, in which he stated for the record, “First of all, I’m not gay. Second of all, it shouldn’t make a difference if I was or wasn’t.”

The fact that the speculation continues in spite of his remarks, Mendes told The Guardian, is harmful to his fans who identify as LGBTQ. 

“That was why I was so angry, and you can see I still get riled up, because I don’t think people understand that when you come at me about something that’s stupid you hurt so many other people,” he said. “They might not be speaking, but they’re listening.”

The Guardian interview comes just months after a lengthy Rolling Stone profile that addressed the rumors about Mendes’ sexuality at length. 

“I thought, ‘You fucking guys are so lucky I’m not actually gay and terrified of coming out,’” he told the magazine in November, after reading through various internet comments regarding his sexuality. “That’s something that kills people. That’s how sensitive it is. Do you like the songs? Do you like me? Who cares if I’m gay?”

He went on to note that he wasn’t proud to admit that he felt the need to be seen with women in public to “prove to people that I’m not gay” ever since the rumors began. 

It’s a real-life version of one of the most feared monsters in horror fiction... only smaller. A lot smaller.

On Wednesday, an international team of researchers unveiled the fossilized remains of an ancient relative of the sea cucumber. It had 45 tentacles and lurked at the bottom of the seas some 430 million years ago. 

They’ve dubbed it Sollasina cthulhu, after the tentacled Great Old One of H.P. Lovecraft’s weird tales, a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B said.

Unlike the massive Cthulhu of fiction, the creature unveiled by scientists this week was quite tiny, with the fossil measuring just about an inch across. 

However, the researchers said those 45 “tube feet” extended out in every direction and would make it seem much larger as it sat on the ocean floor, perhaps waiting and dreaming.

“Sollasina belongs to an extinct group called the ophiocistioids, and this new material provides the first information on the group’s internal structures,” lead author Imran Rahman of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History said in a news release.

Despite its diminutive size, the creature still managed to pack a lot of nightmare fuel. Those 45 tentacles were used to snatch up food, creep along the ocean floor and scare off predators. 

Oh, and those “tubes” also had their own armor. 

“The tube feet of living echinoderms are naked, but in the ophiocistioids they were plated,” Yale paleontologist Derek Briggs, a co-author of the study, said in a news release. “Our analysis strongly suggests that ophiocistioids diverged from the line leading to modern sea cucumbers.”

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. 

BENGALURU — In a bid to woo voters, Karnataka Housing minister MTB Nagaraj danced to a popular tune from the Hindi movie ‘Nagin’ much to the amusement of people at Hoskote and the video has gone viral.

Nagaraj, whose name means King Cobra, had gone with his supporters to Katigenahalli village in Hoskote Tuesday evening seeking votes for Congress candidate and former union minister Veerappa Moily who is contesting from the Chikkaballapura Lok Sabha constituency. 

A music band that followed the minister’s convoy started playing the famous ‘Nagin’ tune to captivate a cobra from the 1954 Hindi movie.

The tune was part of the song ‘Man Dole Mera Tan Dole’ and it charmed Nagaraj too and the 67-year-old congress leader started to gyrate.

Soon his supporters too began dancing with him and the performance went on for about 10 minutes.

The dance video has gone viral.

Those accompanying Nagaraj finally asked him to slow down in view of his age.

This is not the first time that the minister has exhibited his dance skills in public. He had done it earlier too during religious events in Hoskote.

The minister, popularly known as MTB by his supporters, was ranked the richest MLA in the country by the Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO, last year which said his assets were valued at over Rs 1,000 crore.

Karnataka goes to the polls in two phases on April 18 and 23.

In the Indian elections, voters have the option of not just voting for the candidates in their constituency but also rejecting those candidates by voting NOTA. 

What is NOTA?

NOTA, meaning None Of The Above, is an option on the ballot which allows the voter to exercise the option of not voting for any of the contesting candidates in the fray.

The NOTA button is the last button of the Balloting Unit below the panel for the contesting candidates, the Election Commission says.

If any voter asks about NOTA, the polling officer of the booth shall explain it to the voter and allow franchising his/her option, the EC’s website says.

When and why was it introduced?

The Supreme Court allowed voters to cast a negative vote in elections through NOTA in a landmark judgement passed in September 2013.

According to the court’s judgement, not allowing a person to cast a negative was against “the very freedom of expression and the right ensured in Article 21 i.e., the right to liberty.” The court said providing the option of NOTA would encourage more voter participation and compel political parties to nominate a sound candidate, while protecting the voter’s right to secrecy while casting his/her ballot, Firstpost reported.

How many voted NOTA in the 2014 election?

In 2014 Lok Sabha election, 60,02,942 votes which amounted to 1.08 percent of the total votes cast went to NOTA, according to Association for Democratic Reforms.

Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris seat registered the most number of NOTA votes at 46,559 while Lakshadweep had the lowest at 123.

News18 reported the results of assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana saw NOTA votes outperform against parties like Aam Aadmi Party and Samajwadi Party.

MUMBAI, Maharashtra — The summer of 2014 found Vivek Oberoi at Bollywood parties, getting into arguments with fellow beautiful people over Narendra Modi’s merits.

“I busted a lot of their myths about Mr. Modi that night,” Oberoi subsequently told the Washington Post. “I also countered many of their traditional notions about secularism.”

Five years later, in the summer of 2019, Oberoi has become Modi —essaying the role of the Prime Minister in a hagiographic biopic that is so naked a pitch for Modi’s re-election that on April 10 2019, the Election Commission of India decreed that its release would violate India’s election laws.

The Commission’s decision came a day before the film was due to hit cinemas and a day after the Supreme Court had refused to prevent the film’s screening.

Nonetheless, the brouhaha around the movie’s non-release has meant India has seen far more of Oberoi in the past week than in the decade-and-a-half since that press conference back in 2003 (but more on that later). Even the manner in which the film was almost released, and then not, seems cut from the so-close-yet-so-far arc of Oberoi’s film career.

For much of the last fortnight, while the film’s fate was still up in the air, Oberoi revelled in his re-discovered relevance, traded zingers with news anchors and mugged smugly for cameras. Yet, beneath the well-tailored suits and well-crafted PR messaging, it wasn’t hard to see why Oberoi has been inexorably drawn to the privileged-but-persecuted persona peculiar to Modi and his followers.

“Whether it is Godhra riots or the SIT investigations, when someone has risen, for me, it’s how this guy went through all these experiences,” Oberoi told HuffPost India, explaining why he was drawn to make this film. “Without picking on a caste base, or playing on a family name, or being funded by somebody behind him, Modi achieved his political gains purely on merit and hard work.”

Forget the psephologists hectoring us about social arithmetic: Oberoi’s in-real-life performance on Twitter, TV studios and press interviews is perhaps the best explanation for Modi’s enduring appeal. The Prime Minister, after all, is the master of channeling precisely the sort of thwarted entitlement epitomised by Oberoi.

When HuffPost India met Oberoi, the Central Board of Film Certification had just cleared PM Narendra Modi for release. So exuberant was the mood that a member of his entourage flaunted a photo of the certificate to this writer, breaking into a little dance.

Oberoi sat in a bedroom of his producer’s apartment in upscale Juhu. Outside, a phalanx of TV crews waited impatiently for another round of interviews.

“Not used to dealing with this. You are a filmmaker,” Oberoi said, speaking of himself in the second person. “Every Friday, you are used to facing either taali ya gaali. To deal with this kind of systematic pressure trying to choke you down has been a nightmare.”

Much like the Prime Minister, Oberoi quickly portrayed himself as the victim of a vast, well-organised conspiracy. “There are people with endless resources who have hired a battery of lawyers whose fees is more than the budget of my film,” he said.

Yet Oberoi was philosophical.

“I am surrounded by love, family, fame, fortune and cinema,” he said. “I’m like, I’m a child of abundance, I’m divine destiny’s child who made it.”

The Election Commission stalled the film’s release the next day. Vivek Oberoi, child of ambivalent destiny, had been foiled again.

Life In Plastic

The autumn of 2009 found Vivek Oberoi on Tere Mere Beach Mein, a chat show hosted by Farah Khan for Star Plus.

“You know the tiffin-box manufacturer Tupperware?” Oberoi said. “The amount of plastic they have? Our film industry has much, much more than that. Plastic smiles and plastic hearts.”

Oberoi was referring to what has, even decades later, remained Bollywood’s most famous beef, the kind of fight that reaches mythical heights, the kind of fallout that ends careers and becomes a cautionary tale, a metaphor for what happens when you wrong Bollywood’s despot-in-chief, one who’s revered as much as he’s feared.

The incident Oberoi spoke of happened in March of 2003, when he held a press conference, alleging that Salman Khan called him 41 times and threatened to kill him. Khan was upset because Aishwarya Rai, his former girlfriend, had dumped him after he abused her. 

In an interview, Rai had said, “There were times when Salman got physical with me, luckily without leaving any marks. And I would go to work as if nothing had happened.”

Rai had recently started dating Oberoi and Khan, like any other entitled superstar, was hopping mad.

At the time, Oberoi was on a hot streak. He was a sensation. He was the next big thing.

The previous year, his debut film, Ram Gopal Varma’s Company, had opened to rousing box-office numbers and Oberoi was unanimously praised for his performance as Chandu, a sidekick who eventually topples the gang lord Mallik, who recruited and mentored him.

Cast opposite the seasoned Ajay Devgn, Oberoi had held his own. On screen he exuded the rugged magnetism that makes gangsters hot. He soon appeared in Road, followed by Shaad Ali’s Saathiya, a Yash Raj Films production that catapulted him to Bollywood’s coveted A-list and also established him as a romantic hero.

Yet Oberoi would soon learn that toppling a mob boss on screen is far easier than going up against the industry’s self-appointed godfather, Salman Khan.

In his press conference about Salman Khan, Oberoi was essentially standing up to an abusive man who — Oberoi said — was harassing him and his partner.

Perhaps today, 16 years later, he may have found a more receptive audience.

But in 2003, he just vanished.

“Overnight, I was an outcast. People called and said, ‘oh you’ve done the right thing’. But work stopped coming,” Oberoi told Farah Khan, adding that there were people who said they wanted to work with him but couldn’t because they wanted to remain in Salman Khan’s good books. “It came to a point where producers were asking me to return their signing amounts. I was mocked at award ceremonies and parties. I had to start all over again. Not from zero, but from minus.”

Oberoi lost both - his career and his lover.

In an interview, Oberoi said that the person who pushed him to do this also started keeping a distance, hinting at Rai.

As he said in the 2009 interview with Farah Khan.

“She never appreciated me for what I did,” he said of Rai, pausing as if he was still wrestling with the ghosts of his past. “Never.”

All Bhakt Up

Oberoi seemed like an unusual choice when the Modi biopic was first announced. But in his conversation with HuffPost India, it seems like Oberoi really is a bit of a bhakt.

He parrots the achievements of the Modi government as if he has studied them for a college viva. Any criticism of Modi—the mainstreaming of hate, the rising communal violence, murders of activists and intellectuals and journalists, the systematic destruction of institutions—are rebutted with prepared oration delivered with the fervour of a sermon.

Sample this: “In his term, electric vehicles have come in, gas subsidies have returned, there’s been massive infrastructure development, almost 37 kms of roads made per day, which is unprecedented in the history of independent India, all of this would you put it down to Hindutva?”

It is quite apparent that, the conscientious actor that he is, Oberoi has familiarised himself with his script and is ready with his lines.

When asked why the film sucked up so hard to the Prime Minister, and entirely glossed over his faults, Oberoi sought the moral high ground and stayed there for the entirety of the interview.

“Like I have no right to tell the Huffington Post what their editorial piece should be,” he began.

“Nobody in a democracy has the right to say, ’No, no, you need to take this,” he continued.

“If I am making a film that is an inspirational journey, i pick and choose what i think will inspire,” he concluded.

His answer isn’t very different from a line he frequently used in studios when news anchors asked him if he was trying to influence the elections. His answers were quickly cut into short clap-back videos by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s social media cells and posted on a network of Facebook pages that the party overtly and covertly maintains.

“We live in a time when instant judgement is served faster than instant coffee,” Oberoi continued, pushing back at suggestions that he was essentially a BJP stooge pushing a film to help Modi win the election. “People don’t bother to read and educate themselves but everyone has an opinion.”

Bhai Troubles

The stuttering arc of Oberoi’s film career has always been a matter of some discussion and academic study in Bollywood. Consider it a filmy version of the Harvard Business School case study.

The Problem: Did Salman Khan really end Oberoi’s career, or did Oberoi end Oberoi’s career?

For Oberoi, the answer is clear.

“I was sidelined from films and thrown out of projects. It’s a reality in our industry and it’s not just me, a lot of others have gone through the same,” he told HuffPost India. “So either you break apart or you become unbreakable. I chose the latter.”

The answer is not just academic. These are good things to know in an industry built almost entirely on back-scratching.

On one thing, everyone is in agreement: Vivek Oberoi is a talented actor.

When Ram Gopal Varma first saw photographs of Oberoi, he knew he had found his Chandu—the character Oberoi played in his debut film Company.

“I met him and he showed me an audition clip he had recorded on a VCD,” Varma recalled in an interview with HuffPost. “It was a dialogue-less scene. Only emotion. That was it.”

On the first day of shoot in Versova, Andheri, Oberoi was a knockout.

“My producer Boney Kapoor was there on set. Oberoi was doing the opening scene of the film. His searing intensity got everyone talking. He was magnetic on screen, a stellar presence,” Varma recalled. “He was a method actor at a time when such techniques weren’t as known as they are now.”

Oberoi went on to do several critically-acclaimed films such as Mani Ratnam’s Yuva (2004), Apoorva Lakhia’s Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007), and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara (2006), all films featuring an ensemble cast.

“He was such a committed actor that he’d never feel insecure in a multi-starrer,” recalled Rensil D’Silva, who directed him in Dharma Productions’ Kurbaan (2009). “Always on time, would know his lines, and happily give multiple variations for a single scene. The dialogue coach who worked with him to ensure he gets the American accent right for Kurbaan told me that she hadn’t seen anyone that eager to learn.”

Karan Anshuman, who directed Oberoi in Inside Edge (2017), the Hotstar series that was touted as his ‘comeback’, said, “When I met him for the first time, I was blown away by his intellect. He’s great to talk to. He can talk about anything, from renaissance art to German impressionism as he’s extremely well-read.”

For Inside Edge, Anshuman said Oberoi had no qualms about playing a negative character and was more than enthusiastic to dive in.

“Inside Edge was India’s first web-series and a lot of actors weren’t big on doing streaming shows. He did. He was excited about embracing a new medium,” Anshuman said, adding that Oberoi held such command of his craft that he understood the “vaguest” of directorial instructions, something that reflected the command he held over his craft.

However, Oberoi wasn’t without his problems and there were a bunch of those.

“He’s a complicated man. Or at least he used to be,” said a writer-director who was associated with one of Oberoi’s films, adding that he was surprised to meet Oberoi on the sets and listen to him bragging about the size of his dick.

“He was high on success at that time. Maybe after work stopped trickling him, he started behaving,” the filmmaker said.

Another director, a close collaborator of Oberoi, spoke about his attitude problem. The industry insider said that in the early 2000s, Oberoi carried the reputation of being troublesome.

“He’d act as if he knew more than anybody else. That’s singularly the reason, along with poor choices, that Oberoi couldn’t sustain the high he started out with. Actors have a tendency of doing everything other than what they are actually good at.”

Varma, who made several films with Oberoi, believes that Oberoi’s poor choice of movies killed his career, not Salman Khan.

“I advised him strongly against Kyun… Ho Gaya Na,” Varma said of the 2004 dud that Oberoi acted in, alongside his then girlfriend Aishwarya Rai.

“He had a rugged personality and a heavy voice. He should’ve capitalised on that ― the old-world masculinity ― and not the soft romantic dramas. He had the potential to go beyond masala. It could have been his niche but people are usually self-absorbed and they do what they want to do,” Varma said, adding, “I myself am like that.”

Apart from the films that Oberoi chose, there were also the films he let go.

Between 2003 and 2010, Oberoi was offered several big-ticket films which he turned down for a variety of reasons. A filmmaker said that after Company, Oberoi was offered Munnabhai MBBS and he even started workshops for the film. But days before the shoot, he backed out.

“Rajkumar Hirani wasn’t big enough for him,” the person said.

Oberoi had a different version. “I wanted to do Munnabhai, I said yes to it, but destiny had it that it was supposed to be a Sanjay Dutt film. I couldn’t adjust my dates,” he told HuffPost India.

Not just Munnabhai, Oberoi was offered several other projects which he refused.

In 2006, Farah Khan, a close friend of Salman Khan, offered him a role in Om Shanti Om that eventually went to Arjun Rampal. Oberoi refused as he didn’t want to play another negative character.

In an interview on her show Tere Mere Beach Mein, Farah Khan told Oberoi, “In his defence, Salman Khan never told me to not work with you. Not once. Whatever people did, maybe they did it on their own.”

Farhan Akhtar’s Rock On (2008), Shaad Ali’s Bunty aur Babli (2005), Kunal Kohli’s Hum Tum (2004), all films that went on to become blockbusters and were produced by top banners (Yash Raj, Excel, Vidhu Vinod Chopra films) came to Oberoi first.

Oberoi confirmed to HuffPost India that these films did come to him.

“For the 10-odd films I let go which succeeded, there were 70 or 80 films that I let go off which failed and bombed at the box office,” Oberoi said, adding, “How do you make sense of it? Well, you take an informed call or life takes it for you.”

But what about Salman? One theory is that the Oberois, like Modi, have a persecution complex.

“It lies in his father, Suresh Oberoi. To understand Vivek, you need to understand his father,” said a filmmaker, turning Freudian. “Whenever one would have a conversation with Suresh Oberoi, he’d blame Amitabh Bachchan for not having a better career.

“He’d tell people that Bachchan would offer to work for free if he found out a role had been offered to Suresh Oberoi. Vivek has the same complex of self-victimisation.”

Suresh Oberoi couldn’t be reached for comment, but Vivek laughed off the suggestion.

*** 

April 8 this year found Oberoi standing before a loud and boisterous crowd of men, chanting patriotic slogans.

“Vande” Oberoi chanted. “Mataram” the crowd called back.

“Vande.” “Mataram.”

The Supreme Court was considering the fate of PM Narendra Modi and the Election Commission was yet to pronounce its verdict. For now, there was hope that his film would quite possibly be released on the day that polling began — a perfect coup. 

It was a warm evening in Delhi, summer was in the air. Oberoi, dressed in a light suit, looked sweaty but happy.

Oberoi closed his hand into a fist, and riled up the crowd once more.

“Bharat Mata ki….”

“Jai!” the delirious crowd shouted back.

LONDON — Theresa May on Wednesday described the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar as a “shameful scar” on British Indian history, as the British Prime Minister marked the 100th anniversary of the tragic incident but she stopped short of a formal apology.

At the start of May’s weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons she fell short of a formal apology sought by a cross-section of Parliament in previous debates and reiterated the “regret” already expressed by the British Government.

“The tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh of 1919 is a shameful scar on British Indian history. As Her Majesty the Queen (Elizabeth II) said before visiting Jallianwala Bagh in 1997, it is a distressing example of our past history with India,” she said in her statement.

The massacre took place in Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar over Baisakhi in April 1919 when troops of the British Indian Army under the command of Colonel Dyer fired machine guns at a crowd of people holding a pro-independence demonstration. It claimed thousands of lives and injured thousands others.

An international scientific team on Wednesday unveiled a landmark achievement in astrophysics — the first photo of a black hole. The image has been captured by a network of eight telescopes across the world, BBC reported.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight radio telescopes, was designed precisely for this. 

Black holes are phenomenally dense celestial entities with gravitational fields so powerful no matter or light can escape, making them extraordinarily difficult to observe despite their great mass.

Blackholes swallow the surrounding gas, which swirls around in a flattened disk, spiralling into it at speeds close to light. The radiation from this hot whirlpool, however, can be seen.

(With PTI inputs)

Thousands of officials from the Election Commission are already preparing for the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections that begin on Thursday. 

In the first phase, 91 constituencies in 18 states and two Union Territories going to polls. In Assam five constituencies — Tezpur, Kaliabor, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur— are going to polls, and some of them are in remote locations. 

And since this democratic exercise must happen, no matter how far the booth is, the officials much reach. So they took boats. 

We all have hang-ups. But for people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) – where a person spends much of their time worrying about flaws in their appearance – that anxiety can have a drastic impact on day-to-day life and mental health.

Both men and women can develop BDD, which is most common in teenagers and young adults. People with the mental illness will often obsess over certain aspects of their appearance – often flaws which are unnoticeable to others.

Hannah Lewis, 25, was diagnosed with BDD at the age of 18, after years of feeling ashamed of her appearance. She believes her first symptoms showed at the age of eight or nine, and vividly remembers seeing a photograph of herself which prompted a panic attack. “I was hysterical and so inconsolable because I saw this photo,” she recalls. “Everyone was like: ‘what’s your problem?’ I was convinced that I was so hideous and deformed and abnormal looking.”

Much of Hannah’s teens were spent obsessing over how to do her makeup or finding ways to hide her face. She wouldn’t leave the house without a minimum of three layers of foundation and she would even wear makeup to bed.

While awareness of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety is growing,  fewer people know about body dysmorphia and, even for those that do, it can be hard to understand truly what another person is going through – or seeing when they look in the mirror. That’s why we spoke to Hannah, and two other people with BDD, to find out what they want others to know.

Body dysmorphia is not just vanity. Katy McPhedran, 30, a social media manager living in London, says this is a major misconception that surrounds body dysmorphic disorder. “BDD is an illness, and not about vanity, which I think many people believe,” she stresses. And Hannah Lewis agrees, calling it the “one of the most dangerous misconceptions” about her condition.

It can come hand-in-hand with other mental illnesses. Lewis has endured serious bouts of depression, anxiety and delusions, as well as BDD. When she was at university, she also began to have suicidal thoughts and tendencies towards self-harm, and became severely agoraphobic – often because she didn’t want other people to see her. “People think it’s someone who’s not happy with being attractive but in reality it’s so much more than that,” she says. “It is a serious mental health condition.”

For Ebony Nash, 25, a marketing manager based in Manchester, BDD has often been present alongside, and in conjunction with, other illnesses. Nash was about 13 when she started to experience symptoms. “A lot of people’s BDD seems to focus on one particular body part,” she explains. “Mine’s around my face shape, because I’ve got quite a round face shape. I started noticing it around the time I got diagnosed with anorexia. I think they were interlinked – I was trying to starve myself to make myself thinner.” 

She adds: “It’s something that may not be a perfect thing about you but nobody else would notice it, but you’ll exacerbate it to the nth degree in your head.

It can take over your life. Katy McPhedran says that at the height of her struggle with BDD she would obsess (and still does, to a degree) over tiny details. “I truly believed – and still believe a little – that the shape of my nose would stop me getting jobs or making friends,” she says. “It’s not just a ‘can’t look in the mirror’ or ‘looks rude for shying away from photos’ kind of feeling, it really takes over.”

Going to events would be draining, she explains, because she’d spend weeks in advance wondering what to wear or worrying about how she’d look. “I’d have anxiety leading up to it, which would impact my concentration in social situations. I’d be thinking whether the other person had noticed my nose, or my baby hairs, or weird jawline, rather than focusing on what they were saying.”

Others could be more aware of triggers. Nash wants others to be more aware of the major triggers for people whose mental illness focuses on appearance. “The strongest one is having my picture taken by somebody,” she says “I take an absolute shit load of pictures of myself, which is also a form of body-checking, but I cannot stand having my picture taken by somebody else.”

She will always compare herself to others in the photos. “And even if I’m the skinniest person in the picture, my face will still – because of what’s wrong with my brain – look bigger than everybody else’s and I’ll just melt down.”  

Awareness of BDD is limited. Among the wider population, there isn’t a good understanding of the illness, says Lewis, who lives in London and works for the charity Rethink Mental Illness. “I think that’s because, although it affects 1% of population, it’s really not talked about enough. And that’s why we see people reaching out for help and seeking their diagnosis a lot later than when they started having symptoms. I waited 10 years from my first symptoms.” 

“Nothing’s wrong” doesn’t stick “My mum’s always just like: there’s nothing wrong with your face,” says Nash. “But it doesn’t matter how many times [she says that], or how many times your partner tells you you’re beautiful, that’s just the way your brain is wired. You don’t ever change your perception of it.”

It is possible to get better. While all three women who spoke to HuffPost UK are still impacted by BDD, each feels much more control over her condition than she used to. “I can hold down a job, I have friends, I socialise and go outside,” says Hannah Lewis. But there are still days where I just can’t face other people seeing me because what I see in the mirror is just so distressing.” Lewis has engaged with multiple rounds of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and psychotherapy, with medication, and now helps others with similar conditions. “It still impacts me,” she says of her BDD, “but I’m so much better than I was.”

In an astronomical first, an international team of scientists has unveiled the very first close-up images of a “monster” black hole.

The discovery provides a unique insight into the ruthless gravitational fields which remain impossible to see with the naked eye.

It measures 40 billion kilometres across and has a mass 6.5 million times that of the sun, and the image shows a ring of fire.

Because one side of the ring is brighter than the other, scientists believe that the black hole, or matter around it, is rotating.

The unveiling of the findings from the Event Horizon Telescope programme is expected to help scientists link two apparently incompatible pillars of physics: Einstein’s theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

To date, those involved with the highly-anticipated reveal have been tight-lipped, so nobody has known what to expect until this moment.

Astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope, said in March: “It’s a visionary project to take the first photograph of a black hole. We are a collaboration of over 200 people internationally.” 

That’s right – until today, any image you may have come across depicting a black hole is actually a representation, not a real one.

To achieve this feat, eight radio telescopes around the world were pointed at two of the cosmic behemoths, one at the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and another nearly 54 million light years away.

The devices created a virtual telescope as big as the Earth itself, and powerful enough to capture data from the colossal black holes. The network has been collectively labelled the Event Horizon Telescope.

The first results are being shown by the scientists after two years of acquiring and processing data from the telescope.

Media in major cities around the world – Brussels, Washington, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, and Lyngby in Denmark – have gathered for press conferences.

Here’s what you need to know about the pioneering discovery.

What is being researched?

The researchers targeted two supermassive black holes.

The first – called Sagittarius A* – is situated at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy, possessing 4 million times the mass of our sun and located 26,000 light years from Earth. 

The second – called M87 – is at the centre of the neighbouring Virgo A galaxy, with a mass of 3.5 billion times that of the sun and located 54 million light-years away from Earth. 

The EHT project was launched in 2012, and the first set of data was obtained from the collection of telescopes in April 2017.

The telescopes are located in Arizona and Hawaii in the US, as well as Mexico, Chile, Spain and Antarctica. Telescopes in France and Greenland were later added to the network.

What are black holes?

Black holes are regions where matter has been crushed by gravity to an infinitely small space where the normal laws of physics no longer apply.

Nothing can escape the gravitational vortex of a black hole – not even light.

They are formed when huge stars collapse at the end of their life cycle, and can be at least 20 times bigger than the sun.

Supermassive black holes, as the name suggests, are the largest kind and can be millions of times bigger than the sun. They can merge with other black holes and suck up matter and radiation.

It is this point-of-no-return precipice, called the Event Horizon, that astronomers have tried to observe for the first time.

Will we actually be able to see a black hole?

No, but the astronomers will reveal what the silhouette of one looks like. We will also be able to get an idea of what a black hole’s “event horizon” looks like, i.e. the boundary at the point of no return.

This will help astronomers better understand the nature of them, and what happens to matter just before it gets sucked into the mysterious field.

Scientists will be expecting the shape and shadow of the black hole to match up to Einstein’s theory.

“If we find it to be different than what the theory predicts, then we go back to square one and we say, ‘Clearly, something is not exactly right’,” project scientist Dimitrios Psaltis said.

Physicist and black hole expert Lia Medeiros, from the University of Arizona, US, told ScienceNews magazine: “If general relativity buckles at a black hole’s boundary, it may point the way forward for theorists.”

We probably say this before every election, and we are going to say it again for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections: ‘This could be the most important election of our lifetime,’ to paraphrase Barack Obama.

Indian elections generate a mind-blowing level of interest and excitement. During the last election, our website—NDTV.com—had 13.5 billion hits, yes, billions, and those were only the hits during the twenty-four hours on counting day. It was a record for India. For this election, we are expecting even more.

In our four decades of observing elections, we don’t recall ever seeing the level of interest, both in India and globally, as there is in the outcome of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

This book has tried to decode India’s elections as simply as possible in order to provide a greater understanding of the underpinnings of our electoral system and to examine the many variables that determine ‘the verdict’ of the Indian voter. This final part takes only a few extracts from this book to highlight some key signals, indicators and trends to look out for while tracking this big election, from the beginning of the campaign till the result on the final day of counting.

1. Will 2019 be all about anti-incumbency?

There is a widespread belief that Indian elections are characterized by ‘anti-incumbency’ and that most ruling governments are not re-elected by voters.

In our analysis of big and medium-sized states, in the period 1977– 2002, 70 per cent of governments were thrown out by angry, dissatisfied voters. However, this has changed over the last twenty years.

To put it simply, the Anti-Incumbency Era is over.

India is now going through what can be called a ‘Fifty:Fifty Era’. Governments today have a 50:50 chance of being re-elected. Governments that perform are voted back. Those that do not deliver are voted out. The angry voter has given way to a wiser, more mature voter.

The underlying probability of governments being voted back has risen from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. This may come as a relief to many ruling state governments as well as to the Central government.

This Fifty:Fifty era marks a sea change in our electoral history, which has had three major turning points: Pro-incumbency (1952–1977), Anti- incumbency (1977–2002) and Fifty:Fifty (2002–2019).

While a 50 per cent re-election rate is far more reassuring for ruling governments than earlier, this is low compared with the re-election rates of over 80 per cent in developed economies.

2. Who will win and lose in the 2019 elections?

The bad news for ruling governments is that the voter is wiser and smarter. Voters throw out all non-performing governments and re-elect governments that have worked and delivered.

A corollary to the end of the anti-incumbency era is that in the current Fifty:Fifty phase of our democracy, the voter has a message for all elected governments: perform or perish.

The voters’ yardstick for ‘performance’ is whether economic growth translates into genuine development on the ground, in their lives and their constituencies.

So elections today are not won simply by flamboyance. The most successful chief ministers over the last twenty years, with high re-election rates, have been low-key, result-oriented leaders like Shivraj Chouhan, Naveen Patnaik, Raman Singh, Manik Sarkar and Sheila Dikshit. All at least three-time winners. Oratory also works as long as it is combined with development, as in the case of Narendra Modi when he was chief minister of Gujarat.

3. Will we see the same faces or new candidates?

As always, familiar faces are likely to dominate this campaign too, but many may not win. In State Assembly elections, parties usually renominate over two-thirds of their sitting candidates—it’s called ‘sitting-getting’. But do they win, or is there a churn? Only 50 per cent of sitting candidates are normally re-elected. However, this is a higher strike-rate than new candidates, in seats they won last time, who have a less than 40 per cent chance of winning.

If these State Assembly re-election rates apply to the Lok Sabha, the next Parliament will see a significant churn.

4. Will the MPs going into the next Lok Sabha be young like the voters of India?

Our members of Parliament are much older than the average age of voters. Once again, expect older candidates as the average age of members of the Lok Sabha has been rising with every election.

Today, almost 60 per cent of voters in India are young, between the ages of eighteen and forty. But only 15 per cent of MPs are between twenty-five and forty years old.

This means that 85 per cent of MPs are of a different generation from the majority of voters.

And it’s a widening age gap!

For the BJP, the rising number of young voters is a positive development. In the recent past, the BJP and its allies have had a greater support amongst young voters. In 2014, the NDA had a 20 per cent lead over the UPA among young voters compared to a 11 per cent lead amongst older voters (based on our exit and post polls).

5. Expect 2019 to be the ‘election of the women of India’

Women’s participation in elections has been rising much faster than men, and the next Lok Sabha elections could be the first time in India’s history that women’s turnout will be higher than men’s.

Between the 1962 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections there has been nearly a 20 per cent increase in women’s turnout versus only a 5 per cent increase in men’s turnout. Today, the turnout of both women and men is almost the same.

In fact, in State Assembly elections, women’s turnout has now overtaken men’s turnout. Women voters had a 71 per cent turnout versus 70 per cent for men.

A revolutionary change.

6. Most important will be the votes of village women

Expect the focus of this election to be the women in villages.

The biggest change in Indian elections has been the increasing turnout of rural women—and it is now at virtually the same level as men’s turnout. Six per cent more village women turn out to vote than their urban counterparts. This is a huge change from 1971 when the turnout of women in rural areas was 8 per cent lower than in towns. A complete turnaround. 

7. Women voters: Safety matters

Women’s participation in voting is today higher in the safer, more women- friendly states of east and south India. Amongst the top states are West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The worst states for women’s turnout, compared to the men, are primarily in the Hindi-speaking-belt in central and west India, especially Delhi (our capital city that has the worst recorded crime rate against women), Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2019 elections, watch out for social media rumour-mongering that may be aimed at keeping women from venturing out to the polling station.

8. Parties will focus on women voters like never before

Election campaigns earlier were almost solely focused on men: first, because there were many more men voters than women; second, men in the family used to be a primary influence on who women would vote for.

Today, not only are more women turning out to vote than men, but they are also making independent decisions on who to vote for.

Expect political speeches, manifestos and campaigns to be directed more at women than ever before in the history of elections in India.

9. Who do women vote for?

Traditionally, the BJP has had a higher support base amongst men than women. For example, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the lead of NDA over the UPA amongst men in India was 19 per cent while its lead amongst women voters was 9 per cent (based on our opinion and exit polls). This greater male-centric support base of the NDA is even more exaggerated in the bigger states of central, north and west India.

Which is why the government’s free gas cylinder policy (Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana) was a perfect election campaign idea; it targeted primarily rural, women voters. All parties can now be expected to make similar promises targeting women in these elections.

To illustrate how important the male voter is for the NDA, a simple simulation of the 2014 elections threw up two alternative scenarios. First, if only men had voted, the NDA would have won as many as 376 seats (40 seats more than the 336 that they actually won). Second, if only women had voted, the NDA would have won only 265 seats (71 seats lower than their final total in 2014 and 7 seats below the halfway mark of 272).

10. Rural turnout is higher than urban turnout

The number of people living in rural areas has always been greater than the urban population, but there is now a new reason why they are even more crucial to India’s elections.

The voter turnout in rural areas has been rising faster than urban areas and today, the turnout in villages is about 4 per cent higher than the turnout in urban areas in Lok Sabha elections.

This high and faster-growing turnout of rural voters may be of some concern for the BJP+ as it traditionally has a higher support base among the urban electorate and lower in the rural areas.

More than ever before, be prepared for more sops being targeted at the village voter rather than the one in towns and cities.

Excerpted with permission from ‘The Verdict’. 

2019/Hardcover: Rs 599/Penguin.

6:15 am: Heavy Security In Bastar, Mock Voting In Nagpur

While people will begin lining up to cast their votes only at 7 am, polling offcials and security personnel have been working round the clock. 

In Maharashtra’s key constituency Nagpur where BJP’s Nitin Gadkari is in fray, polling officials were seen conducting mock voting: 

The Bastar District Magistrate said that 75,000 security personnel have been put into action to ensure safe polling. This is after a Maoist attack killed a BJP MLA in Dantewada on Tuesday.

6:00 am: 91 Constituencies To Vote Today, Polling Starts At 7 am

Lok Sabha elections 2019, the 17th Indian general election, is set to begin with 91 constituencies across 18 states and two Union Territories voting in the first phase on Thursday. 

In the high-stakes Lok Sabha polls that will be held in seven phases for 543 seats, BJP’s Narendra Modi is looking to make a comeback as prime minister for a second term, while the Congress is is doing its best to thwart him. The Congress won an all-time low of just 44 seats in the 2014 election, while the BJP got a clear majority with 272 seats. The seven phases of voting will be held across India on 11 April, 18 April, 23 April, 29 April, 6 May, 12 May and 19 May. Votes will be counted on 23 May.

The Election Commission has said that voting will take place between 7 am and 6 pm in Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. In Uttarakhand, polling will be carried out from 7 am-5 pm in the first phase of polls.

The EC also said voting will take place between 7 am and 5 pm in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura West. Outer Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya will go to polls between 7 am and 4 pm.

Several important constituencies go to polls on Thursday including Jamui in Bihar, Nagpur in Maharashtra, Bastar in Chhattisgarh.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP will contest against the newly-formed SP-BSP-RLD alliance in the eight constituencies that go to poll.

In 2014, the BJP had won all these seats—Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar. But in a by-election last year, it lost the Kairana seat.

In Bihar, Chirag Paswan, “star” candidate of LJP and MP, will take on RLSP’s Bhudeo Chaudhary in Jamui.

In Gaya, former chief minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) president Jitan Ram Manjhi, a several-term MLA, is the Mahagatbandhan’s candidate.

In Maharashtra’s Nagpur, Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari and Congress’s Nana Patole, who quit the saffron party in 2017, are pitted against each other. Political observers have said Dalit and Muslim voters are likely to play a crucial role in Nagpur, the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Polling in the Naxal-hit Gadchiroli-Chimur seat will be held from 7 am to 3 pm.

In Jammu and Kashmir only two constituencies — Baramulla and Jammu — will go to polls. Separatists have called for a “complete shutdown” on Thursday and have asked people to not vote. They said the strike is also to protest against the closure of Kashmir’s main highway for civilians for two days in a week and the recent attack by the police and the security forces on inmates at Central Jail in Srinagar.

The Chief Election officer of Chhattisgarh said on Wednesday that polling in Bastar will be carried out as per schedule. His announcement came a day after Maoists killed a BJP MLA in Dantewada, which falls in the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency, which will go to polls in the first phase on Thursday. 

The run-up to the elections saw a high-pitched campaign where the BJP has moved away from its development plank to capitalise on the Balakot air strikes from February. The Congress campaign, meanwhile, is centred on the promises that the BJP did not fulfil, especially its performance on jobs.

While the BJP looked like it could be in trouble at the end of last year, when the Congress wrested back power in the three key states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Modi and his party have managed to claw back some support after the Pulwama attack which killed more than jawans.

Pollster have predicted that the Balakot airstrikes will help Modi and BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.

Meanwhile, a recent survey has shown that while the BJP might not get as many seats as they got in 2014, they will emerge as the majority.